Delhi bahut bariya hai

I have been busy running around lately. First Kolkata - where I had a 2 night journey from hell which rendered me with my first full-blown fever in 5 years. Then back to Agra. Then to Delhi where I am right now.

On the way back from Kolkata I was better prepared. I had a blanket, dinner packed away (thanks to Auntie Swati), 2 jackets, 2 pairs of pants socks and possibly most important - earplugs. This trip was nearly pleasant - and this time I was also carrying 2 50lb airport bags with all my stuff. Thanks to locks that Suprio helped me purchase I chained them up and was able to keep a close enough eye on them to not overworry about them.

Agra for a couple days to check base with SNBS, who is having issues finalizing the rent of the workshop, and then off to Delhi to deal with changing my Visa and finding/droppping off christmas presents with my sister who happens to leave to the US soon.

Tiffany is working with Waste Ventures, a start-up that wants to facilitate and profit (in a nonprofit kinda way?) from composting and recycling in urban-but-not-too-big areas. They offer a holistic service to setting up the infrastructure and organizing the wastepickers to form their own official company. Their office is nice their people are nice and they seem like they've been picking up useful people on their side as they have been developing their team.

Their office in Delhi has comfortable couches and english is all around me, there is a very very nice subway in Delhi and I had lunch at Subways today. I am in a whole new world. People everywhere speak english like its their first language - often to each other and with shopkeepers.

The train ride in from Agra was very early morning and freezing. The cheapest seat is a 67 Rs/$1.5 ticket. I paid the price but never found a seat. The Delhi metro is basically connected with the train route so I just hopped off and went down into a 22nd century subway, leaving my head realing. They have subway cards and track your station in and out to charge you precisely and there are lcd lit trains with nice maps and spotless tracks, everything in English and Hindi, I was stunned. My slums in Agra seemed so distant all the sudden. Even my crammed car in the back of the train seemed anachronistic.

Then the doors opened and I was carried away by a stream of people exiting the subway. Laughing, someone pulled me out and tossed me in with the stream entering. I had my first good laugh in awhile.