There is nothing much to be said but.. HERE WE GO..!!
Pune
When they spoke about the pensioner’s paradise, I had an image which was quite contrary to what I noticed in the land of weird names. You would expect pensioners to be over 60, with a constant smile on their faces, taking life easy and walking the walk in the evenings. What you wouldn’t expect were people less than 30, with a constant smile on their faces, taking life easy and getting drunk at every possible corner along with their good-looking women. But in itself, the city is quite interesting and brilliant. You wouldn’t get to hear of places named “pimple”saudagar, shaniwarwada, budhwarwada, or for that matter “anyday”wada or names mouthing obscenities like bhonsdiwada etc. It is fun to just get from one place to another. The heat might get to you, but the city doesn’t. With so many places to drink the evening through, Pune is one place that seems to be at peace with itself. The “don’t bother” attitude is so much better than any other city in India. People are more interested in gossiping, in drinking the quintessential mango juice, in religion. Worldly pleasures and worldly pursuits are not for the gents out there. Life is the breeze that it should be.
Ahmednagar
It is a walk from pune. But a place altogether different in itself. Probably a place with highest density of English speakers, the highest density of et readers, and the lowest density of nokia chargers. The good part is, the other parts of the small town story is still there. There are tum tums. There are tongas. And if you dress a bit formal, people do start thinking that you’re the brand manager of the company you’re interning in. All in all, its a beautiful place and it doesn’t hurt to be treated like a celebrity. It is probably once you come here, that you realise the rationale behind Paris Hilton’s craze for fame.
Srerampore
The tryst with fame continues to srerampore. Apparently, the auto-walas in Ahmednagar knew that I was going to Srerampore before I did. It’s just weird. Not scary, not awesome, just weird. Anyways, if ahmednagar is the sundae, then srerampore seems to be the cherry on top of the icing. Miles and miles of nothing but green fields and rocky hills. The only black spots on the scene were those of the construction equipment. God and the system should have left the place alone. Which brings me to my remorse for not having got my camera.
According to my auto-driver, everything related to the major events in India and the world happened in and around ahmednagar and srerampore. Akbar had attacked the place. Aurangzeb was killed somewhere out here. Great saints and sadhus seemed to have dotted the place like ants. Some of them apparently, have gone on to live for 1600 years. The POWs during World War II were apparently brought here to srerampore. I am sure that Woodstock might also have occurred somewhere near. (Woodstock – ahmedstock J)
Aurangabad
The first comment of my distributor on Aurangabad was that it is a land of fakes. The Taj Mahal, the Ajanta caves, the Gurudwara.. everything has been copied and made in Aurangabad and are now the main tourist attractions in this place. Apparently the copy of the Hanging Gradens somewhere in North India has also been copied and put here- a fake of a fake. Guess that is why most of the FMCG companies are quite cautious while approaching Aurangabad. To top it off, the hotel gave me a fake coke today. However, life seems to be much better than I had imagined. My hotel has a jazz band. Coffee shops and Hookah places do not seem to be more than a mile away. the best part is, Aurangabad has only one main road. Everything that you can imagine should be on either side of this road. If you don’t find what you’re looking for with this guidance, there is something wrong in your character. The city seems to have grown quite a bit since the last time I was here and currently seems to be in the wannabe stage. Give it a few years and you might see a nice stable mature city with good looking women in not-so-blaring clothes and people in not-so-blaring cars.
Surat
Surat was perfect in most ways a small town should be – a bit too perfect I guess. The city seemed to have a personality that spanned only in some parts of the city. The old buildings looked good, with a certain degree of dilapidated humour. The new ones looked more like boxes without any character, built only for existence and nothing else. There are always some premonitions with which someone enters Gujrat. All outsiders, especially people who are not businessman are very sceptical of the place before entering it. However, Surat does dispel this doubt. People are generally nice as most people should be – as we imagine in utopia. Sure, money is the culture out there – but that is not really a bad thing. The pursuit of money is quite entertaining and spectacular – if you do not have to undertake any monetary transaction. Gujrat would probably be the one place that would not be affected even if every country in the world undergoes a subprime crisis. Gujrat in recession would be like cockroaches under a nuclear attack – unaffected. Its awe-inspiring to see the level of business and the intelligence in business followed in Gujrat. And its not only about the Patels. The Reddys and te Sheikhs and the Biswas’ are equally in it. There is something about the air that turns people so. CNBC is on 24*7 and stocks are followed with the same intrest as the IPL matches. Everyone knows every news presenter in CNBC – from the son to the grandmother. Kirana shops that sell only biscuits and soap have hotlines to brokers. It is crazy, the amount of liquidity infused into the market from Gujrat. Trade in commodities is also pretty big. Wholeseller sitting on cartons do trade worth crores in a day. i found an assistant wearing an Armani tee. The owner of the shop said that he had heard about Armani once and had tried it out and did not like it and so gave it to the assistant. The owner himself wears a locally made shirt. You can very well see the order in chaos there. Its absolutely brilliant. A week under the apprenticeship of one of the wholesellers would teacj one more than a month in the IIMs! No wonder, the one in Ahmedabad is doing so well. Brilliant.
Ahmedabad
The story follows in ahmedabad. If something like mehndi sells in values of rs. 10 crores per day, then you can imagine how competitive the market must be and how entertaining it must be for an innocent bystander like me
Rajkot
you must have started believing in the entertainment called the Gujarat market by now. However, the story takes a different turn at Surat. With afternoon siestas being the main purpose of life here, business takes a backseat between one and four and the streets are deserted by three. If there was one place in India which could have the capacity to turn into Madrid, this would be it. A little sauce and a few hot women thrown in, Rajkot would have turned into a perfect Spanish summer. Moreover, it also has a scent of the Bengal communism in itself. Whenever the businessmen feel too lazy to open stores, they call a strike. It might be regarding anything – a strike against inflation, a strike against recession, a strike against work – whatever be the reason, I totally sympathise with the blokes out there (one of the strikers did not know why he had closed shop when asked). Moreover, there is the extra entertainment thrown in with police arrests and resistance to the same. Bloody brilliant.
Lucknow
Lucknow takes me back to the summer afternoons under the lemon trees – lethargic and sunny. Fuck all that people say about UP – fuck the politics, fuck the casteism, fuck the corruption – lucknow is brilliant simply because of its food and the buildings. If the good folks have the sense to make a school look like one of howard roark’s architectures then you can simply imagine.
Kanpur
It is only when you reach Kanpur that you realise the ruin caused by the parties and governments of the present and the past. The city is dying. The last remaining rotting pillars are those of the small time businessmen who have almost retired into their kirana shops. It is hard to imagine that there is a market and that there is consumption going on in this city – and to think of it, it is one of the major cities in UP, not a village, not a town, but a Tier II city with its own airport and railway station – embarrassing. This is the only station where I was mobbed by autowalas and taxi drivers before I even set foot in the city. And it was more of a desperate call than opportunistic. You could see the hunger in their eyes. Unemployment has created dissent, dissent that sends short bursts through the lanes of the city. In 15 minutes I had witnessed two fights and that too for petty reasons. Its sad to see people and cities being wasted away by dysfunctional governments that are more interested in quotas and caste systems than real development. Logic seems to have taken the back seat as the quest for political mileage drives this rickety old caravan.
Varanasi
The story is quite different in Varanasi although its not really the opposite. The temple economy seems to have just overcome the shock of turning into a tourist spot and being perpetrated by signs of globalisation. Varanasi is always one place where you have to go out, no matter how afraid you are of the touts, agents and false godmen. God seems to have left this place a long time ago. Whats left are firang wannabes who believe that Varanasi is going to make them one with their soul and all that nonsense, and the agents and touts that constantly cheat them. There was so much that I had expected of the city. Seeing two and a half lakhs getting stolen from an old man ruined all that. There are probably a few good men left. But they seem to have been effectively locked in their memories. Once the beautiful subject of NatGeo photographers, the city and the river are now dirtied by hypocrites (which basically includes all us fucks who want to show off that we believe in God. Its stupid and disgusting.
Delhi
There is not much to be added about the city. Whatever I have seen is probably pretty ordinary in itself and doesn’t demand much attention. This however, shouldn’t really belittle the city. Among others, and I know that I will have my critics for this, this is the city where I found truth. Whatever is said does not have a second meaning to it. Whatever is shown does not have to be interpreted twice. The heat prevents the hypocrisy in a certain way. People have a certain temper about them and as we all know, temper brings out one’s true self. All that notwithstanding, Delhi has been dear to me for one simple reason – the city has grown from a nightmare to one of the most comfortable cities ever. Two examples would suffice – CNG autos and the Delhi Metro. Everything in Delhi looks new, feels new. There is a certain blend of modernity that cannot be pointed out but is definitely felt.
Ludhiana
Punjab has been dear to me for all sorts of reasons – history, food, women, jokes on sardars, everything. I landed in Ludhiana in the morning at around 5 and went to sleep an hour later. I woke up at eleven for the news and the shit. As a result my first glimpse of Ludhiana and its people was seven hours after I landed in the city. And by God it was brilliant.
You wont find a sad person in Ludhiana. Whatever happens, everyone is damn happy about the way of things. Everything is said with a smile and a certain innocence – even if the person in front of you is damn pissed and is abusing the shit out of you, he would do it with a brilliant wide-eyed smile. Everyone is happy with whatever situation they are in. Two autos passed one after the other in front of me. One of them had the bumper sticker – “pyaar mein hi hai khushi”, and the one following it had the all famous – “no girlfriend no problem”. My customer survey was one of the best Ihad ever done. The women were so happy to divulge their mehndi secrets to the evil corporate that they pulled out all the stops and even gave samples. I was invited to lunch on more than half the occasions and all the pampering led me to have three meals within a span of 2 hours. The women are beautiful – with brilliant hair and a personality that brings out the innocence in you. Even if you were Mephistopheles himself, you would not want to harm them. Their pride over their innocence is so powerful.
Amritsar
my last destination got me thinking over a lot of things. The entire trip had culminated into somewhere near the golden temple. Amritsar is known for its chunnis and its sherbets and it was a brilliant experience to have the local speciality – chicken fried rice and schezwan mushrooms. The city is also unique in many ways. I can now claim that I had an international trip. I waved my hand through the other side of the wagah border and had interviewed a Pakistani soldier on mehndi. Bloody brilliant.
Last thoughts
Travelling alone is much like playing the guitar – pissing off at first, but very personal later on. 12 cities in 24 days has been and will probably be one of the most philosophical and entertaining journeys of my life. There is a lot that we can run away from when we live in a group. There is a lot about our past that we can easily forget when we are with friends or family. People being around helps us to ignore the closet and the bones inside. It is only when you spend so much time alone that you come face to face with them. You try to run away and forget all that nonsense. But things once in your head stay there if you stay silent for a majority of the day. it is then that you face them, fear them, try killing them, and then live at peace. Everyone, no matter how connected should travel alone at some point of time. There is a lot about us that we don’t know.
Peace.
