It’s not the first time I am in Aligarh. But each time the feeling is the same. It’s like stepping into time-machine and setting the knob to the late seventies/early eighties of Delhi. There is indeed a quaint charm that never fails to attract, be it the cemented roads, or the old-fashioned houses and shops and a general aura of languidness that permeates in the very air that passes over Aligarh. It forces open nostalgic childhood memories – especially, of all those holidays spent in Ludhiana, in my nanihaal. The city exemplifies tehzeeb and the welcome and the hospitality that I receive here is tremendous and very touching.

Yesterday, while sitting at Deepak Restaurant at Aligarh’s ‘most happening’ area – the Centre Point – I viewed the place with interest. And the first thing that crossed my mind was the movie Chameli Ki Shaadi. Remember the place where Anil Kapoor dates Amrita Singh the first time – the Pinto Restaurant? Deepak Restaurant seemed to have jumped out from that movie’s set – the same long sofas with mica-covered tables and waiters in loose cotton and crumpled ‘uniforms’, worn for the sake of wearing one. It’s a place where the local Majnu will get his besotted Laila, sit in the corner-most table and chat non-stop, nonsense-nothings over a slow intake of one Coke (well, if only Campa Cola was still there, the setting would have been complete!). It’s an outlet that has those over-used menu cards covered in stained plastic. And, it’s a place that would invariably play some old hit Hindi film song.

After a widely successful meeting, my colleague and I chose to ‘discover’ the town. Earlier, the visits were always hectic – meetings and more meetings, and even if we stayed the night, we usually ended up being too exhausted to venture out. But yesterday, despite the fatigue, we decided to ‘hit it’.

Earlier, when I had asked about Aligarh’s night life, another colleague (and a local here) raised his brows lewdly and asked, ‘What kind?’ ‘ Well, not the kind that you are hinting to,’ I replied hurriedly, in a mock-horror tone, and added, ‘I am sure there must be more to the night activities than just that.’ Though within the ambit of ‘that’ there seems to be a lot happening – including an amusingly horrifying tale about how a man was smuggled into some girls’ hostel, ‘raped’ seventeen times and left to die off; how the ’sex mafia’ of these womens’ hostel operates and should some man (say, a lover of some inmate) cross the dreaded gates, he is bound to be ’sexually abused’!!!

As it turned out, there wasn’t actually much to do.

So we went to the only market that would be open on Tuesdays – a ladies one, at that. Amir Nishan, quite near the Medical Road leading to Medical College, is a long and thin road stacked with shops on both sides selling colorful saris, suits, dupattas and other knick-knacks, covering from the low to middle class and some very high-profile shops as well, with the store names written on iron boards in English and Urdu. Intermittanly, there were the ubiquitous snacks-walas selling gol-gappas and sundry other ‘Indian fast-food’. The market was alive and vibrant, brightly lit and extremely colorful.

We strolled the entire length, upto Dodhpur, where it ends and another one takes over – more general in its category this time. There were kirana stores, and biryani houses, and other general item shops. Somewhere we also noticed an old bank, with signage that seemed to have stayed there right from the time of its installation.

As we loitered, my colleague started humming ‘Rukh se zara naqaab hatado mere huzoor‘ and I naughtily reprimanded him – wrong choice of song! The place was full of women in the hijaab.

We returned to the hotel as the shopkeepers called it a day and the shutters downed. It was an enjoyable, lazy and laid-back evening – a slice of time I will treasure in my memories, and one that will remain fossilized in its multi-hued nostalgic contours on my mind and on this space.

Technorati : Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh

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