Nadya

Hymalaya, Nadya and Shamik

"Mountains don’t demand much from you. All they want and wish is that you would visit them once in a while and talk to them like friends. They are benign, they are majestic, they are enchanting!” 
- Nadya’s skype status, quoted from Satyabrata Dam.

New Delhi, 17.12.2008

Finally, I was in India!!! However, my check-in luggage was lost, maybe from the first delay in Brussels. I had to make a report, and they said they would contact me as soon as they found it.

I called Nadya and with her instruction, I came to her place by taxi. Taxis here look old and not expensive. Nadya is a new Russian friend, 25, whom I had just known through Hospitality Club*. Nadya lived in New Delhi with her Indian boyfriend, Shamik, who now is her husband (they get married in October, 2009).

Nadya made for me some pancakes. We ate and talked a while then we went to the street to call rikhsaws to railway station as i had to book train ticket for tomorrow trip to Taj Mahal. Rikhsaws look like Thai’s “tuk tuk”, they are common means of transportation in New Delhi, painted with green and yellow colors. Nadya gave me careful advices and then i parted alone, saying that we would meet again in the evening.

After booking train ticket, i walked around the central railway station. There were many vegetarian restaurants. They even put in the banner “Pure Vegetarian”. One taxi driver came to me, offering the package New Delhi sight-seeing tour. I took the taxi and observed people with diverse activities in the city. It was interesting for me to see Sikh men with “turbans” (hat) driving vespas and buses!  The traffic mess and the pollution were somehow familiar, like in Vietnam.  At lunch, the taxi driver stopped at a place called “Eating Corner”, we had to queue up in the line to buy plastic tokens for exchanging food such as rice, chapatti, dal, yogurt… We passed by the Indian Gate, President House, Parliament, Lohdi Garden… each one a while just for a short look. Then the taxi driver insisted on visiting some shops that he knew, though I told him that I was not so interested in shopping that time. I would still have a long journey ahead and I would like to travel light. So he was kind of frustrating that I thought ok, I agreed with him and we stopped by several shops…

We had not seen much the city but I was a little bit tired, thus i told the taxi driver to drive back to Nadya’s place. There was still no news about my lost luggage. Because all my clothes were in the lost-luggage, Nadya had to lend me some of hers. She heated up the water for me. I felt better after taking a bath with hot water.

Shamik had to work at the evening shift then only Nadya and me talked to each other. Nadya showed me lots of beautiful photos and exotic shots from their adventures by motorbike and even by bikes to wonderful landscapes in the Hymalaya, the camel fair…  Nadya studied economics but she prefers working related to nature. She taught yoga, doing Indian massage and working part-time at a health center. Shamik worked in IT industry and they both share a lot in common. They both love nature and adventures, especially go hiking and climbing mountainous areas. Nadya likes rock, jazz and tribal musics. She is also interested in Buddhism.

They had been in Dharamsala, where there is residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Nadya loves mountains, thus she was so delighted there. Nadya asked me if there was mountains in Vietnam. :) She told a nice memory about one foggy and windy day, they reached the top of the mountain. And when they waked up in the next morning, the sun had cleared up the blue sky, revealing the wonderful scene of the valley below…

Recently, they had just been in Jim Corbett National Park in the Northern India, about 250 km from New Delhi as celebrating their birthdays (Nadya’s December 1st and Shamik’s November 29th, only 2 days interval). Their group had seen the tiger passing by while they were sitting in a Jeep. Their group was really lucky as that day, because there were almost 30 groups but only 3-4 groups could be fortunate enough to see the tiger. She told me about Jim Corbertt, a British who living in remote areas in India, famous for his tigers and leopards hunting. Actually, he was a conservationist and naturalist and he slew only those man-eating tigers and leopards.

I asked her about future plan, whether she would stay here in India or go back to Russia. She said that she had got accustomed to life here. Moreover, living is expensive now in Russia and the politic situation is unstable. But she did miss Russia, particularly the atmosphere of Christmas (Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7th), which was not the same here.

That night, I slept in a sleeping bag she gave to me. We all slept on the floor in the same room. I recalled her stories. I was impressed and touched by her love of nature, her strong spirit and characters. I really wish for all your dreams come true, and may you stay happy forever, dear Nadya!

Love.

 
Nadya and Shamik at their wedding, October 2009

Hospitality Club*: www.hospitalityclub.org, a useful site for young people who like travelling and learning from other cultures. Members can get or offer, vice versa, free accommodation, guided tour.., kind of cultural exchanges. I get to know this site from Kjell, our teacher of the online course on Sustainable Development.