October 2016 - March 2017
by Carolyn Neogi - 19:03 on 21 April 2017
I knew we'd been busy but hadn't realised there has been no Blog entry since October 2016! We had a variety of Interfaith and other activities throughout the Autumn and Winter, Bibhas made a solo trip to Cyprus, coming back for my birthday, and we had a week in Brittany before setting off on our 30 day visit to India.
We were invited to Bibhas' Bombay great-nephew Joydeep's wedding to his Shimoni, in New Delhi over the weekend of 25/26th February 2017. We spent the first night in a hotel near the Bahá'í 'lotus' temple, also visiting the nearby ISKON Temple. Two of Bibhas' college friends visited us that evening (we were to see 9 more in Kolkata) before we moved to his niece Reshmi's lovely quiet abode - a Government bungalow which comes with her husband Swapan's appointment to the Rajya Sabha, complete with resident peacocks...
Reshmi took us to visit the newly renovated Homayoun's Tomb and nearby gardens with the site manager, who explained the project's remarkable attention to detail. We also met up with Guildford friend Sat Luthra who was accompanying her great-nephew on his first trip to India, the family having come from Idi Amin's Uganda.
Then it was time to join the wedding party at Park Inn for 3 nights with Joy's great-aunt and her family from Canada, cousins from Salt Lake and family and friends from Pune whilst we waited for the celebrations to begin. On Saturday we enjoyed the Mehendi and Sangeet programme of music, singing and feasting whilst the two families got to know each other, and on Sunday we were all driven in our wedding finery to the Holiday Inn for the Hindu Ceremony and more eating and greeting. It was a very joyous affair, no shy bride nor reluctant groom...
The next day we moved to Hilltop Palace Hotel in Udaipur, a late birthday celebration, where we booked a car/driver to take us around on 3 separate days. We visited beautiful gardens, palaces and temples, with breath-taking views from hair-raising bends, and a boat ride on one of the many lakes, which we could see from our large balcony. A highlight was the long drive to the Jain Temple at Ranakpur,intricately carved out of gleaming white marble, so different from our own simple Lotus temple...
All too soon it was time to take another flight, to Mumbai where the family were waiting to shower us with hospitality. It was so nice to catch up with everyone... We criss-crossed this enormous city in air-conditioned cars to visit each of the 5 family households there over the long weekend, even managing to dip our feet in the ocean on our way to the Airport on the Monday afternoon!
Next stop was Jaipur, the 'pink' city where we wanted to visit the lovely Bahá'í community we found there 5 years ago. We'd done all the tours at that time so this time we based ourselves in an eccentric Haveli, reminiscent of Exotic Marigold Hotel, in the centre of town. An old hunting lodge and maze of long corridors and steep stair-cases this only cost us £11 a night for a large room with working WiFi, hot water and comfortable beds and we enjoyed the experience but it's probably better suited to back-packers than pensioners. We spent two lovely afternoons/evenings with our lovely friends and look forward to the next time...
Next it was time to move to Kolkata, City of Joy, where we spent 10 days with Bibhas' family, catching up with everyone except his younger brother who was in America visiting his son. His older brother arranged a dinner party for all the immediate family in the hotel soon after our arrival, and on our last evening an evening river cruise with a stop-over at Belur Math where Bibhas spent two years studying with the Disciples of Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna. This was even more dramatic when a sudden thunderstorm erupted and we had to scurry back over railway lines and past throngs of street-dwellers to reboard our sailing vessel. Another highlight was watching the highly-acclaimed film LION in the new shopping mall, again emerging to a downfall of unseasonal rain... We met up with 9 more of Bibhas' school snd college friends and also spent a couple of nights with his older sister at Salt Lake.
All in all, a wonderful trip and lots of new memories to treasure. Currently Bibhas is in Cyprus reflecting on all this whilst Carolyn catches up with activities on the home front before joining him for our 39th wedding anniversary and the Cyprus Bahá'ís National Convention.
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