Delhi and Agra

June 7^th was the first war game for the students on the dialogue. The war game consisted of a mock negotiation between Indian sectors (Healthcare, Water, Agriculture, Industry, and Energy) competing for a “climate change resilience” budget from the Indian government. During the negotiations I acted as a “supermoderator,” helping out the moderators and also posing as a stakeholder later on in the negotiations, prodding the Industry sector to fight harder for the interest of big business. The war game lasted all day.

War Game in the hotel

In the evening, Rose, Lindsey and I went to Udit’s aunt and uncle’s house for dinner in Delhi. We also got to meet Udit’s parents, who were visiting Delhi from his village a few hours away. Udit’s parents are recently retired; his mother was a teacher for 30 years and his father was an accountant in the agricultural sector for 35 years. The day before dinner, I asked Udit what we should bring as a gift, like flowers for a dinner party in the US. When we got out of our rickshaw, we bought some ice cream from a man with a street cart. Udit says that the same man has been standing at this same corner for decades, selling the same ice cream. It is amazing how things can change so little over time. The crowded streets filled with bikers, cars, pedestrians, cows, and ice cream carts have a defined pattern that persists through all the changes that the world has seen in the last ten years.

Dinner was home cooked and delicious! The appetizers consisted of samosas and sweets. My favorite of the sweets was called gojia, an empanada-like pastry with cinnamon sugar filling on the inside. The other sweet, a close second, was called ladhu. The ladhu was a spherical cookie that looked and tasted like baked brown sugar. The main courses were even better than the appetizers, consisting of rice and pinto beans, spicy okra, soya cooked in a curry sauce, and two types of pickled mango. The beans were great, different from most foods I have tried in India. They had the perfect level of spice and flavoring so that I could eat them every day and be satisfied—not too spicy, not bland. The okra, called “lady fingers” in Hindi, was very spicy. The soya has an interesting texture, chewy but definitely not meat. After the meal, we were too full to break into the ice cream we brought, but we had some mango for dessert. The mango was a special variety which you eat by biting a small hole in the end then squeezing the mango into your mouth. It was very fun, tasted great, and inspired me to buy many mangos later in the trip because they are so fun to eat! Udit’s family members were gracious hosts and were fun to talk to. The house was similar to the house of Professor Ganguly’s friend that we visited in Durgapur.

On 6/8, the students gave recaps of the results of the war game to a panel of Indian experts. The panel included Professor Ganguly’s aunt and uncle, Udit’s mother and father, Udit’s aunt, and three friends of Udit who have an online retail startup called SkyCandle. Each team gave a summary of how their sector fared in the previous day’s mock negotiations. The panelists asked tough questions to each sector about why they took certain strategies in the war game negotiations and about why they achieved or did not achieve certain goals. After the set of presentations and questions, Rose, Lindsey and I went out to lunch with the panelists. We ate at an East Asian restaurant called Lotus Garden; the food was similar to the Chinese-Indian food we ate at our hotel in Shillong the previous week. After lunch I bought 2 kg of squeezable mangos at a stand on the road for 100 rupees. The three of us went shopping after dinner at Westside, a popular department store in India with reasonable prices and nice clothes. I have not yet worn the new linen shirt I bought, but it will be in some pictures online soon.

Train from Delhi to Agra

On 6/9, we woke up early to take the fast train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. We were told that the train travels 160 km/hr, but I think it was going more like 100 km/hr during our ride. Regardless of the speed, we reached our destination in less than two hours, a huge improvement over the four-hour bus ride I remember from 2014. Upon our arrival in Agra, we went directly to the Taj Mahal. The Taj was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took 20,000 artisans approximately 20 years to build the monument. It is rumored that everyone who worked on the building, upon its completion, had their thumbs (some story say hands) cut off so that they would never be able to replicate the work.

Walking to the Taj Mahal, Agra

Entrance Gate to the Taj Mahal, Agra

View of the Taj Mahal from the Entrance Gate, Agra

Taj Mahal, Agra

Taj Mahal, Agra

My experience this year at the Taj Mahal was similar to when I visited two years ago, but it was thankfully a little cooler. I say “cooler” lightly, as it was about 106 or 108 degrees F compared to 118 F last time. I took lots of pictures, some very similar to two years ago for comparison. Rose and I took some pictures together and bought prints from the professional photographer who printed pictures for our group. By the time we walked across the garden to the tomb, I was very hot, my back wet with sweat. While waiting for the group to gather near the entrance to the garden, Professor Ganguly found a spot in the hallway where the architecture created a strong breeze—it was nice to cool off for a little while before heading back to our bus. In the afternoon, I went out to lunch with Rose, Manoj (our travel provider in India), Dr. Iacono (director of the University Scholars Program) and Poonam (our guide for northern India). We fit all five of us in the same rickshaw, three in the back seat and one on either side of the driver.

In the evening, we enjoyed the many activities that the hotel had to offer: a puppet show, a magician, an astrologer, and a potter. The music during the puppet show consisted of a drum and a very loud, annoying whistle. I am glad Professor Ganguly has not yet gotten his hands on one of these whistles—we will be hearing it every few minutes over the bus mic if he finds one. The astrologer told me many things about my future, including that I will travel the world until I am 78 and will have 2 houses. I will get a good job at 22 and an even better job at 24. I need to get another palm reading and see if the two stories agree. If they do, I can be sure about what my future will hold. The magician was incredibly entertaining. One of the best tricks he did was combining three pieces of rope into one longer piece. Another great one was emptying a string of beads into a paper cone then restringing them inside the cone.

Tomorrow we drive to Ranthambhore National Park to hopefully see some tigers!