"It's my duty" Nishant and Nitin

Yesterday evening when Nitin (right on the picture) came over to give us the train tickets to Amritsar (680Rupees, about $16 for both of us one way in the express train) and to give us a cell phone so they could contact us if necessary, I thanked him several times. Finally he said, "Why do you thank me? It is my duty." I know this duty from Thailand. He and Nishant (on the left in the picture) are Roly's cousins. She told them we were coming and they have taken over all the arrangements for our travel after the conference. Train tickets, drivers to pick us up and drop us off, hotel rooms, air tickets, and for the Agra (Taj Mahal) and Rajistan portions, a car and driver for the 5 days. As relatives of Roly, it is their 'duty' to take good care of us and they are taking incredible care of us, thinking of every little thing. Driving over to campus to meet with us, even though we might not have been there. But now we have been forced into the cell phone world, they can contact us. This sort of familial loyalty and obligations (and they really do not seem to mind at all) was one of those invisible commodities that I came to appreciate long ago in Thailand. While the West's commodities are very tangible (fridge, cars, computers, etc.) the rest of the world has this intangible wealth, wealth that is invisible to visitors unless they become the recipients of it as we have. Anyway, Nitin, even it it is your duty in your customs and we are in your country, we can also share our customs here with you - So thank you very, very much for all the incredible work you Nitin and Nishant are doing to make sure our trip will be easy and memorable.

The picture below is the front room of our JNU housing. I'll need to get a picture of Nitin brilliant smile later. And also, I must say, Nishant has done most of the work and so a giant thank you to him too.