A day at the races

A few weeks ago, I traveled back to the exciting city of Bombay to hang out with a group of Bainees who were flying in from New York (including two Princetonians).  Yes, this is the fourth time I have been to Bombay, the third in five weeks.  But really, they have the only key lime pie in India.

Anyways, I digress.  I have decided to become faux upper-class in India, and what do faux-upper class people do?  Well, other than look down on middle class people.  They go to the races!  Sometimes you can really tell that India is a former British colony ("u" and "s" used too often in words, obsession with cricket, etc.), and this is one of those times.  We did the whole thing, got dressed up, headed down to the track in Bombay, and made bets saying ridiculous things like "Queen of Sheba looks really good today."

 Even more exciting, I was on TV!  Yup, I can now say "I am famous in India."  See below for the clip, look for the girl in the orange skirt clapping wildly.  Aren't you excited you can say you know a TV star?

A rockstar visits India

There have been but a few brave friends who have ventured to the far-off land of India to visit me.  This is the story of one of them.

Ms. Maureen O’Hern, “vixen in red” the international rockstar and woman of mystery, visited me for a week at the end of February.  She was quite the sensation in India.  I have never had so many pictures taken by strangers: we posed with tourists, families, and large groups of young men.  You have never seen anything like it.  We attributed it to our allure as SWFs (single white females), Maureen’s original hair color (they don’t see it much in India), and the hats.  A little bit more on the hats….

Hats were definitely the theme of our trip.  Maureen is even more Irish than me and thus has beautiful, fair skin.  The sun is her #1 enemy.  Since the sun is so strong in India, she decided to bring a nice black hat to protect her face from the sun.  I, to support Maureen in her endeavor, decided to wear a nice orange hat.  From the moment we put those hats on, it was like we were possessed.  We wore them everywhere, took pictures with them in everything.  Other people were also possessed: we counted 19 photo requests by the end of the trip.  Here are a few (I think we look very “day at the races”—don’t you?)

As to what we did, we explored Bombay with our local tour guide Ruchi, traversed the Taj in Agra, and hung out in my “home town” of Delhi.  See some pictures below:

Maureen and I overlooking Bombay from Air bar at the Four Seasons

Maureen at the temple caves of Elephenta Island, just outside Bombay

At Red Fort in Delhi

 The rockstar at the Taj