From Diwali to CNY

CNY can stand for Chinese Yuan (the money) or Chinese New Year, this year, it stands for Chinese Niu Year (Niu=Cow in Chinese).

I am so happy to be home for the new year since it really is the biggest festival here, try to imagine, the train station of Guangzhou delivers 800,000 passengers a day a week before the big day, which means we evacuate a whole Chandigarh in one day, so you guess how big the festival is. It is an event for which people would pay double the price just to get a single ticket home, even when he needs to stand on the train for some 20 hours.

Holi is big, Diwali is bigger, but I can say Chinese New Year is even more, in terms of size. Even though, I always let go of my mind back to those days when we play holi in Vikram's big house and try to duck down from the eggs on the street, also those days when we had a big dinner in Jodhpur under the fort, sipping beer and enjoying the Rajasthani dance. Comparatively, India is far more disorganized than home, but the magic is no matter where you are now, you will still miss those days when you stay in a crappy hotel, pinch your nose when you walk pass a big pile of shit and garbage or running away from a river of auto-rickshaw, sometimes I think, it's amazing because of the tradition and the consistence of keeping it.

So Chak De, Bharat!!!