Our final three days in India were spent at the home of Vishnu and Arati Lall, family of friends back in Minnesota. After 10 days at hotels, it was a welcome treat to stay with this gracious and generous family. Peter and I had the upstairs apartment of the Lall’s son and Daughter-in-law, who were out of town. Vishnu is a rare jewelry and antiquities dealer who spent 20 years in New York City running the family business in the U.S. before moving back to India to work with his brothers in Agra. He has a gallery in the back of the family compound and his worldwide clientele has included Egyptian royalty, Heads of State, Mick Jaggar and Jackie Onassis.Our first evening there, a group of women spiritual seekers stopped by for a drink and to see the gallery. These women were friends of friends so Vishnu and Arati did not know them but we all had a good discussion with the international group: three from India, one from New York (definitely upper eastside with the preposterous first name of Fluffy!) and one from Germany by way of Kazakhstan. They had been touring spiritual sites in India as a part of a Saint Germain “I AM” study group and have traveled with each other to Saint Germain meetings throughout the world. Fluffy told us she loves India and comes over often… I wonder how she reconciles the extreme poverty with her own life situation… the poverty is always there like the elephant in the room but not addressed directly. The German woman made the comment that, “ yes, there is poverty but the women and children are all so beautiful” …and malnourished and illiterate too.
The Lalls have many servants, at least five by my count but more seemed to appear off and on, and they are at your every beck and call, which takes some time to get used to. They kindly lent us one of their drivers to take us to the Taj Mahal the next morning and he waited for us at both the Taj and the Agra fort. Now that I have read the White Tiger I wonder how similar he was to the main character in the book. The Lalls said their servants are all from rural areas and that they are very grateful to have this work with good food to eat and a place to live. And I can understand why the Lalls would move back to India even though their children were born and raised in the U.S. Vishnu inherited the family home and he works with his brothers and his son in the family business. They can live very well in India and after living in Queens, the noise, congestion and traffic right outside their beautiful compound might not be so bothersome.
On our last morning in India and before we left for Delhi, Arati took us to a shopping mall to buy things in a place unencumbered by touts and peddlers. It was like a mall in the U.S., with many big chain stores (and dark store fronts) and practically no one there. There is a security checkpoint at the entrance and Indians who looked like they don’t earn more than $2 a day were definitely not welcome. At the few shops that were open we found beautiful, well-made reasonably-priced clothes…if only we had had more time!
We had wonderful food and conversation with the Lalls and at the end of our stay, Vishnu asked us to write in his guest book. We signed on the same page as Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Governor, who had come over on a trade mission with Vishnu’s brother-in-law Ghopal Khanna. I may not agree with his politics but us Minnesotans need to show solidarity when we venture out into the world.Next up: the magnificent Taj Mahal.
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