We got to experience "demonetization" wherein the two largest cash denominations were taken out of circulation. This caused considerable chaos, and lots of opportunities to talk to locals about a topic of great interest to them. And playing the 'what are we going to do for money' game. Visiting Gandhi's houses in New Delhi and Mumbai were powerful experiences.
Each stop had its own unique aspect - Delhi provided our first look at the crush of people, traffic and horns, old town, air pollution, market shopping, food, and monuments and temples. We were a bit taken aback when we arrived to see the Delhi air! Tara took us through Old Delhi on rickshaws, sampling street food and fabric shopping, and to her family home for dinner, where we were amazed to see her 89 yr-old mother sitting in a lotus position on her bed - she thought nothing of it. Tara then took us to Lucknow and her old boarding school, La Martiniere, where we had dinner with the boarders at the girls school, and then morning service, assembly and a tour of the boys school.
There was a bit of family history for Deb as her father was born in Lucknow, her grandfather having been in the British army. Tara arranged for us to meet the pastor of the church, All Saints Garrison Church, where her father was baptized. It seemed like we were the only tourists in Lucknow, and in general people were surprised we went there.
Then we were in Lalit's hands for two weeks during which he took it upon himself to ensure we had interesting food, introduced us to locals, found interesting sidelights (e.g. driving the water wheel oxen; getting a shave) and telling us all about India. He also navigated the Indian medical system for us during a (benign) visit to the ER in Jodhpur. We had local guides in each city for specialized expertise and to get us into the monuments etc.
Of course the Taj Mahal was an amazing sight. Unfortunately it was almost invisible from our hotel (which advertised a view) due to air pollution. Every city in Rajastan had amazing monuments, but what's hard to capture is the detail in them - inlaid marble, huge carved marble screens, mosaics, murals and on and on.
It was a real treat to spend a couple of days in Ranthambhore National Park - a respite from the chaos and hubbub, and to actually come up close to a tiger. Magnificent beast! We found Kerala at the end to be a balm as well, kayaking on the backwaters to essentially end our trip. We got as far south as latitude 9.5 degrees North.
Tara had recommended books and movies for us to read and see before our trip. We also found the "Vish Puri" books, by Tarquin Hall and set in Delhi, to be entertaining and provided a lot of context for what we were seeing on our trip.
My executive summary of our experience with India was 'everything is different', and this trip was three weeks of interactions with many of those aspects. Too many tales to transcribe here! It was very different from our more usual trips to wild places with no people - that was not this trip. But I'm very glad we did it.
