When we were in India this December we used our MCI international phone card to call home and it worked efficiently. Your family can call you from any hotel with minor front desk charges. You can buy the card on the Costco web page.

Depending on your home telephone service, calls to India from a US land line are very reasonable these days. Some services charge a minor monthly charge for reduced price overseas calls. As several Ziners have noted, there are various telephone stations to be found even in the smallest village, and of course there are the India cell phones, but because of the time zone differences and vastness of the continent, predetermened times for communication from land lines worked for us. Besides, there are bag searches at every historical site and the less metal in your backpack the better.

Peter in San Francisco