Greetings from India! After much hemming and hawing, I finally decided to just stick with the original itinerary. I write from an internet cafe nestled in the Himalayan foothills. It really is as beautiful as it sounds.

The town is called Mussoorie, and it was originally set up as a vacation area for the British officers who ran India as a colony until 60 years ago. The air is crisp and clean, and the winding walks are all steep — downhill or uphill. There aren’t too many flat roads when your town is built into the side of a mountain. Kids play soccer, videshis (foreigners) read newspapers, chickens cluck around, and the occasional satellite dish clings tightly to a stone wall surrounding a house.

I first flew into New Delhi a few days ago, where I stayed with my cousin Jyoti and her family. Jyoti is my Didi — in Indian family relations, there are titles to explain all relationships. Didi (pronounced Thee-Thee as in “My country tis of thee”), means older sister. There is no Hindi word that I know of for cousin, and in the old ways of the extended family, cousins were/are literally brothers and sisters. And older sisters — be they direct or cousin — are your didis.

Now, many Indians offer the explanation “cousin-sister” after describing someone as a “didi” to differentiate between a direct older sister and an older female cousin.

Next week’s Hindi lesson:

Why your mama (mother’s brother) isn’t your mami (mother’s brother’s wife).