X-mas day in India

Merry Christmas to any and all who are reading this today!

Decided to have a relaxed start to the day given yesterday's long schedule. Went to a couple of places with Vijay and had lunch and ice cream. He dropped us off at the airport and we took a 4p flight to New Delhi. Arrived at our hotel around 8p and were pleasantly surprised with it given I'd booked it from the US (you never know with these things!). It even has free wireless access in the rooms, which is why I'm able to catch up on the blog.

It wouldn't feel like Christmas at all today if it weren't for the fact that everyone we've encountered, i.e. airport and hotel staff and deejays on the radio, has taken the time to wish us Merry X-mas. India is fairly egalitarian in terms of the holidays it embraces, even with a fairly small Christian population. M and I both were rather perplexed when we opened the newspaper a couple of days ago to see a picture of a Muslim (clearly indicated by their headscarves) mother and daughter doing X-mas shopping!! Niyatee had an interesting poster at her house saying something to the effect of given Hindu, Muslim, Catholic/Christian, and Buddhist religions/gods, how there are major holidays being celebrated in India every single week. We also talked to M's family today, which was nice. He has only communicated with them via email up to this point, in spite of my urging him to call them.

We've booked a car with a driver for tomorrow and Friday, and I hope that will turn out to be a nice experience. We're taking a train to Agra on Thursday to visit The Taj Mahal.