The Sharmas are found!

Hooray! Today we went to see the Sharma's and have a wonderful visit.

We headed out from our hotel in the morning (which despite some oddities, is run by very nice people and thankfully, has comfortable beds!) for the walk up to the Sharma's house. I was not entirely sure how to get there as it has of course been eight years since I was here. We stopped to ask directions to their neighborhood and attracted an instant crowd. We were pointed down through the central market, which is what I remembered.

The central market area is a long narrow passage way through the center of town and filled with typical small shops. To me it is a perfect slice of day-to-day Indian life and something I was excited about seeing again.

As we emerged from the market my memory started clicking and each new turn along the path was looking familiar. I spotted the road the heads up the hill and knew we were on the right track. Every person we saw was surprised to see us, but welcoming and nice. A big SUV with a family in it even slowed down to give us the stare. Alicia found it funny (which it is) and I was simply reminded that during our two month stay eight years ago getting stared at was a daily occurrence.

It may help to point out that Solan, while right on the way to H.P.'s many attractions, gets very few western tourists. In 2000 there was a mention of Solan in the Lonely Planet. It is now gone, and Rough Guide or Footprint (the two other big guide book producers) have left the town out as well. So our experiences here are well off the tourist-trail.

Our walk continued up the hill with me trying to remember where to go. As we reached 'Forest Road' everything began to click and we quickly saw the Sharma's house. On the same road that we walked is Salman Rushdie's childhood home (something of great interest to my sister :).

A bit sweaty, we reached the Sharma's beautiful 1920's era home on the side of the hill, tucked right at the end of the road at the beginning of the forest. The spot was as wonderful as I remembered. I knocked on the door and it was answered by Paven and Reinu Sharma's youngest son, Nanu. He was in 2nd grade last time I saw him. He is in 10th now!

We sat and chatted for I think a couple of hours. It was amazing to see everyone and hear about the boys in school (the eldest is in Pune (a few hours from Mumbai) studying mechanical engineering. He was 12 when I was last here).

One topic that came up was that Reinu remembered me being very quiet and not over on the Sharma's side of the house very often (our rooms were in a separate wing). Eeek! I didn't remember not wanting to hang out back then, but I suppose I was busy with our teaching duties and taking lots of pictures. In any case, I was very happy I could make up for being quiet eight years ago by finding the Sharma family now!

Apparently my roommate during our stay her, Dan Ayers, also came back to Solan on a trip to meet a fellow named Manoj, who helped organize our stay here and walked Dan up the side of the mountain to a small village school where Dan taught. The Sharma's were not home when he was here, but he left a note. So I guess we're number two to make it back, but the first to be totally successful.

An absolutely divine, home cooked lunch was served to us and we all sat down to eat. Two amazing dals, a briyani, a pasta and vegetable dish, a special milk-free desert for me, the list goes on and on! One thing Alicia really wanted in India was a home meal experience, and I'm so glad we got to have one with the Sharma's.

We visited for a while more after eating and looked at our blog and pictures on the computer. Paven also found a scrapbook of thank you's and pictures from the group of us in 2000 and we got to sit down and look at it. Very wonderful to see everyone's pictures and notes. Though I was not in any of the pictures since I was taking them, though Reinu thought this was more evidence of my not-wanting-to-hang-out-ness :)

We are going to spend tomorrow in Solan as well, as we are not particularly excited to go back to Delhi with all the nonsense and absurd heat (95-98F, with 60%+ humidity) and we have an afternoon tea planned with the Sharma's. Of course, we are super excited.