delhi part deux

sunday tours took me to south delhi. first stop - humayun's tomb. if there's one thing the muslims know how to do, it's build beautiful tombs. with less tourists than the taj, this place was serene than agra.



my tour guide on sunday was our old friend, GN, so you can imagine that more interesting conversation ensued. we went to the qutab minar next - a minaret built in the 12th century. 12th century! the place is under a lot of restoration work right now, but it's still pretty impressive to behold. most of these places cost about 250 rupees for me to get in and 10 for GN, which i think is pretty fair. it still cracks me up, though, that they call it the foreigner rate. yep, agnes, i'm the foreigner now! GN asks me why american women have short hair, as he thinks long hair is so much more beautiful. i try to explain to him that baby-fine blond hair does not look nice long, but i think the concept is lost on most men...even more so on an indian man. he also asks me why i have such fair hair... i wanted to answer 'why is the sky blue?' but i just shrugged my shoulders instead. ;) we discussed how uncommon divorce and extra-marital affairs are in india, and GN asked me why they are so common in the US. again, i had no answer...what can you say? i tried to explain to him how things have changed in the US in the past couple of generations, and the younger people just don't get married as young (even if they live like married people do, as he was thinking). GN and i ended the afternoon by going for a delicious south indian lunch and then doing some market shopping.

i was then handed off to another colleauge, aditi, to see a movie with her and her friend. we went to a mall...and i felt like i was in the states! they were playing counting crows over the speakers, many US and european stores were all over...it was kinda weird actually. we went to a movie (revolutionary road) - even though i did not get the typical hindi movie experience, it was still a bit different. people seemed to have no problem answering their (ringing) phones during the movie, there was an intermission, and the laughing definitely happened at different times than i expected. all-in-all, it was a great weekend!

i feel like there were many more things i wanted to write about, but i've got to finish up some things and then prepare for holi! the office party is tomorrow, then the actual day of holi is wednesday!