Mo money mo problems!  Notorious B.I.G said it right when he so wisely 
summed up how money does not lead to happiness.  Travelling to India, a country filled with a vast disparity between the wealthy and the poor, was the first time this meaningful phrase struck a cord with me.   I hadn’t been to India since I was 10 years old, so this last trip was a very a different experience for me.  Initially, besides visiting family, my main mission on this on this trip was to shop.  Walking through the streets of Mumbai, going from one shop to the next, I remember myself feeling frustrated that I wasn’t finding anything I liked.  As I was on the search for my perfect piece of jewelry, Purav was busy taking pictures of the landscape with his DSLR camera.

We walked around like this for a while, before we saw three children who must have been about 10 years old, laughing and having the best time of their lives.  They weren’t wearing any shoes, and their clothes looked like it had holes in them.  They had one plate of food that they were all sharing.  But, despite all of this, they were laughing and joking around with each other.  As they were walking by us, they saw Purav taking pictures and thought he was taking pictures of them.  They started posing, putting their arms around each other and making funny faces.   Purav started snapping away, and the kids were just thrilled.  He showed them the pictures on the camera and they were excitedly jumping up and down because they couldn’t believe they could see themselves on a digital screen.  There was no way we could give them the pictures, but just the fact that they could see themselves was enough to make them happy.  Still smiling they waved and said bye to us, and continued walking down the street barefoot.

That moment was my wake-up call to stop complaining about shopping  
and start enjoying the simplicity of India.  And there was a lot to enjoy right in front of me.  The street vendors selling delicious food like fresh pani puri and corn,  the crazy drivers (which was a little scary but definitely  a good source of entertainment), and of course my favorite – watching all of the random animals on the road from the cows to the monkeys to the goats intermixed with all of the people and no one thinking this is out of the ordinary!