Jeff Greenwald about a trip to India with his 75-year-old mother. “Not only was this my mother’s first trip to Asia, but she and I had also never travelled together,” he writes in the Los Angeles Times.
The driver tossed our bags into the trunk of a white Ambassador cab and pressed his palms together.
“Welcome to India, sir. Is this your wife?”
“No, she’s my mother.”
Mom giggled; neither of us was sure whether the driver’s motivation was flattery or innocence. But it was an encouraging start to an adventure I had planned with anticipation and anxiety.
Bringing my mother to India had seemed an inspired idea. I’d wanted to give her something spectacular for her 75th birthday: an eight-day tour around northern India’s signature sites — Delhi, the palaces of Rajasthan, the Taj Mahal — and of the country that had so profoundly altered my own worldview.
My misgivings were equally broad. Not only was this my mother’s first trip to Asia, but she and I had also never traveled together. And although she had been to Israel and Europe, including Russia, India was something else entirely.
May 24, 2008 at 3:20
quite informative