Autumn in Chandigarh?

Driving down the street to work this morning, I noticed golden leaves fluttering down in the breeze and that the streets were lined with them. It seems that instead of the leaves dropping in the Fall as the first frost hits and the trees conserve their energy for winter, they instead jump ship before the onslaught of the unbearably hot summer. Just to give you an idea of what the weather is like here these days, here is the weather forecast for tomorrow:

Tomorrow
Sunny
Low: 20 ºC
High: 37 ºC

And this isn’t even the peak of the hot weather. I miss the “winter” here already. The winter felt more like Fall weather back home – temperatures of about 10 – 15 degrees Celsius for a stretch of four or five months. Ahh… that was nice.

All I can say is, "Wow!"

Here are some pictures of the new Akshardham Temple Monument to World Peace in New Delhi that my colleague sent me. The Swaminarayan Akshardham took the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha 5 years to construct. (Try saying that 3 times fast!)

The Akshardham monument, built without steel, is entirely composed of sandstone and marble. It consists of 234 ornately carved pillars, 9 ornate domes, 20 quadrangled shikhars, a spectacular Gajendra Pith (plinth of stone elephants) and 20,000 murtis and statues of India's great sadhus, devotees, acharyas and divine personalities.

Akshardham means the eternal, divine abode of the supreme God, the abode of eternal values and virtues of Akshar as defined in the Vedas and Upanishads where divine bhakti, purity and peace forever pervades.

Yet another monument to add to the impressive list of sites to see in Delhi!