The Flagg Agency

Travel along with Laura as an American woman travels to New Delhi.

The Cabin

Besides suffering from a severe case of jet lag, I am faced with a whole new vocabulary to maneuver my way through.  This will prove to be interesting and I am up for the challenge.  After meeting with Satish he shows me to my “Cabin” better known to you and me as an office.  If there is one thing I can say about our Indian counterparts is they are not shy about color.  The cubicles have a bright lavender fabric on the walls.  There are shades of greens, reds, blues, yellows……you name the color and I can find it somewhere in this building.

View out of my office window in New Delhi

As I settle in to my cabin which has a view of the roof to the building next to me, a cell (communication tower – the joke is that they wanted me to feel right at home) and Guargaon.  A young man enters whose name is Nateen, the “pantry boy”.  He is responsible for bringing me water, coffee, tea and my lunch.  I don’t know why, but for some reason they are really worried about me having lunch.  After my initial introduction there were two meetings on what I could order for  lunch.  They provided two menus online – Pizza Hut and Subway and then a printed menu for a local place that serves a variety of cuisines.  I am adventurous when it comes to food so I opted for the third option.  There is a fourth option, the building “canteen” or cafeteria.  I plan to go take a look this afternoon to see how adventurous I am willing to be.

The other thing that was shocking to me is that for no reason the power goes out in the building.  During a hour conversation the power went off twice.  I literally jumped out of my chair the first timed it happened.  I now keep a tally for every time the power goes out.  The tally for today is six.

Vegetable Dumplings in the Canteen

Right on schedule my lunch is brought to me.  I had order the vegetable dumplings thinking that they would be like Chinese dumplings, boy was I surprised.  When Nateen brought in my tray I had on bowl which looked like meatballs (vegetable dumplings) in a red sauce and a bowl of rice with herbs and purple cabbage.    Again the colors are vibrant as you can see in the picture and the flavors are just as vibrant.  Sweet. Spicy.  Delicious.

The day drags on as I am hitting a brick wall from the jet lag.  I am really wishing that I had taken Satish up on coming in later in the morning, but I am a trooper, just not a very productive one.  Satish came in to inform me that he would be out the next day and assured me that the team was here to assist me with anything that I needed.

At last it was time to head back to the hotel and the ride home did not disappoint.  I saw and heard many amazing things.  I wish I had the fore thought to have my camera out.  I am still not comfortable about what is acceptable as I do not want to invade peoples privacy with some of the pictures that I want to take.  Again we have 2-3 more cars that lanes with the addition of motorcycles, bicycles, motorized rickshaws and bicycle rickshaws all sharing the same roadway.  I even saw a sign on the back of a vehicle that said “please honk”.  I will try and get a picture of that.  I saw a family of four on a motorcycle.  Child, Adult, Child Adult, and the adults were wearing helmets and the children were not.  I also saw many motorcycles with both a man and woman on it.  The man would be wearing a helmet and the woman would not be; she also sits what I will call side saddle.  I am to tired to go out.  I am going to go to the lounge for a few drinks t try and relax so that I can sleep.  I am going to try and go to the Qutub Minar tomorrow.

Coming up next: Swindled at Qutub Minar

Chuck and Laura Flagg own The Flagg Agency in Canton, GA and our number is  770-355- 9569

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