Christmas with family

Maveen, Christopher, Brian, me, Karuna, Tami, Josephine & Chinky

Ours is quite the global family with my younger brother Dexter (his family & friends call him Chinky) in Ahmedabad, the town we grew up in, my elder brother in Newcastle UK, and me in Denver CO. While we meet each other every few years, it has been 16 years since all three of us and our families were last together.

We celebrated Christmas in a village called Curtorim, where my brother Brian has a house. We had the best lunch - traditional Goan dishes - prepared by Maveen's sister-in-law, Lourdes.

Brian, Chinky & me.

Maveen, Josephine and Tami

With my beautiful niece, Karuna

Getting the party started. That's Noreen, Maveen's sister.

Bonding. That's Noel - Karuna's cousin.

Story time

With Lourdes

Brian, Maveen, her brother Vincy, Lourdes, Alzira and Noreen

Later in the day, we all went to the beach near the apartment where Chinky, Jo, Tami & I were staying before returning for leftovers.

On the beach with Leon, Jo and Christopher

Tami, Noel, Brian and Maveen

Christopher is happiest at the beach

Stocking up at Madgaon's New Market

Produce Market

My parents came from Goa, which makes me a Goan and though I've never lived there, I love the place, the food, the people and their attitude towards life.

We went to Madgaon's (Goa's 2nd largest town) New Market to stock up on provisions and Goan specialties for our stay. The "new" market has been there since we were kids - and probably well before that. It is a warren of narrow pathways lined with very small shops that sell just about everything. Being a couple of days before Christmas, it was mobbed! But Goa being Goa, everyone is laid back and there is no pushing or shoving. Busy as it is, the market closes for a few hours in the afternoon for siesta.

Goa sausages (choriz) are spicy and vinegary, and very very tasty.We also picked up dodol, bebinca and pinac (a sweet made of jaggery, coconut and rice flour), which are traditional festival treats.

(Goan sausages are a deep red, but the lighting makes them look orange in my pictures. Got to work on that.)

Flower garland vendors

Narrow, crowded lanes

Fruit vendors

Stars are the dominant Christmas decoration & look beautiful lit up

Sausages - sold by count, not weight.

Weighing pork at the butcher

There are lots of sausage vendors and you need to know who has the best ones - she definitely did.

Figurines for the Nativity display (called Cribs in India)

Spice vendor - cayenne pepper, turmeric and coriander seeds in the foreground

My wonderful sister-in-law (Dexter's wife) is a pro at negotiating with the vendors and made sure we weren't being fleeced. Tami's presence can easily double prices.

Getting kashmiri chillies. They give curries a rich red color without too much heat.

Negotiating hard for produce

Tallying up Jo's purchases

Buying greens

Tami is not terrified of walking in the crowded markets and traffic choked streets any more.

With scooters passing by on both sides

Deftly avoiding oncomers

Trying to keep up with Jo who zips through markets

Almost lost them trying to take pictures

Heading back home

Ellora

The last time we visited Aurangabad, Tami fell ill on the first day and didn't recover till after we left. This time, it hit her while we waited in Delhi for our flight. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as the last time, and she was just well enough on the second day there to come out and see the caves at Ellora. She is back to normal now.

The 34 Ellora caves, spread over more than a mile, were carved over a period of about 400 years from 600 to 1000 AD - first by the Buddhists, then the Hindus and finally the Jains. We visited the largest of the caves,  (and left the rest for the next time), a hindu one called the Kailasha Temple. The entire temple complex is cut out from the existing rock. The scale of the cave and the intricacy of the carvings is just (by the way, I'm running out of superlatives on this trip) ... well, jaw dropping.

This whole temple was cut out of the mountain!

Back in Delhi

After the splendor of the monuments in Agra, the Red Fort and Jama Masjid in Delhi, impressive as they are, were a bit of a let down. Chandni Chowk and the crowded warren of lanes that make up old Delhi were fun to explore - especially in a cycle rickshaw.

The sprawling Red Fort in Delhi was built by Shah Jehan as the focal point of his new capital Shahjahanabad (now Old Delhi). It was built at the height of the creative powers of the Moghul empire, and remained the capital during its long decline. There is the usual Diwan-i-am and the Diwan-i-khas, courtyards, palace quarters and a fine mosque built by Shah Jehan's son Aurangzeb.I was disappointed to find that we were not allowed to enter a number of the structures and had to view them from outside. I walked through these as a fifteen year old, but remember very little.

The Lahori Gate is the main entrance to the fort.

The Diwani-Am

The Jharokha where the Emperor sat, is under renovation.

The arches in the Diwani-Am

The Diwani-Khas which once housed the Peacock throne

Detail

Diwani-Khas & the location of the throne.

All that we could see of the Moti Masjid

Diwani-Khas

Lahori Gate from inside the fort.

Jama Masjid is a huge, functioning mosque right in the middle of Old Delhi. It was built by Shah Jehan and shares similarities with the Jama Masjid that was built by his grand-father in Fatehpur Sikri.

Jama Masjid

The huge masjid with one of the gates

Praying

Washing before prayers

Gate to the Masjid

 We walked from the Red Fort to Jama Masjid through what looked like the bicycle bazaar ... shop after shop selling bicycles. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures. We ate at a famous Mughlai restaurant called Karim which is reached via a narrow lane and is spread around a small couryard. The food was excellent! Afterwards, on a whim, we hired a cycle rickhaw and had the time of our lives while he deftly navigated the narrow lanes, huge potholes and the wide bustling roads - often against the flow of traffic!

A view of an Old Delhi lane from the Jama Masjid.

Karim - excellent food.

From the cycle rickshaw in Chandni Chowk

From the rickshaw

I've always wanted to visit Raj Ghat - the memorial for Mahatma Gandhi. My life would have been very different if not for him and his compatriots.  From the chaos of Chandni Chowk, we cross the busy ring road, and are immediately on a quiet, beautiful lane that runs along the memorials for Indira Gandhi, her son Rajiv Gandhi (neither related to the Mahatma) and then to Raj Ghat. The mood at Raj Ghat was anything but respectful, with  busloads of loud, energetic school girls mobbing the site .... and Tami. Still, I'm glad we went.

Quite lane - 5 minutes from Chandni Chowk.

Raj Ghat

School girls mobbing Tami. We don't understand this since it did not happen on previous trips

 The rickhaw driver rode us back to the metro.

Survived!