New Delhi

So I did something incredibly indulgent on this ever-so-short India trip - I took a 26 hour trip to Delhi to visit some close friends - Seema and Ajay and their kids, Pallavi and Priyanka. (It was Seema who enticed me to visit via a very persuasive phone call, but, as I told her, it was seeing the kids that was the big reason.) Pallavi is now 15 and Priyanka is 11. When I first met them, they were 5 and 9. Time, as they say, moves too fast, and I didn't want to lose the opportunity to spend time with them while they are still kids, and so I went off to Delhi to spend it... During our short time, I managed to hang out with the whole family as well as mutual friend Anu.

Painting and drawing with Priyanka, a long talk about teenage-land with Pallavi, a visit to the beauty parlor for a head massage - and girltalk- with Seema, playing a slightly altered version of Scrabble with Priyanka and Anu (wherein Priyanka enforced somewhat communistic rules of sharing tiles to help each other win better double-word scores and the like), a short shopping excursion with Ajay, Priyanka and Anu to the hip-n-happening Select City mall complete with designer stores within and cavernous potholes without, a late dinner and drinks with the adults at fancy-shmancy Shalom, and then finally, the next morning, getting to drop off the girls to school on my way to the airport.

Yes, incredibly indulgent, but money well-spent, to strengthen the ties of friendship.