A Week of my life
I have lived in Chennai all throughout my life. We were not great travellers as a family mainly due to my mom's great and stationary job at Chennai. For the first 20 years of my life, I have never crossed Hyderabad in the Northern direction. For many chennaites, Hyderbad was like North India. Taj Mahal was as alien to me as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Colliseum at Rome and I marvelled at its beauty when Aishwarya Rai danced before it in Jeans.
[Random Thought: Me was never a fan of Aishwarya Rai. I was a bigger fan of Sushmita Sen for the sole reason that SS's twins were better than AR's. Also, how thoughtless of Shankar to shoot in seven wonders of world with the most bizarre human being God ever created- Prashant. I have always thought God was in a pissed off mood when he decided to create Prashant- he decided to take the worst in both sexes and make an individual...]
But the chance did finally come before I left India for the Bush Country. It was in 1999. Four years after I had started shaving and three months after I ended my life as a teen in which I did nothing great but chase skirts. It was a college trip to Delhi, Agra and Nainital. I was initially ambivalent about going after a "not-so-great" GRE performance. But then, sometimes in life, you got to say "What the fuck?" and I decided to pack the bags in the eleventh hour and decided to go. Probably the best eleventh hour decision in my life and no exaggerations, there are many many more eleventh hour decisions that I have/am/will taken/taking/take in life....
[I have always wanted to do this in my blog. Put a Disclaimer. So here is a personal moment of triumph and cheap thrill...
DISCLAIMER: I am writing the details out of memory so there might be some distortion of facts. So, if people who were with me on the tour read it, please adjeest. There shall be no correction to this copy ]
We started from Chennai Central and I had 50 other people for company- 40 guys and 10 girls. This was our big chance to jingle, mingle although the ratio was bad. Having a walkman in those days was a major *philum* tactics... Having an headphone plugged into your ears even when there was no music playing was a big *ishtyle* statement. I did it many many times. In hindsight, I may look like a clown but I relegiously believed it when I did it. I am definitely not proud of some of the songs that played into my ears those days - "As Long as you love me" , "Words, everlasting words" and the worst part is I used to like them. A fair cry from my present day musical preferences ,where nothing but hard rock keeps me tuned to one station, but as I said before "Been there, done that"
So, the train journey was a day and half long through parts of South India, Central India and then finally the "destination royale"- Agra. I loved trains in India. It was a cross cultural experience. A true melting point of different cultures and points of view. Even when you did not have company, it was enchanting to occupy the window seat and look at the passing scapes, people, cattle etc. The train on this journey passed through places that I have read about in Geography books. For ex: Nagpur, the city of oranges. True to its name, people were hawking oranges even in the station just like Vegas has casinos even as you step out of the airplane doors.
The train passed through the Narmada river. The belief is that Narmada is like the wishing well and people's wishes come true when the drop the coins into the river. As we passed the river, I flaunted my General Knowledge to my friends saying "Medha Patkar is fighting against the dam" knowingly fully well that there won't be any more questions from them. I didn't know the full story of the dam then and if I get a chance again to pass through the river, I am sure what to wish , when I drop that coin into the lap of the river Naramada. And how I wish, I had known more then and did something about it.....
I am believing that the train must have passed through Bhopal. It is an irony that I don't even know whether the train passed through Bhopal when I speak about Bhopal at length these days. Life has indeed come a long way. I have vowed to take a journey to this resurgent and courageous city, the next time I hit India. Let me see whether I can keep it up..
The train trudged along the Chambal valley and we were promptly asked to close the doors as it was an area of the dacoits. So after a day and half, here we were at Agra. A city that houses the Taj Mahal.
I don't want to write more... the rest is here in these pictures- obviously not taken by me but these pics were the real inspiration behind this long post....
North India
I have lived in Chennai all throughout my life. We were not great travellers as a family mainly due to my mom's great and stationary job at Chennai. For the first 20 years of my life, I have never crossed Hyderabad in the Northern direction. For many chennaites, Hyderbad was like North India. Taj Mahal was as alien to me as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Colliseum at Rome and I marvelled at its beauty when Aishwarya Rai danced before it in Jeans.
[Random Thought: Me was never a fan of Aishwarya Rai. I was a bigger fan of Sushmita Sen for the sole reason that SS's twins were better than AR's. Also, how thoughtless of Shankar to shoot in seven wonders of world with the most bizarre human being God ever created- Prashant. I have always thought God was in a pissed off mood when he decided to create Prashant- he decided to take the worst in both sexes and make an individual...]
But the chance did finally come before I left India for the Bush Country. It was in 1999. Four years after I had started shaving and three months after I ended my life as a teen in which I did nothing great but chase skirts. It was a college trip to Delhi, Agra and Nainital. I was initially ambivalent about going after a "not-so-great" GRE performance. But then, sometimes in life, you got to say "What the fuck?" and I decided to pack the bags in the eleventh hour and decided to go. Probably the best eleventh hour decision in my life and no exaggerations, there are many many more eleventh hour decisions that I have/am/will taken/taking/take in life....
[I have always wanted to do this in my blog. Put a Disclaimer. So here is a personal moment of triumph and cheap thrill...
DISCLAIMER: I am writing the details out of memory so there might be some distortion of facts. So, if people who were with me on the tour read it, please adjeest. There shall be no correction to this copy ]
We started from Chennai Central and I had 50 other people for company- 40 guys and 10 girls. This was our big chance to jingle, mingle although the ratio was bad. Having a walkman in those days was a major *philum* tactics... Having an headphone plugged into your ears even when there was no music playing was a big *ishtyle* statement. I did it many many times. In hindsight, I may look like a clown but I relegiously believed it when I did it. I am definitely not proud of some of the songs that played into my ears those days - "As Long as you love me" , "Words, everlasting words" and the worst part is I used to like them. A fair cry from my present day musical preferences ,where nothing but hard rock keeps me tuned to one station, but as I said before "Been there, done that"
So, the train journey was a day and half long through parts of South India, Central India and then finally the "destination royale"- Agra. I loved trains in India. It was a cross cultural experience. A true melting point of different cultures and points of view. Even when you did not have company, it was enchanting to occupy the window seat and look at the passing scapes, people, cattle etc. The train on this journey passed through places that I have read about in Geography books. For ex: Nagpur, the city of oranges. True to its name, people were hawking oranges even in the station just like Vegas has casinos even as you step out of the airplane doors.
The train passed through the Narmada river. The belief is that Narmada is like the wishing well and people's wishes come true when the drop the coins into the river. As we passed the river, I flaunted my General Knowledge to my friends saying "Medha Patkar is fighting against the dam" knowingly fully well that there won't be any more questions from them. I didn't know the full story of the dam then and if I get a chance again to pass through the river, I am sure what to wish , when I drop that coin into the lap of the river Naramada. And how I wish, I had known more then and did something about it.....
I am believing that the train must have passed through Bhopal. It is an irony that I don't even know whether the train passed through Bhopal when I speak about Bhopal at length these days. Life has indeed come a long way. I have vowed to take a journey to this resurgent and courageous city, the next time I hit India. Let me see whether I can keep it up..
The train trudged along the Chambal valley and we were promptly asked to close the doors as it was an area of the dacoits. So after a day and half, here we were at Agra. A city that houses the Taj Mahal.
I don't want to write more... the rest is here in these pictures- obviously not taken by me but these pics were the real inspiration behind this long post....
North India
Never liked ASH myself...keep up the good work of hating her
KD.
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:19 AM
Dude
We have the record of hating anything that is rich and famous :-)
Posted by
Sudarshan |
9:30 AM