We’re 7800 miles apart–yes, I did bring my GPS, but so did another faculty member–and about to begin getting the education we came here to get, at least the formal part. Our week will consist of morning lectures on a variety of topics, followed by site visits in the afternoon, for the next five days. Happily for me, we begin our day with a voluntary yoga. It’s nice to have a new guru (teacher), who told us yesterday something I’ve known but not articulated–that yoga is music for the body.
We spent yesterday visiting three sites, and given the traffic in New and Old Delhi 
, I’m glad I don’t drive here. 
The city has over 13 million people and over 33 million registered vehicles. The registered vehicles are 2, 3, and 4 wheels (and some with more), but doesn’t include all the “vehicles” on the street–and some of those are animals. Our neighborhood, for example, has a lot of what Harry Carey would have called Holy Cows, because, as you know, they are holy in a Hindu country. Add to everything else the facts that it was a Sunday, there 
was a parade downtown that closed several streets, that the British used rotaries, and that Delhi is building a subway and has most major arteries torn up, and you’ll understand why there was a crew from TV filming one of the traffic jams we got stuck in.
I learned that Delhi has been destroyed six times in its history, and rebuilt 6; that the British built what they called Lutyens city when they moved the capital from Calcutta to this area in 1911 (Lutyens city became New Delhi); that the new emperors moved into the old emperor’s buildings (the British barracks became the Indian barracks; the governor’s quarters, the President’s, etc); that the British were the last destroyers (in 1857, when Britain finally replaced the East India Company with a political governance that cobbled together British and princely states–the latter not becoming part of India until the creation of an independent State); that when the British suppressed the Mutiny (British word) or the first war against the British (Indian description)–at least one of the Moghul tombs was ravaged because the last Moghul emperor hid there; that the Moghuls came from Mongolia, and were descendants of Genghis Khan; and that I’ll never remember the names of more than a handful of the over 3,000 Hindu gods.
Gotta get ready for class–and for yoga. Have a great day, Scouts, and a thoughtful meeting and election Monday. Remember, I’m in what likes to be billed as the world’s largest democracy. That is one of the saving graces of India.