Gold Class Seats

If anything good has ever come out of the Indian caste system, Gold class cinema seats would definitely be at the top of the list. The quality of the picture below is a little off, but you get the idea.


There are 6 rows, 8 seats each, of plush leather lazy boys. The seat are electronically controlled, so you have a remote to help with the reclining. All viewers are provided a dry-cleaned blanket.... obviously you can't watch a movie without a blankie :) The tables between the seats is where your food is served, there are no concession stands here. This hall has a full kitchen at it's disposal, and waiters provide you a menu and take your orders before the movie starts.
Very few theaters provide these kind of halls. Lakshmi and I saw Iron Man 2 (in gold class) at Select City in Saket (a newer, western style mall) 30 minutes from the house. The main cinema halls are located on the second floor of the mall, whereas gold class is on the ground floor by itself. In fact, the waiting area for the movie is a lounge, similar looking to a night club, where they serve you a complimentary apple juice in a champagne glass... don't ask why, because I really don't know. Oh, one more thing, there are no previews when in gold class.
And...how much does all this cost? Well, the normal multiplex movie experience (which is usually frequented by the middle class and above) will cost you Rs. 250 (or 6 CAD) and gold seats are Rs. 850 (or 20 CAD). The common labourer would go to the old style cinema, which is simply a single huge hall playing only 1 movie. This is goes for Rs. 100 or even less.

Monkey On The Roof

Our new home in Delhi is the top flat of Lakshmi's family home. The ground floor apartment is occupied by Lakshmi's grandmother and grandaunt. The 1st floor is where my future mother in-law lives and above her you'll find us.

Just outside our bedroom we have a patio area full of potted plants. Penny has really taken a liking to it because there are plenty of birds and squirrels in the vicinity to keep her occupied. This morning, however, I noticed something was a little off. Listening to Penny (relentlessly) barking while I'm still trying to sleep is nothing new, but today Rufus was also going at it. At this point, realizing that getting a fewer extra minutes of sleep just wasn't going to happen, I decided to investigate..... and that's when I saw the monkey on the roof. It was just sitting on the ledge staring down at my dogs. It got startled and moved off when I called in the dogs, but Penny managed to find it again from our living room window just sitting on another ledge. At this point I figured that a picture was duly needed for my blog... unfortunately this monkey must have been camera shy because it jumped away when it saw me trying to take a picture... no worries though, next time I'm going to be better prepared.

Bhimtal

India celebrated labour day on May 1st, so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and headed to Bhimtal which is in the mountains. The weather was perfect for relaxing and even the dogs really enjoyed themselves (excluding the part were Penny almost killed herself).

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The road to Bhimtal... 300 kms. in 7 hours. There are some decent highways along the way, but everytime you pass thru a town it really slows you down.

A Bhimtal mountain from below. The red house was recently built by Lakshmi's mother.

A close up view of the house and one of its gardens. You can't see it in the photo, but the lower balcony has an eaves drop to the left which is similar to the green ones above the windows. To Penny's misfortune, they're very slippery and she fell 8 feet to the ground after deciding to investigate them. Luckily, she was unhurt, but was so traumatized that she didn't bark at any strangers for hours.

The view from the house.

Walking down to the lake for an ice cream :)

A neighbour's house... and their pets :)

That's Ali, our driver. He's buying some meat from the local butcher for himself and the other help at the house.

Return trip... and waiting for a train to pass. Notice our fellow commuters?

This was a first for me, so I really felt the need to share it with all of you :)