Cycling through Delhi, saying goodbye to Ganesh and the night train to Jabalpur
Thursday 24 September 2026
Today was a quiet day. In the morning I went cycling through Delhi with the son of Yasha's brother. That is an adventure in itself, because there are no cycle paths at all, and hardly any pavements either. The culture in India is: take the car, even if you only need to go round the block. If you cycle or walk, you are seen as poor, and nobody goes to any trouble for poor people. You just walk or cycle in between the cars. All very safe ;D
So what did we do? We just cycled in between the cars, and to hell with all those cars and all that honking. Then they'll just have to build cycle paths and pavements, hahaha.
But honestly: it was a joy, especially when we cycled through Delhi's beautiful parks. There are more and more of them, and they keep getting bigger and more beautiful.
After that it was time for my Hindi lesson. Yes, people, I can already write in Hindi! I don't know yet what all the words mean, but I can spell them. I know how to pronounce every letter and which letter of our alphabet goes with it.
Now I just have to learn what I'm actually writing. Step by step, just like cycling through Delhi traffic: keep going and don't overthink it.
Friday 25 September 2026
Today was all about the preparations for Ganesh Visarjan. That is a ceremony on the evening of the last day of a ten-day festival for Lord Ganesh (the god with the elephant head; for more about Ganesh and what he stands for, ask Google, ChatGPT or any other helper you can think of 😉). On that evening we say goodbye to him with lots of music and singing.
We celebrated it at the home of Yasha's brother and sister-in-law, together with some thirty other guests. It was the first time I experienced this, and honestly it was intense to see all those people who are so deeply devout. It is beautiful and infectious to watch how some of them almost go into a trance from the songs they sing.
After that, the idea is to let the statue of Lord Ganesh, which we had made ourselves ten days earlier from natural clay from the riverbank, dissolve in the water of a river, so that he can leave with the current. And yes, I had helped make it too. See the photos of our day with this blog! Sadly this tradition is not always followed, and people often buy a Ganesh made of plastic or other artificial junk, which is then thrown into the sea or a river and does not dissolve but pollutes everything. That is not at all what this festival is about.
I must say that all of this shows how social and how much fun these traditions make life: the togetherness, the warmth and the humour that come with them. I now understand why Hinduism has so many festival days.
Ten days ago we made him with our own hands, and tonight we let him go again. Perhaps that is the most beautiful lesson of this festival: you can make something with love, and then let it go with love too.
Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2026
In the morning there was quite a bit of stress packing for our departure to Jabalpur. Luckily the sleeper train didn't leave until 17:55, and we arrived the next morning at 9:00. How beautiful it was to watch the landscape from the train window. India's nature is really something to experience, and an enormous contrast with the cities, which are often not all that clean. The only downside of the journey was the snoring of our fellow passenger in the cabin. What a racket that man could make! I didn't sleep a wink.
Once we arrived we were warmly welcomed by Yasha's family, with a delicious, lavish brunch that seemed to have no end. With such a warm welcome, where nothing was too much trouble, it does feel a bit like coming home. The rest of the day was mostly about eating, more eating, and a stream of visitors who came to welcome us and wanted to see what a European actually comes to do in Jabalpur.
A night without sleep, a belly full of food and a house full of new faces. What more could you want, except maybe a power nap 😉