Travel Tales

Ok , just returned from a week long trip to Delhi Agra and Jaipur and my ! was it good or was it good ! I'll probably bore you with a detailed account of each place I visited and what hit me most while being there in another post, Ok? Not ok ? Well , you've no choice 'cause you don't have my password , so there!

Some " Did you knows"
Did you know..

1. That Delhi isn't like Bangalore ? Well Duh , I mean like no one wakes up before 11 and there is no concept of a Darshini ! People eat bread toast an chai from the road-side vendor who sports an oil tin for a seat!!

2. That its very normal for a man to be carrying 5 buffaloes in an open cart , and casually lift up its tail so that the buffalo can attend to its nature call? I mean the nature call of the waterfall kind...
I wondered why he would want to do that ,is it to prevent the.. err waterfall remains from slapping merrily against him ? hmm ..

3. A snake charmer who's traveling alone has no choice but to hold his snake firmly at a feet's distance while he attends to his nature call. I mean what else could he do?Ask of a stranger "Here , could you hold this for a while?" No NO! Hold it calmly and do whatever!

Driver time tales

We'd hired a car to take us from Delhi to Agra and Jaipur , and the driver gave us some laughs!

1. My mother was "mataji" and Altoid and I were "sister" and my Dad was "Daddyji". So that makes him our brother. Our brother Pappu.
2.He would referring to a "construction" (and trust me there were quite a lot of them in Delhi)
as a "contraction" , and it used to send a mixture of pain and laughter through us every time he said that!
3.While we were passing through a set of houses in the outskirts , he casually informed us (in the tourist guide style) that " Yelloji , this is a red light area". And I heard it as the "red alert area" and I started quizzing him " Pappuji , what happened over here? Is there a curfew??" . All this while the mataji pictured me with a noose around my neck..
4. My Dad would fondly call him " Paapu".Total south indian ishtyle!

Tales from Firang ..

A foreigner asking the guard at Rajghat..
" Where is Gandhi?"
Mom(in the background , of course): " Turning in his grave"


You know you're missing home when...
1.When in the middle of Karol bagh , you jump at the sight of a Udupi restaurant and you clamber inside to taste a Vada and coffee that you haven't had in what seems like light years! And you look happily at the steel tumblers and plates and the CHUTNEY!

2. You are walking along in Karol Bagh and a weary southie voice behind you says " Bhaisaab , where is Udupi?" And Altoid jumps from somewhere and beams at the man and says kindly (I understand your pain types) " Go left"

Additionally , I was reading Indu Sundaresan's " Feast Of Roses" , a sequel to the "Twentieth Wife" , a tale about Nur Jahan while on the trip , it added that final touch to the trip , the pleasure of standing on the very same spot that the Emperor and his Empress had perhaps walked 600 years ago is just about priceless..