My couple of days in New Delhi

Hello Sri,and every body


I am doing fine.This is midnight of 14 Th October.journey was OK .Please send me number of Hima.My number is 0941 703 7855.I have been checking out New Delhi.More have changed and more have stayed the same.Respect for the ordinary people is extremely lacking in the officialdom.

Went to Raj Ghat and India Gate and they were sort of cordoned off and people were not allowed to sit near on the grass.No body was there to inform the public what was happening.Security was told not to let people sit on grass  .People  honored this  without question for fear of abuse.

Akshar Dham( A grand temple built by BAPS} was beautiful and well organised and planned in every aspect.Restrictions on diaries and notebooks were not needed. I am sure that it would discourage many artists from promoting their art and art education.Self explanatory info was good.

Highest position was given to their Guru and most decorative part was for the founder Swami. Deities of Hinduism had beautiful but lesser representation.Their food was as always in very good and served in efficient manner. Here again people were not allowed to sit on floor and limited facilities were available for handicap people.Excess emphasis was put on security and keeping people from taking pictures.

Visited National museum.I found two unique miniature painting from  Rajasthan of eighteenth century depicting Madonna and Son( Jesus) and other had Madonna breast feeding baby Jesus.I was pleased that they were part of the collection.Manuscripts exhibition was under construction ,so was denied entry.

Tickets for foreigners were 300 rupees and Indian nationals was 10 rupees and no extra services were provided for them.Do not like being discriminated.Then as a true Indian did not tell them and they charged me 10 rupees.When i asked them if one could take pictures he said after paying twenty rupees.Did not pay it and still took Pictures .

There was security staff getting bored in exhibition area and no curators. It would have been much better if these security staff was trained to provide the info or curating staff was present to answer the questions.

Bathrooms in most places i visited were much cleaner than i remembered.At Raj Ghat ( where Gandhi's grave is they were in bad conditions and smelled bad.Water was not available in bath room.I saw only two men urinating in open which is pretty decent for two days.


At the airport(new ) bathrooms had marble fixtures which needed continuous cleaning and one man was continuously doing it for about twenty sinks and toilets.

Many planes had arrived at the same time nobody was guiding people.Was a large line at the immigration counters, several of them were closed but officials though older handled the visitors very well and efficiently

Duty free shop was friendly and liquor was being sold at good pace.Had a cup of tea at Costa coffee for 95 rupees( about two dollars) Tea was made in steamed milk and using tea bags.The person working their told me they pay 30 thousand rupees daily rent.The tea was may be ten ounces.

I forgot to tell that airline had good service and polite employees.This is Etihad airline .Was booked solid from Abu Dhabi.It allowes two 23 killo bags and two small carry on bags.Other than make my trip charging 950 dollars instead of web price of 911 every thing went well.I have impression that 950 dollar price is also a good price.Even the Arabs working at airport were polite.


India is becoming Polite.Metro is efficient and overcrowded.Their are ladies compartments.I saw much fewer women travel in regular trains.Trains were clean and efficient.You could hear all announcements well may be my ear filters were tuned right( haha)


Three Wheeler scooter rickshaws are efficient loud and bumpy.Some times they are smokey also.They use CNG.Most of the artisans and workers are from UP or Bihar.Two of the poorest states in the country.Even the poorest person told me they had two kids good sign.

Saw three kids at 4 years begging and weaving in and out of traffic.I was told by the rickshaw driver their parents were near by and exploited and abused the kids I wonder if theses people were part of beggars mafia as depicted in Mistry in his books.None of the children were deformed.I counted about four kids in this family so they are not following national advisory on family size and had time for sex even if not for work.

I was also told most labor earned 300 rupees per day That gives them wages of 9000 that is about 200 dollars per month..

All people seemed to be busy.

One thing I always found is stray dogs  Dogs were not aggressive but roaming around.and was told Manica Ghandhi ( member of parliament and daughter in law of Nehru Gandhi family in the name of human treatment for animals has created a public nsense.I hope in the name of publkc service she would run a campaign to spade or neutor all dogs so none of the stray dogs are allowed and public is saved from this menace in ten years.

One thing more and last about my uncle and aunt with whom i am staying in Delhi,.They are a lovely couple in seventies.They are very self suficient.My Uncle does all small chores.They do not have a live in servant. For sure they could afford one.Aunty cooks all the meals and they live simple and very wholesome life.They read about five news papers daily.They chat daily with their daughters who are married and have one son each in  teens.

Something about their house.They have power inverters for the house which maintains lights and fans running and they work automatically.They have installed western style toilets That helps   as we all get old and has problem with knees.They have water filtration system Reverse osmosis for drinking water.They have Internet,cable TV and phone and cell phone which cost them about 60 dollars a month while we pay at least 200 dollars per month for theses service in USA.They have 36 inch wide doors and no thrash hold for easy movement.They have also tried to reduce pollution and use resources wisely.They live as well in Delhi as they could live in US.Power issues and all other problems they have resolved in a practical manner.

They are a perfect couple in harmony.

yours

kul bhushan

On 16th i will be going to Chandigarh .
Ps it seems i will be leaving Delhi on 18th morning