Early morning perambulation

Professor Harleen Singh joins us on Wednesday morning, just a few hours after arriving in Delhi with her three-month old baby Meher, who is making her first visit to her mother’s native country. Harleen has slept for less than four hours, but she insists on getting Jehuda and me up before 7:00 a.m. for morning exercise in the Lodi Gardens at the southern end of British New Delhi. There we join hundreds of early-rising Delhi residents, walking briskly in pairs and groups, practicing various forms of yoga, and jogging along the park’s circular routes. We wander in and out of 13th century Mughal tombs, and absorbing both the lush greenery of the garden and its riot of sound: the screeching birds, and the raucous rumble of deep human laughter, an exercise that is integral to some practices of yoga.