Mahatma Gandhi birthday - October 2nd

Possibly not my finest work this week I’m pretty tired and it’s late. Today is Gandhi’s birthday so most of India is closed ad celebrating. There are a few restaurants open but it is a “dry Day” which means no alcohol is served. Seemingly Gandhi didn’t believe in drinking alcohol, eating meat or lying. To be honest normally I won’t care one way or the other as I don’t really drink alcohol but I had a few colleagues over and I was responsible for their entertainment today. They really wanted beer with lunch but the restaurant won’t serve it because of the day. Indeed there are quite a few places in India that don’t serve alcohol at all – Gujarat for example.

However I can’t complain too much because it was a 4 day weekend for me. Friday wasn’t so good as I spent the morning sick, the afternoon on a conference call preparing for some important meetings and the evening struggling with Delhi traffic (or more accurately sitting in the back seat while my driver struggled with Delhi traffic). I left my apartment at 16.40 to go to the gym arrived there at 17.10 only to find I had forgotten all my gym gear save my shoes and washbag (no wonder the bag felt light – nothing at all to do with my tidying session). Then we drove back to my apartment but already the traffic had begun to built so it was close to 19.00 by the time we returned to the gym. After my workout I went back and retired to bed – exhausted by Delhi. Saturday I pretended to be a tourist and went to the modern art gallery – there was some interesting stuff but nothing spectacular. The collection was quite small, no more than 300 pieces, but 2 were called “Toilet in the Woods” – both were by different artists. Very strange. That evening I went to church in the hope of catching mass from the Irish priest but it was his Indian colleague who looked about 16 – I suppose he was more (‘tis unlikely the Catholic Church encourage child labor or vocations)

Sunday a colleague (also called Helen) arrived in from the UK and we went off to Agra (home of Taj Mahal and former capital of the Mughal empire). Agra’s only 200km from Delhi but with holiday weekend traffic it took more than a hour to leave Delhi so more than 4 hours in total to get to Agra. Once there we really only had time to see the Taj which was I suppose to whole point but I wished we had time to see Akbar’s tomb which is rated pretty highly by the guide books – I’m sure I’ll get another chance to see it. The journey back was shorter about 3 hours but all in all it was a long day but I think my colleague enjoyed it and ‘twas more interesting than my standard Indian Sunday.

Today (Monday) more colleagues arrived and we went to Humanyan’s tomb – the site of my first tourist activity in Delhi (mentioned in one of my first posts along with photograph). We were only half-hearted culture vultures as the mid-30s temperatures don’t encourage serious exploring of ruined tombs. My colleagues were pleased to have seen a bit of Delhi . After a pleasant (but alcohol-free) lunch we took the train north to Chandigarh. Chandigarh is a planned city designed by the famous architect Le Corbusier. The whole city is composed of sectors (originally 45 but now numbering 88) – each sector being a 1km block with the same basic structure – residential, commercial etc. Block 17 is the city center and is entirely commercial. I suppose somebody was superstitious as there is no block 13. Chandigarh sounds interesting and even though this is my third trip to the town I’ve never seen that much of it as usually I’m here for less than 24 hours and what with sleep, commuting to the factory and thanking God the commute to the factory didn’t cause my early death, there's not much time for other activities. As I’m here 36 hours this time I may get to see some more of Chandigarh.