Day 1 – Friday, November 21st

I’ve woken up twice already; once at 5:15, and once at 6:27. Mom wakes me up at 7:22 to see if I want to have tea with her and my aunt. I do. The tea is made with more milk than water and it’s fantastic. However, it’s not fantastic enough to prevent me from going back to bed until 9:30. That’s when I start to feel guilty about staying in bed when I’m not really that tired anymore. After a quick breakfast and a shower, we hop in a car and head to my dad’s family’s home.

Four years is a long time. I recognize a few buildings on the way, but much of the scenery is different. Only visiting every few years, I have this idea in my head that no matter how much I change, India always stays the same. I expect to come back to the same place that I left last time but Delhi has changed far more in the past four years than I have. There are malls popping up everywhere, the Metro is simplifying the daily commute for hundreds of thousands. College kids are blasting remixed Hindi songs with reggaeton beats. And this is happening throughout the traditional working-class neighborhoods of Delhi; I’m not sure what to expect of my trip to Connaught Place tomorrow.

Dad’s family is different, too. My grandmother is looking her age. She’s still sharp as a tack, but each of those 97 years has taken its toll physically. One of my cousins just had a baby boy and she has started looking the part of a mother. Another cousin is far more… stout… than he was just four years ago. He’s getting married next Saturday. Another cousin is far prettier than I remembered. She’s getting married in two weeks.

The changes are sobering and exciting at the same time. I sit with my grandmother for an hour, holding her hand as she lies in bed. But then my aunt comes in with her handsome baby grandson. I’m not one who usually gets excited about babies, but I am right now because we lock eyes and I catch him smiling and reaching for my face with his tiny fingers. I’m fairly certain we have a deep connection.
From there, we head to another aunt’s house (dad’s sister) for lunch. There’s far too much sitting and talking before lunch and my uncle decides to deride my life choices after interrogating me. Lunch is good and it’s good to see that my aunt is sweet as ever. We head back to dad’s family’s home, sit around for a while, and then Mom and I go back to her sister’s.

I watch a little bit of cricket (Sri Lanka vs. Zimbabwe), we eat dinner, and I retire to my room. Before sleeping, I try to write a bit, which is surprisingly easy until I realize that I have no distractions, and then it’s less surprising but still just as easy. I plan on going to bed early, but for some reason, there are small firecrackers being detonated a couple blocks away and the upstairs neighbors are trying out their new subwoofer at full blast. Nobody seems to care how tired I am.