Bracing myself for squalid filth, nose-burning pollution and beggars galore, I was pleasantly surprised when I got off an eight-hour flight at the Indira Gandhi airport in New Delhi for the first leg of my tour.

An ultra-modern airport concealed the burning heat and cacophony of traffic sounds and the sheer mass of people and traffic in this capital city.

Having spent five days here, most of it on business, you can either fall in love with Delhi or hate it with a vengeance.

The traffic is enough to drive you insane. Drivers have scant regard for rules of the road, continuously hoot (horn please, as they say) and, heaven help if you are stuck in a traffic jam, as you could be there for hours. Drivers tuck in their side mirrors to avoid other cars knocking them, tuk-tuks ride rampant, with drivers even daring to abandon broken ones in the middle of the road.

It is no surprise then that the Delhi metro has an average of 1.6 million commuters per day. Delhi, unlike other areas we visited in India, is conservative and bureaucratic and much of the British legacy can be seen here.

The trendy Connaught Place is generally made up of buildings designed with Georgian architecture and the area is modelled after the Royal Crescent in Bath, England.

Located on the banks of the River Yamuna, Delhi has been known to be inhabited since at least the 6th century BCE, though human habitation is believed to have existed since the second millennium BCE. Delhi is also widely believed to have been the site of Indraprastha, the legendary capital of the Pandavas during the times of the Mahabarata.

Delhi re-emerged as a major political, cultural and commercial city along the trade. It is the site of many ancient and medieval monuments, archaeological sites and remains. In 1639, Mughal emperor Shahjahan built a new walled city in Delhi which served as the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857.

Beware the taxi drivers as they will not take you shopping to areas that you want to go to, but to the upper end shops geared at tourists where they receive a commission from the sales. Chandni Chowk, Janpat Market, and the several Diwali fairs that were on when we were there, made for perfect shopping for all things Indian.

Delhi is also home to many of our relatives. The story goes that my great grandfather, Parbhoo Singh Dadwal Thakur, one of two children of a wealthy farmer sent to Gujarat to learn about the textile industries so his father could include that aspect into their family businesses, fled to South Africa after falling in love and marrying a Gujarati woman.

Inter-caste and inter-language marriages were, and still are, much frowned upon. Through the years, however, the family managed to keep in touch with each other and our relatives now live in Shalimar Bagh, a residential area in Delhi.

An evening visit with my dada and dadi (grandfather and grandmother) and Yogesh Chacha (uncle) proved quite informative in terms of tracing our family history. Eating home-made food, with rotis fresh off the thawa (griddle) and onto the plate was a treat after hotel, restaurant and take-out food.

A must visit in Delhi includes India Gate, the several memorials to Mahatma Gandhi, the Mughal tombs and the several temples including Iskcon’s (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) temple.

Arriving in Mumbai at the end of our tour, the stifling humidity reminded us of Durban, making us feel at home. Although of Indian descent, we stuck out like sore thumbs, with many people rather confused as to where we were from. Reading our names, some perplexed people would ask “Are you Indian?” To which we would reply “South African” and they would say “but you look Indian and have Indian names” and we would have to explain the entire story about being third and fourth generation Indians living in South Africa.

Mumbai is the razzle dazzle Bollywood capital and is an ancient city that has embraced modernity in a frenzy. It is neat, clean and has orderly traffic (joy!). There is such a contradiction of immense wealth and heart-wrenching poverty living cheek by jowl.

Bollywood stars and their mansions are there for all to see. Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey building Antilia, costing $77 million, is thought to be the most expensive home in history. Ambani is one of the world’s richest men with a personal wealth of $77 billion, owning the Reliance group. He also owns the IPL team, the Mumbai Indians.

On the other end of town are the dhobi ghats – an open air laundry that employs hundreds of people who wash the clothes and linen of most hotels. Millions of clothing items go through the mill here and it is amazing to see sparkling white shirts emerge from brown water and the right clothes going back to its owner despite there being no tags attached to them.

Without a doubt Mumbai is the shopping capital, with wholesale markets galore and keen prices. Security, however, is intense in Mumbai, especially at the tourist spots and at popular five-star hotels, following last year’s terrorist attacks at the Taj Hotel.

The sojourn to the motherland was an excellent holiday and I would, like many others, love to return, but for me undoubtedly South Africa is home and all I can say is “thank you great-grandfather for hopping on that ship to South Africa”. - Sunday Independent