So, on the way home from the dinner Monday evening, after
“sharing” a few glasses of Whiskey with
gaurav’s uncle, I found out we were supposed to leave at 8:00 for Mukerian, the
town where Gaurav’s dad grew up. I
bargained my way to an 8:30 departure time. In hindsight this was unnecessary,
due to Indian time. I think we finally rolled out of town around 9 or
9:30.
We shared the trip with the family
friend who hosted the party the night before.
I’ll call him Uncle Chopra.
He owns a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant near Mukerian,
so Gaurav, Ravi, Uncle Chopra, his son and I all rode together. We’ll just say
it was a little cozy in the back with three of us, but we managed. We stopped by Uncle Chopra’s facility, got
all bootied-shoe covered-hairnetted-and facemasked up and were given a
tour. That was pretty neat. We were told we had to put on gloves if we wanted to handle the tablets. As tempting as it was to dig my hands into a big box of random pills, I decided againstit. He’s all
into using as much “Indian” stuff as possible, he gets all of his machinery
made in India etc. Kind of like "buy American"...only...Indian. They took us in and
let us watch the whole operation, his daughter lives up there and runs the show
for him.
…You know how in the US most people would prefer their boss
not come in and watch them? I think in
India it’s the complete opposite!
Anytime Uncle Chopra or his daughter walked into a room, all the
employees stood up or stopped what they were doing (at least the employees that
weren’t operating the machinery.) Every
time the boss comes in you get to take a break.
Instead of pretending to work hard, you actually get to stop everything
you’re doing. Pretty sweet deal!
So, they decided to stay behind at their facility for a
while, so they arranged for a driver to take us the rest of the way to Gaurav’s
relatives. They have a really beautiful
house, they used to run some sort of a grain processing plant or what not back
in the day. We had some more meet the
family, two of Gaurav’s uncles live there.
I had met one before, because
they (aunt and uncle) had stayed with us for a few days in Chicago. We also met his uncle that everyone calls
Daddy. He was older than the other
siblings, and when their dad passed away he sort of filled those shoes.
I had talked to Daddy on the phone before, and he invited me
to his “village.” He told me he couldn’t
wait to see how I reacted to being in a village. I found out they had a few cows there, so he
promised that if I came to visit, I could meet and pet his cows. I told him this was a deal. So of course, when we showed up I was sure to
collect on his part of the bargain. He got some sugary type pellets stuff (I guess people eat it
too), but apparently the cows love it.
He got a nice big bowl, and out we went to visit the cows. He pointed one out and said she was an old
lady. When I asked him favorite he said
that she was, then he looked around and pointed at another and said, this one
too, then pointed to the next one and said “they’re all my favorite.” Yep.
Me and Daddy could be friends! I
fed the cows, scratched some ears, happy girl.
He then took us for a little walk around the property, showed me their
garden. They had a peach tree, the
peaches were about the size of a cherry tomato, but they were full grown.
He also let us take some pictures with his car from the
1930’s (I think), that was just a few years younger than he was. It was in pretty awesome condition! He also pointed out a huge tree in the back
that was just a few years older than he was.
I have a hunch that everyone at this house knew about my
extra special sleeping “talent” as everyone kept suggesting beds for me to
sleep in, or asking if I was tired. No
one asked Gaurav or Ravi if they were tired and wanted to go to sleep. This was pretty welcome, at least I didn’t
feel like I had to sneak off to go take a nap.
I had myself a nice little nap for about an hour or so, once I woke up
Uncle Chopra and his son were back,
eventually it was time to pack up for the 4 hours of
back-seat-squishyness. Its worth
mentioning that not all the roads were paved on the way…so it was squished and
bumpy. But it was a good time.
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