A Return to the Motherland (India, 2024)

After 8 long years, my sister and I convinced our family to visit India again over our winter break.

Our trip started on Christmas Eve with the new Capital One lounge at DFW airport. It was really nice and almost made us forget the 15-hour flight to Dubai, a 3-hour layover, and another 3-hour flight. My sister and I watched the Shaq documentary, which was surprisingly long (perfect for an international flight!)

We landed on the night of the 25th and went to our Dadi’s flat to have dinner. Because we lost about 11 hours on the trip due to time zones, our Christmas was quite literally cut in half! We must have intercepted Santa’s sleigh at some point too. The next day, we tried to fight our jet lag by staying awake through the afternoon and distracted ourselves with a walk around Goregaon and to the Goregaon train station. I also took this opportunity to get a suit fitted and sent off for tailoring. We made it to the evening, albeit a bit sleepy, and checked into the Sai Palace Grand Hotel. It was the site of a little family get-together for dinner, and it was close to the train station too. At this gathering, I met a lot of family members I hadn’t seen in a loonngg time, and even met Shivam, a cousin who I’d heard a lot about but never actually met. The food was also solid, especially the starters; there were these fried dahi balls that were sooo tasty.

I mentioned that this hotel was close to the Borivali train station, which is important because the next morning, we set off to Vadodara. There was a tinge of sadness, especially on this leg of the trip, because my nana passed away about a month prior. He’s featured in this blog quite heavily, like here, here, and here. It was tough visiting his house, but it was really nice being able to see our nani and spend time with her at her home. We soon checked into Hotel Surya, which was all organized by my nana beforehand. After relaxing and napping for a couple of hours, we all headed to 22nd Parallel to have some South Indian food. Compared to the expansive city of Mumbai, it was nice to get around the whole city in <15 minutes, and it was an impressive feat of infrastructure. The food was also delicious, and it was my first time having a ghee roast dosa.

We started the next morning with breakfast at the Surya Hotel, and let me tell you, this beats every hotel breakfast by a MILE. My nana’s expert knowledge of Vadodara and the local food came in clutch, and we enjoyed vada, sambar, idli, dosa, toast, and fresh chai. It was very likely the best breakfast I’d ever had. I was ready to sleep, but it was time to visit Pavagadh: a famous mandir on a mountain. We got there quite early, but they wouldn’t let us access the ropeway before our timeslot, so we hung around for a while and saw some monkeys hanging around too. The number of cars and people there was insane to me, and it was a reminder of the amount of people who live in this country. Eventually, we made our way to the ropeway line, but ~300 people were waiting and the line was going to be another hour at least. Considering the ropeway down probably had the same amount of people waiting, we decided it was best to admire it from afar and go somewhere else. As a side note, our getting excited about the monkeys was clearly a dead giveaway that we were foreigners because you can see them everywhere in India (even in the house!).

We decided to go to the nearby Dhaba Dungri, which was a smaller mountain with a temple. The views of the lush surrounding forest were beautiful and much calmer than the rush at Pavagadh. At both spots, we ran into a lot of school field trips, and it was cool to see how local kids act and learn differently than back in the States. That Surya breakfast was burned off during our mountain climbing (as in two flights of stairs), so we got lunch on the way back to Vadodara. After a quick nap, we checked out Kamati Baug: Vadodara’s version of Central Park. It was a nice, green park in the middle of a bustling city, complete with bandstands, playgrounds, restaurants, and even a zoo and a planetarium. My sister and I also had a lot of fun trying to read the signs in Gujarati, which has a challenging script. After all that walking, it was time to head back, eat dinner, and sleep at Hotel Surya. Side note: the famous Ambassador Sweets shop was across the street and they had a big sign, “WE HAVE NO OTHER BRANCH”, which I thought was funny. Typically, stores advertise the fact that they have other locations, but this store was doing the opposite to prevent impersonator stores.

The next morning, after another bomb breakfast, my dad, sister, and I checked out Laxmi Villas Palace. It was the seat of royalty for Sayajirao Gaekwad III and the Gaekwad family and was the largest private residence at the time. Its architecture is a beautiful mix of European styles and Indian styles. They opened up part of the palace to the public, but there are still members of the family still living there. Photography from the inside was not allowed (we got scolded a couple times by the guards), but we did snag some great pictures of the ornate exterior. For lunch, we picked up my mom and got a classic Baroda specialty, raj kachori, and finished off with some delicious mango ice cream.

Post-afternoon nap, we met up with our Dadi (who had come with us) and visited the ISKON temple. This organization is famous around the world, and you might have seen some representatives in cities like New York City and Paris. At first, the murtis of Krishna and the other deities were behind closed doors, but they soon opened them for us to see and pray to. Then, we dropped off my Dadi at her old friend’s place (they used to be neighbors in Bharuch) and caught up with them for a bit.

We had another delicious Hotel Surya breakfast the next morning (surprise surprise) and spent our morning at Sur Sagar Lake. This was a new manmade lake that we had not seen and was located in the middle of the city. There was a HUGE (100+ feet)gold statue of Lord Shiva in the middle, and it was like an oasis in the middle of a busy city. We couldn’t get inside the gates of the lake because they only open at 5PM, so we decided to walk around it from the outside. After a quick lap of the lake, we walked to the nearby market and bought some bangles for my sister. This part of town was PACKED beyond belief, which was a stark contrast to the calm lake. We were gassed and ready to take another long afternoon nap back at home. By the time I woke up, it was time for dinner. Viral Mama got us some street kachori, which we were a little nervous to eat because of the risk of getting sick. Eventually, though, street chaat is too delicious to pass up and we finished them off. For the second course, we got some ponk. This variant of sorghum is only available in Gujarat and only in the winter, so it was truly a treat to get to try such a rare dish. For the final course, we realized we had eaten enough and visited the Kashi Viswanath temple. Today was a good summary of the India trip as a whole: exploring, sleeping, eating, and temples.

The next morning was our last in Vadodara for the time being, so we had one last huzzah at Hotel Surya’s breakfast buffet. Surya’s performance was like Michael Jordan in the 90s and delivered banger after banger after banger after banger. After checking out, we visited Vipin Mama and his family. Vipin Mama was super cool and we had a great conversation about AI and technology. Oh, and he was more than 90 years old!

We went back home and met some of my nana’s friends, who had come to visit and give their condolences to my mom and my nani. Soon, it was time for my dad, sister, Dadi, and me to take a train back to Mumbai. My mom stayed behind to help my nani out. Just like the train on the way there, we got chai and lunch provided and they were top-notch. It was also New Year’s Eve, so upon reaching Borivali station in Mumbai (after a delay), we headed to my Darshan Mama’s house. He and Darshana Mami had assembled a small gathering to celebrate the New Year, and it was nice to see some more family. We did a countdown, cut some cake, and popped some sparkling grape juice to celebrate. On the ride back home, I was surprised to see the streets completely packed at 1:30 AM. I was even more surprised to hear that January 1st is not a holiday for most Indians, meaning all of these people had to be at work in about 7 hours.

After a lazy morning the next day, we picked up the suit that we had sent off to get tailored and walked around a little bit. Not much happened in the New Year, which is funny to think about because of the Indian saying “What you do in the new year is what you’ll be doing the whole year. ” For dinner, we visited my three fais, Nishchala, Nipuna, and Kalmashi Fai, along with Vinod Fua and Hrishika Didi.

The dinner was super delicious and featured samosa, pav bhaji, and homemade dahi. I also ate a plantain but it tasted like a raw potato, so either my slight sickness caught up to me or someone was playing a prank on me. It was a lot of fun catching up with my Fais, Fua, and Didi. If that’s what this year is going to look like (as per Indian saying), it’s going to be a pretty chill year filled with laughs and good food.

The apocalypse began the next day. No, not of zombies, but of bedbugs. As my sister, dad, and I did some chores and walked around, my arm (and my sister’s arm) became super itchy. Based on the zig-zag pattern of the red dots that began to show up and swell up, we realized the blanket we were wearing yesterday was different than before, making it a prime suspect for bedbugs. The investigation would have to wait, though, since we got in a car and made our way to the nearby city of Pune. We met our Kaka, Kaki, and cousin Ira in Pune, and they helped us confirm our bedbug suspicion and give us medicine. We went to sleep early, but we had a midnight surprise for my dad because it was his birthday! He was turning 22, which doesn’t happen every day you know!

We spent my dad’s birthday looking at the sights and sounds of Pune. First, though, we had some dal dhokli with the most peanuts per bowl (PPB) known to mankind. It had to have been at LEAST 50 PPB. As we set off, I saw that the city was incredibly green, especially the suburbs and outskirts. The first stop was Aga Khan Palace, which was built by Ismailis to help the poor but became famous for being the site of Mahatma Gandhi’s famous internment. There was a small exhibit in each of the rooms in the palace explaining the movement of independence, the role that Gandhi played, and the activities that went on in each room. It was quite informative and the palace itself was beautifully constructed, with Muslim, European, and Indian influences. Some of Ghandi’s ashes and his wife’s ashes are located in the courtyard in a memorial. Our next stop was the Pataleshwar Caves temple. This temple was constructed in ~748 CE, making it over 1200 years old! Standing and praying, I couldn’t help but imagine the generations and generations of people before me doing the exact same thing. It was also home to some legendary banyan trees that had tons of secondary stems formed by roots touching the ground. Fun fact: banyan trees are called “vad” in Gujarati, and Vadodara is named after them.

For dinner, we had to get a classic Bombay sizzler (even though we were not in Bombay) and celebrate with some cake. Our Pune adventure continued the next day with a heritage walk with an organization called Intach, or the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. The walk started with the famous Shaniwar Wada fort, followed by a tour around the nearby Wadas in the historic old town. There was a lot of Maratha history in the city because of the Peshwas and Marathas who were located in the city. We ended our tour by going into the Shaniwar Wada through some legendary-looking double doors. Funny enough, the officials at the front of the fort were not allowing couples to enter the fort at all because they wanted to limit disrespectful public displays of affection. We also saw a lot of idols of Ganesha, the famous elephant god and a favorite of Pune. After all that walking, we needed a quick recharge at home before driving to a nearby mall for dinner and dessert. A Zara caught my eye, and I couldn’t leave without buying some pants. If I had a nickel for every foreign country in which I bought Zara pants, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but, weirdly, it happened twice!

We slept early because the next morning it was time to tackle Pune’s most famous hike: Parvati Hill! Well, it wasn’t really a “hike” but instead about 100 steps up a hill. We saw a lot of cute stray puppies and some monkeys along the way to the top. There was a beautiful temple at the top and a cool museum about the Peshwas with a great view of the city of Pune below. It seemed to be a popular field trip destination because there were hundreds of school children there with us too. AND, there were even non-Indian Caucasians too! My sister and I were so shocked to see someone not brown there, but we admired their sense of adventure too.

To recover the calories burned by our “hike”, my Kaki and Kaka got us Pune Misal. There, they just call it misal! The misal was delicious and gave me enough energy to walk around the neighborhood, visit some grocers, and check out the terrace of my Kaki/Kaka’s other flat. The view of the tree-speckled suburb was beautiful from the top, but the pollution made it hard to see into the distance. On the flip side, the haze accentuated the bright lights and gave a unique vibe to the city that I can’t really put into words.

For our last full day in Pune, we really emphasized the FULL part. It started with a thali lunch where we ate unlimited Marathi curries and various breads to our heart’s content. I was sure I couldn’t eat another bite when we visited Tai Fai afterward. They were my dad and my Kaka’s next-door neighbors who basically became family. It was funny to hear all the stories about my dad and Kaka that they shared with us. We were also given chai, snacks, and homemade sabudana vada. They were absolutely delicious, but it took a LOT of effort and wiggling around to make room for them. I wanted to eat 100 of them, but eventually had to call it quits after two. I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have to eat for 100 years, but it was more like 3 hours. For dinner, we had some classic Pune vada pav, complete with fried peppers and all the chutneys. The sights and smells flooding into my brain overpowered any sense of “fullness” I had and I easily ate several vada pavs. The food was amazing and I’m glad and thankful that I got to try too many great things in a single day.

All of us (Kaka, Kaki, cousin Ira, me, sister, dad, and Dadi) went back to Mumbai together the next morning. We stopped at a truck stop on the way but was basically a mall food court. It was much better than American food courts, though, because we got chai, samosa, vada pav, and dosa. We were in full food coma mode, and we were lucky we had a driver to take us to Mumbai just in time for a lunch party. 20 of us descended on Garden Court in Malad. They had approximately 234930432 starters, including some classics like dahi puri. The food was great and we celebrated my Dadi’s upcoming 80th birthday. She even wore a super elegant birthday sash! As we left, a family recognized one of my Kakas, Harsh Kaka, from television and asked for a picture. It was mindblowing to me and a great reminder that I’m related to someone that famous. That evening, I went to Oberoi Mall to meet Harsh, a friend from ETH Zürich (featured in my Liechtenstein trip and Nice trip). Seeing old friends is one of my favorite things to do, and it was nice catching up with him. Surprisingly, on the way back, we could not find a rickshaw to take us to SV Road to my Dadi’s flat! 10 people just straight-up refused, which I didn’t even know was normalized.

Our next day was adventure-filled as we wandered around Mumbai. We went with Kalmashi Fai and Vinod Fua to VJTI (Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, formerly known as Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute before the push to rename colonial names). My dad is a VJTI alumnus and he gave us an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the college, complete with a professor berating her kids. The area around VJTI was also a nice area to walk and relax, especially compared to the hustle and bustle of Goregaon. It felt a lot like a college town, which makes sense, considering this area hosts many colleges and universities. We then got lunch at Mysore Cafe, one of the oldest South Indian restaurants in Mumbai and a staple of the community (and for good reason). The rasam was flavorful and spicy, and the food was delicious. Fai got us some sweets from the nearby Nayak’s before my dad, sister, and I split off and rode the train to the very last stop, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. This station is spacious and the exterior is chock-full of beautiful, detailed carvings. We hopped in a crowded taxi to the Gateway of India. It was absolutely packed, which was weird for a random Monday afternoon but it makes sense considering how many people are in Mumbai. We took lots of pictures, narrowly avoided the peddlers selling photos, and saw the outside of the famous Taj Hotel. Even though it was the middle of winter, I was sweating through my clothes in the 95-degree heat (35 degrees Celsius). We cooled off with some Starbucks behind the Taj Hotel before heading back via taxi and train. As a side note: there are no rickshaws in South Bombay!

For dinner, we had homemade dabeli and it was a life-changing experience. It was sweet, spicy, salty, a little tart, and had the rich umami flavor all at once: easily the best dabeli I’ve had and a candidate for an all-time favorite food experience. The next day was spent mostly in travel again as my dad, sister, and I took the train to Vadodara. The train snacks were still undefeated, and the elite food continued in Vadodara as we got farsan and snacks from Jagdish. My Mama (mom’s brother) flew in too, so it was nice to see my mom and him joke around like Riya and I do. For dessert, we walked to this place that sold chocolate paan in literally hundreds of varieties. I didn’t even realize there could be this much diversity for something so specific as chocolate paan.

This second Vadodara trip was tinged with sadness because it was time to do the Asthi Vidhi for my nana and scatter his ashes in the nearby holy body of water. We dressed in white, did the rites, and sent him with a book to read on the way. The site of the river was beautiful in the morning mist and had a sense of calmness that I hope he can enjoy. We returned to Vadodara and had a Gujarati thali in Nana’s memory. It was extremely tasty and definitely food coma-inducing. After a nap (and a job interview), we had dinner together and called it a night.

It was time to take the train back to Mumbai the next morning, so we bid our mom Nani goodbye before our last train hop. We bought some khari sing, or salted peanuts, around Bharuch, which is famous for its peanuts. They were delicious and a homage to my Nana, who would always point them out when we used to play “train-train” and pretend we were on a train. Upon arrival, we got McDonald’s for lunch and had classic menu items like the McAloo Tikki and McSpicy. The burgers are much smaller, though, so it took multiple burgers to satisfy us. After a catnap in the afternoon, we checked out the Guruwar Bazar in the evening. It was PACKED with stalls of vendors, and my sister got some mehndi. The mehndi artist had the hand stability of a surgeon and the intricate patterns were out of this world. I also enjoyed looking around at the fake designer branding, like Adidos or Abibas. In the evening, we went to our Mama/Mami’s house and had some great cake.

We kicked off the next morning with a visit to the Kamu Baba mandir. He was a local celebrity and had a large following. My Dadi actually met him when he was still alive and met his wife quite often. The mandir is kept in pristine condition and I was thoroughly impressed by the trust’s ability to pay rent and maintain the land. After that, we took a long walk around Goregaon and my dad showed me around his part of town. For dinner, we met up with Mama/Mami and went to Mainland China. The food was different than American Chinese cuisine and from Chinese Chinese cuisine. It was also comparatively lighter than the gigantic Indian feasts that were happening daily.

Our trip was coming to a close, so it was time to tackle some bucket list items. My sister and I met up with Hrishika Didi and Kallu Fai and got chai at Chaayos. It sounded like our last name, which I thought was kind of cool, and the cinnamon-flavored chai was hearty and delicious. The four of us then checked out Juhu Beach from near the ISKON mandir. It was fun to dip our toes in the Arabian Sea and people-watch on the sand before heading back to Goregaon. In the evening, we went on another walk around the neighborhood and ate some absolutely delicious homemade dosa. The homemade fresh coconut chutney was to die for and was easily the best chutney I’d ever had.

Finally, our last day. If you made it here, congratulations! My Dadi took us to D-mart to do some shopping for my sister (I ended up getting more clothes from there than she did) and funny enough used the intercom to call for us when we lost track of her. It was one of those announcements when people lose their children in the store, but instead, it was our Dadi, patiently waiting for us at the front! We helped ourselves to some ice cream outside the store before heading back and doing some local shopping. We spent literally thousands of rupees at Jitendra buying various snacks and sweets and spent almost an entire suitcase of space on it. Before leaving, we met up with two of our Kakas and their families, including our cousin Ira. We talked for a bit while we finished packing before saying bye to them and to the flat. Our Dadi dropped us off at the airport and it was sad to say bye to her and the country, but hopefully, we meet again soon. At the airport, we got lounge access and had some delicious food, but had to stop ourselves from overeating before a lonngggg journey home. Also, on the flight back, I realized that the best movies to watch are the ones with closed captions. With the hum of the plane and low-quality headphones, it can be hard to decipher some of the conversations and the closed captions make it much easier to follow along. As a side note, I even met a Penn student in Dubai! Go Quakers! My dad, sister, and I made it back home about 24 hours later, and the India adventure had come to a close (but not for my mom, who will be there for a few more weeks).

Takeaways

• Big shoutout to my Nana. I wish we could have met him because he was so excited for us to visit, but his planning of our visit made it 1000x better. Thank you, Nana!
• Indian food in India is unmatched. Unreal. I made myself hungry 25+ times when writing this post
• It’s always so much fun to meet family members that we haven’t seen in so long. Hopefully, we can see them in <8 more years
• Here’s the main activity list you should follow in India: wake up late, eat breakfast, shower, eat lunch, take a nap, go on a walk, eat dinner, go on a walk, eat dessert. Repeat 20 more times

Rose-Bud-Thorn

Rose (what went well): The food was incredible. From South Indian dosas, vada, and sambar, to Gujarati puri, undhiyu, and thalis, and everything in between, my stomach was overjoyed. And the scale was not.
Bud (what was good but could be improved on): Riding on the various trains was super fun, but we didn’t get to ride the new Mumbai metro lines. Something to keep in mind for next time!
Thorn (what did not go well): My mom stayed behind in Vadodara for the duration of the trip to help my Nani settle her affairs and comfort her. It was very nice that she got to help my Nani out in such a trying time, but we definitely missed her presence on our adventures.