In another world and time, a trip to Europe would have meant a detailed blog-entry. But I am back already after a packed week travelling in trams and trains of Austria and Germany (with a short detour into Hungary), and it’s a week already, and I haven’t even thought of updating this space. Nay, even there, while viewing and visiting those lovely gardens and castles and palaces (and yeah, a slice of their night-life), I didn’t ‘think’ of how it would end up as a post. Perhaps, it was better then. At least, I ‘saw’ and ‘felt’ more, because I knew I had to convey it all to the readers.

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Look at life’s irony – there was a time, on this very blog, when I had wanted to give it up all and walk away. During those crises-ridden days, I sought escape routes that were not available, and as lazy hours stared back with their longing eyes, I would return to this page, trying to form words out the creative stupor and nether that I was in.

Today, the scenario is diametrically opposite – I have so much to tell, yet I am not able to find those lazy hours (nay, moments) where I can sit leisurely to sort that jumble of thoughts and events and celebrations into a neat and tidy readable post(s). Here is, in capsule, all those posts that never saw the life on this blog, but could have been, and who knows, might also find themselves written sometime in future:

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…and very soon. But just a quick update to those who have actually ventured into this space the past few days:

I am still home-less. More than me (after all, the company guest house is so comfortable) it’s my packers-and-movers guy (who is holding my stuff en-route from Agra at New Delhi) who is exasperated. From the gruff ‘when will you give me an address to send your dumb stuff’ he has now stepped down to a worried plea ‘boss, saamaan mangaa lo please’. I dread at thought of his final bill amount.

Nagpur is the new city added to my list of travels (and I type this post from a horrible cyber-cafe from there).

I stepped into Delhi for a brief while for Diwali. What to say? The four days simply whizzed by. My apologies to all whom I must have promised to meet, but didn’t.

I watch movies aplenty. And my current haunt is Cinemax at Versova. Their Red Lounge (with huge reclining sofas) is a treat, and the cheese pop-corns delicious. A bit late, but here are one-or-two sentences on the movies seen:

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I am back to what I am best at – travelling the road. This time, it’s the interiors of Maharashtra. Pune is an old haunt, but this time it felt a tad too far off as the Volvo bus driver decided to pick up anyone and everyone to fill up the empty seats, before leaving Mumbai. The early morning journey ended in early noon.

Pune to Nashik followed immediately (since the bus had consumed the time I had reserved for there). Been used to the rugged Uttar Pradesh terrain, the route surprised me. It was lush green and weaved through little hills and hillocks (the ghats), passing through vast stretches of open and lush cloud-kissed lands, uninterrupted by man or nature. “What Switzerland? Why don’t our film-makers shoot here?” I wondered aloud. It was just the flawless location for a mesmerizing love duet!

En route Nashik, after one meeting at Sangamner, we saw a signboard of Shirdi. ‘Is it nearby?’ I asked. It seemed so. Since it would be late in any case for Nashik, we decided to pay darshan at Shirdi. It’s a typical temple-town, with all its infrastructure and business centered around Sai Baba’s Temple. We got a lovely darshan…that too on a Thursday, the day considered auspicious to the sage.

We started for Nashik after the sun had convincingly risen in some other part of the planet.

I fell in love with Nashik the moment I saw it. Wide roads, pretty clean and without any rush. It’s the ‘Pune of some fifteen years back’, my colleague remarked. A ring of mountains nestled the quaint town. The air was fresh and vibrant, and it must have helped my lungs, for I had a very deep sleep that night (it could also be due to the immense fatigue, as that day we did a whopping 9-10 meetings, in a row, one after the other – and by the end of which, another cup of tea or coffee would have made me throw up).

We stayed there for two days, and returned on Saturday late evening. It was a fruitful visit. And adds one more town in my long list of places visited.

Mehtab Bagh is a finely laid down garden, right opposite the Taj Mahal, across River Yamuna. From here, one gets a beautiful view of the monument, while resting in a shaded and cool atmosphere. The garden, built in a typical symmetrical style that Moghuls patronized, is said to be built by Shahjahan as an extension of the Taj Mahal only. However, some say that he had also kept this space to build a replica of the Mahal, but in black marble. These are more conjectures, than facts.

Feast your eyes:

(From Top To Bottom)- 1. The Taj Mahal across River Yamuna, 2. As seen from the shrubs of Mehtab Garden, 3. The well-planned and laid down garden and 4. Aadha-Taj: Seen through a rubble in the park, which people claim to be the site for the Black Taj Mahal

Photographs by Kislay Verma & Deepak Jeswal

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The gypsy is ready to move on. The tent has been folded, the bags packed and the caravan ready to trudge to yet another new place.

I left Agra – and my job – in the early evening of 31st August, and drove down what is probably – at least till now – the last drive on NH-2. This time I humored the stubborn ‘auto’ drivers, and smiled at the obstinate bus-drivers who wouldn’t give you way even if you blink your car blind and honk yourself to deafness. It took more than the mandatory four hours on that highway, but what the hell, I might not see it again for a long long time.

The last few days went in a daze. The city burned itself in a silly fight and curfew was imposed on several areas. For me, it was deja vu all over again. The last time I had left a city (Kathmandu, for the uninitiated), it was clamped down by curfew, although for a vastly different reason. It seems whenever I have to leave a town, it bleeds itself in pain!

Memories! They are a strange lot. Just when I thought I had nothing positive to say about Agra, other than its gargantuan wonder in marble, I seem to recall all its plus points. Here is what all passed my mind when I hit the bed the night of 31st August, in my own bed in Delhi, but my heart wandering in the curfew-stamped city 200 kms away:

• Sadar Bazar – a vibrant and vivacious market place, which could be a setting for such romantic novel that can only be written for a small town. It’s Sunday crowd, in their best and brightest dresses, the row of eateries right in the middle, the blazing neon signs, and that small lane filled with the most sumptuous chaats and gol-gappas – all its aromas tickled my nostrils and memories!
• The area around Fatehabad/Shamshabad Road, where I stayed for past one year. Wide open roads and lesser traffic, I took to the locality the moment I saw it. My open and spacious flat, in a gigantic white structure (which is also visible from Google earth, yes it was pretty large!) is a place I will miss for long.
• Pacific Mall – a place I visited nearly every Friday evening to catch the latest release at its in-house multiplex – Fun Cinemas. Sadly, I tried to visit it a day before leaving, but the place was closed down due to the civic unrest in the town. Hours spent there, generally whiling away time, in its atrium, or cruising by the aisles of Big Bazar are moments to cherish.
• The amount of heritage that Agra holds in its folds is indescribable. Before the unrest began, a friend and I visited Sikandra, Itmaudallah and that superb garden just opposite Taj Mahal – Mehtaab Bagh. What a serene location, with the Taj smiling benignly across the river.
• The slow and languid pace that often irritated the big city boy within me, but what I would love to return to. Even though the city was maddeningly rushing on its M.G. Road, not even stopping by to accomodate the car that would have been stuck due to some reason, there was still a paradoxical slowness that appealed.
• Sonam Bar (Shooters Club) at Agra Cantt and Jaiwal Bar (at Sadar Bazar) are firmly etched in my mind. Despite alcohol being costlier in UP (as compared to Delhi), it was the old-fashioned look and feel of these bars and restaurants that will haunt me for a long time.

There are more, and I will return to them sometime later, just the way I did so with Nepal. My next destination is not undisclosed to many readers (I have, after all, literally shouted over the emails and chat and forced it over whoever was interested, or not interested, to listen!).

It’s a new place, a new job and a new life. The gypsy will set his tent again. But for how long? Only time can tell. And of course, this place too.

Till then, au revoir Agra!

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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.

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Standing on my balcony late last night, I looked in the darkness towards where Taj Mahal is. I wondered if it realized that millions would be watching about it’s fate in the New Seven Wonders list on their television sets (and live in Lisbon). Did it understand its own grandness? More importantly, did the callous city which houses it realize it’s importance. During my stay here I have heard several derogatory comments against it (many industries had to be shifted/relocated due to the environmental pressures, leading to a lot of unrest and discomfort amongst the business community).

Unfortunately, the cable here chose to vanish and I couldn’t catch the New Seven Wonders results. Today morning as I made way to pick up the newspaper, I stopped again to look at the white marble wonder, standing dignified surrounded by rain-clouds, and I hoped that it would have made it through to the new seven wonders.

It has!

Here is the final result of the New Seven Wonders List, as announced in a glittering function in Lisbon (Portugal), attended by our very own dusky siren Bipasha Basu and Agra’s mayor.

The New Seven Wonders list has evoked several responses – from excitement to indifference to cynicism to controversies (after all it’s just a private new list, without even the official sanction on UNESCO! The Egyptians pulled out of the vote in a huff!). Then some found the ‘false patriotism’ unleashed the past few months to enable voting highly distasteful.

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Jaipur impressed me. While driving on the University Road leading up to Hotel Clarks Amer, it gave a feel of a mid-Eastern city (Dubai or Doha) replete with gigantic grunting construction machines peeping out of neatly-defined very foreign-looking boundaries ( I guess a World Trade Center is getting built there). The smooth wide road dotted with street lights (that actually worked) and lined by steel-and-glass architecture gave a very international feel. For me, Jaipur is an old halt – I have visited it several times, done all the touristy things and even once got my car accidented. But it’s the first time I felt that the city has actually progressed well. Compared to Agra (the other angle in North India’s Golden Triangle), it came off as the bigger, neater and more responsible cousin. However, the drive to Jaipur didn’t offer anything smooth as this portion of the axis is still under construction – perhaps a couple of years down the line, Agra-Jaipur Highway will give stiff competition to the current Delhi-Jaipur one.

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It is six a.m.The sun’s golden streaks hesitantly color the azure sky. The birds softly twitter. The air is midly nippy.Despite the bird’s musical chirrup, there is a deep silence; a silence which doesn’t hurt but balms the frayed and frittered nerves. I haven’t brought any woolens. I wrap the hotel’s white bedsheet, like a shawl, and step into the dawn’s welcoming arms.

I walk out of the gate and move upwards on the road; it carries the sign which displays Trekking/Walking Route in English and Hindi, at the end of which a cemented block will inform that it is a path on which Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first Prime Minister) walked on. The narrow road is empty and snakes upwards in multifold curves. The fresh air meets resistance from my city-sooted lungs but soon they acclimatize. My nostrils tingle as they greet the sweet smelling blended fragrance of pine and early morning.

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Agra opened its doors to the second mall – the sprawling TDI Mall, on Fatehabad Road, adjacent to Pacific Mall, the only other existing one in town. TDI Mall is much larger in size and will carry a variety of brands.I visited the place on its inaugural day on Sunday. Frankly, as of now it’s quite disappointing and boring since only Pantaloons and McDonalds have opened shops. The rest will take some time to come up.

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My tryst with rural India added one more chapter this week. This time, I went deeper into the villages. Kagarole isn’t new to me; I have been there often. But this time we planned to not skim through it; instead we rolled up our trousers and plunged into the villages surrounding the place.

Mercifully our host suggested that we travel in-road in the company’s hired Mahindra Jeep; a decision for which I thanked him profusely, since the ride was unimaginably bumpy and only a sturdy vehicle could have negotiated the kachhi sadak. The recent rains had added their own soggy and muddy designs.

“Adventure!” my colleague remarked, crouched on the back seat, as we plunged deep into another crater-size pot-hole. Yeah indeed, I grimaced, sitting tightly in the front seat, with another official on my left, and the long gear handle sticking into my abdomen on the right. Earlier, I was positively scandalized when the driver suggested I sit at the back, but since the door wouldn’t open I didn’t risk jumping in.

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Tuesday 6^th February (Contd.)

Mathura is approx. 10 km away from Vrindavan, towards Agra. We reached around one in the noon. The temples would be closed but since we couldn’t go on to Agra and then return, we chose to kill time at Mathura.

Over the years Mathura has extended and grown haphazardly around the NH2. Modernity has brushed it with colorful malls and markets right on the highway.

The main town is seven kms inside from the highway, and there are several entrances to it. I entered from one inroad only to be rudely stopped by another municipality tax ‘booth’ . Since I have often visited Mathura on official tours I knew this wasn’t any official tax. Adamant in not warming the pockets of any hooligans I reversed the car, and careened into the town from another inroad that I knew of.

There are two main attractions here Shree Krishna Janamsthan (SKJS) or Janmbhoomi and Shri Dwarkadheesh Temple. Near the parking of SKJS, guides besieged us and we chose another young boy a class tenth student, yet again.

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Saturday 3^rd February

I left Agra late in the noon. My boss called up asking an important budgeting file, and my plans for leaving early were halted. Even as I struggled to get the figures correct on the excel file, visions of burgeoning traffic at Faridabad loomed eerily in my mind. The stomach added its own grumbling chorus since I had skipped breakfast in order to get the house ready for my parents welcome here on my return trip.

I wriggled out of Agra by three p.m, and reached Delhi by eight in the night, stopping mid-way once at Mathura’s McDonalds (on the highway) for a quick bite.

At home, we finalized the itinery for the Mathura and Agra trip for Tuesday and Wednesday, cropping off a lot of things we wished to add. My sister (from Pune) was very keen about the Mathura part of the trip.

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Where am I? To put it square and straight – on Delhi-Agra highway! It isn’t as if I taken up a house there, but the amount spent on it far exceeds my normal quota. For details, you will have to wait a bit more – till the time I am able to gather my thoughts and wits and present them in a chronologically neat pattern. I will leave with saying I had a delightful trip visiting the insides of Mathura, Vrindavan and Gokul, added with another trip to Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri.

I will be back soon. Till then, don’t click that little red ‘cross’ button on the top right hand corner right now. I have transferred a few old posts from the older blog – for your reading pleasure!

Other than Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri is another important historical place here. Situated around 33 kms from Agra, it is on the border of U.P., next to Bharatpur in Rajasthan. The site for Fatehpur was first discovered by Babar, but it was his descendant Akbar who built the fort here. At one point, he had contemplated to shift the capital here, but the water problem thwarted his plans. Folklore has it that Akbar was desperate for a son and had visited Ajmer dargah for blessings. There, he had a dream that he should visit Saleemuddin Chishti at Fatehpur, which he did (reportedly on foot). His queen, Jodhabai was blessed with a son, and Akbar named him after the saint – Saleem. Since then, the dargah is known for fulfilling all wishes and prayers.

The fort’s Bulund Darwaza is stated to be the biggest gate in Asia, and admittedly it is quite an awesome sight. The dargah, in white marble, is pure and serene. And yes, there is also the closed gate leading to a tunnel that supposedly links Agra with Red Fort in Delhi. Mughal-E-Azam was reportedly shot here, probably the last time the tunnel gates were ever opened.

Otherwise, there have been several films/songs shot on the premises, including Yateem, Lal Pathar and the most famous of all – Pardes (Do dil mil rahe and the climax qawaali).

Fatehpur is still the property of Saleemuddin Chishti’s descendants, and hence has free entrance. The neighboring (and more clean and well maintained) Sikri , however, is with ASI and there is a nominal entry charge of INR 20 (for Indian nationals).

(Clockwise, from top left) 1. Bulund Darwaza- It was tough fitting it on the camera phone’s miniscule lens. Still I think I managed well. 2. The ‘Mughal E Azam’ tunnel-as the local guides there will describe. Supposedly it links to Delhi’s Red Fort 3. The ‘Dargah’ at Fatehpur – Very serene!

Photographs: Deepak Jeswal, Kislay
Taken on : Nokia 3230
Dated : 28.01.07

More on Fatehpur : The Mughal Gallery , Fatehpur , Tourism-Fatehpur/Sikri

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It was to be a routine trip to Etah through bumps, bambas and breakers -but it ended up with something very interesting and exciting.

Indeed, it started off in a routine manner. The journey began from National Highway No. 2 (NH2), from Agra towards Firozabad. Driving on that stretch of NH2 is bliss: the six-lane carriageway is sans traffic, well marked and extremely smooth, and much better than the sector between Delhi and Agra. Lest we forget that we are actually in east UP, the bliss had to end pretty soon. Leaving the butter-smooth NH-2 en route at Tundla, we turned left on the high-way towards Etah, and were immediately greeted by broken roads, impossibly rough jerks and a cloud of dust.

Mercifully, the narrow road to Etah is overall much better compared to other places I have visited, except for the grueling stretch at a place called Nagla Beech. No, there is no ocean here, though there is enough sand to give the ‘beach’ effect. Nagla, as we learnt later, is a local word for small or mini , equivalent to dera in Punjabi.

The scenery was pretty much the same also except that on Basant Panchmi, the sarson fields seemed to sway in full bright basanti color!

On route we stopped at Awagarh, our first visit.

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It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, but some days back I was again on the drive. This time, we were on the stretch between Agra and Firozabad, which falls within Agra District – or so we thought.

Just for formalities sake, allow me to list out the towns/villages we crossed; of course, interspersed with a few incidents that made it possible for this post to be written.

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Yesterday, spent some more time on the rough and rugged Western U.P. roads – this time on the outskirts of Aligarh. The road from Agra to Aligarh seems to worsen with each visit (it seems they are re-building the road and replacing it with a cemented one; but by the way things are moving, it looks it would be another decade before they complete it!) The ride shook, stirred, moved, hurtled and swung me around in the terribly uncomfortable Maruti Van, which our taxi provider had sent in lieu of the usual (and more comfortable) Indica.

The list:

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In my farewell post from Nepal, I had said I will someday surely re-visit my Nepal memories. These few days, I have been regularly visiting those memories, viewing at the snaps taken there and remembering small details which normally I thought I had forgotten. It is difficult to write down all the things, so I will just mention the top ten things that I miss in Nepal.

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