Happy New Year!

From the basement of the Agra Community Center and YWCA, in what must be the strangest venue from which I've ever rang out the old and in the new. The hotel is nice enough, and they brought in the local high school band to provide the entertainment (best Karen and I can figure that's their parents in the background), but the compulsory buffet didn't start until ten and, perhaps most disappointing, the Taj, which we can see from here, isn't lit up. Even if you don't want to turn on the power every night, this seems like it would be an auspicious occasion. What are they waiting for? Some Hindu celebration I'm not aware of? Perhaps the festival of Devagana (he's the lucky deity who lives in the cow's rectum)? Either way, it's all somehow very Indian.