TWO STATES
No! As it may be occurring to you, it is not a review of Chetan Bhagat`s latest inscription TWO STATES. As Mr. Chetan Bhagat cannot have copyright over title Two States, I am legally capable of using this title for description of my journey through two states of India where I had never been before.
I was always fond of travelling to new places and seeing new things. And these days I have developed a habit of grabbing any opportunity (for visiting a new place or a good place) without thinking twice. Invitation to one of my collegue’s wedding at Udaipur (Rajasthan) gave me such an opportunity. And the dates being in a weekend and the decision of our entire team to go for wedding did set up a perfect kind of launch pad for my hobby. Till one day before our scheduled departure, the number of person travelling to Udaipur was reduced to half from 12. The number surely went down by half but our spirits were doubled. And we decided to meet up at 6 am in the morning at Bombay Central to Board Bombay Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express. We decided to travel till Ahmedabad by Train and the 250 kms journey from ahmedabad till Udaipur by road. I had never touched the lands of these two states of Gujrat and Rajasthan in my life before. On the day of our departure, I reached Bombay Central at 6 am by a cab and took out my wallet for paying to the cabby only to realise that I had picked up Shrawan`s wallet instead of mine (I don’t have any reason to defend myself). There were several other things that I had forgotten which I realised later in the trip. And during the entire trip, quite a few incidents which happened were of similar nature. All my colleagues who went along kept saying that I am in love and thats y im so lost and forgetful (Is it true that a person is lost when he is in love? If yes then may be i was). But anyways I did not forget to board the train. I shall not describe the entire trip though the trip was a very very good one. I will describe my prima facie experience of Gujrat (Ahmedabad) and Rajasthan (Udaipur). This trip was also different coz i was, for the first time in my life, was travelling with office colleagues and not my friends or parents. Here I go:
GUJRAT:
I was sleeping when our shatabdi had entered Gujrat. When i got up and realised that we were in Gujrat, as usual i started looking for things that made Gujrat different from other parts of India. And trust me I failed again. Either I am very patriotic or it is true that there is some “Indian spirit” that makes the entire geography of India look very similar. I am not talking about hillsm nountains, plains and beaches which are entirely different about each other. I am talking about the spirit that binds India. Coming back to Gujrat, passed through Valsad, Surat, Anand, Baroda etc. Yes, it is true that alot of industries have come to Gujrat. Atleast from a common man`s perpective whose looks from a window of a train, it appears like that. Then ofcourse, the Gujrati accent everywhere made me feel my presence in Gujrat. Though I am uite used to Gujrati coz in Mumbai i get to hear gujrati more than Marathi (Mr. Thackreys kindly excuse me for that but that isn’t my fault). Then my next observation was that people in general in gujrat were very fair and most of them did not have moustaches. What I am saying may not be the truth but as I live my life on my own experiences so my impression about gujratis from now on would be something like that only.
Then as we passed through Anand (the white revolution hub) I thought that I would probably see a river of milk (I mean to say milk milk everywhere) but to my disappointment, there was not even one good exclusive shop or kiosk of milk in the railway station of Anand. I do not know why. Its overrated
Then we got down in Gujrat and boarded in Tavera that we had booked with PINKAL TRAVELS (A name which only Gujratis can think of having). Driver was rajasthani though. Next significant thing that I observed were kites. Then i recalled that it was Makar Sankranti few days back. You would not believe but each and every tree in Ahmedabad was full of torn and tattered kites hangning around. I wanted to give a nickname to Ahmedabad as City of Kites. Next observation before I went to sleep was good roads. When I woke up, we had crossed the border and had entered Rajasthan. Though we came back to Ahmedabad to catch the train but had not much experience to share other than some good food at Have More and hearing about a rave party that was happening in the neighbourhood.
RAJASTHAN
Rajasthan is truly royal. Without giving much stress on your senses to believe, you realise that you are in Rajasthan. And you have to travel the entire Rajasthan by road to see the beauty of the state. I intend to do so in my near future sometime. The sand, the cactuses and other plants of desert are naturally designed to look beautiful. Till wherever your eyes can see, its amazingly beautiful. Anyone of us can identify a traditional rajasthani man very easily. With a pagdi, big moustaches and dark skin colour. Yeah unlike gujratis, most of the rajasthanis have moustaches and are wheatish or dark in colour. The part of Rajasthan i visited, i.e around Udaipur, I did not find must industrial growth. And unlike Gujrat, Rajasthan`s history being very old, rich and truly royal, you get to see a lot of forts, huge gates, wall paintings, etc everywhere. You can easily see that Elephant is the most used animal in statues, pictures, paintings, etc. Another feature that distinguishes Rajasthan is the hospitality of the inhabitants of Rajasthan. We visited City Palace Museum. The Guide we hired was very enthusiastic and he kept quizzing us about the places, pictures, paintings etc.
Now comes the most memorable moment of the trip. We gatecrashed the LEELA KEMPINSKEY. For the benefit of those who do not know, the Leela Kempinskey Udaipur is a new hotel of the Leela group in Udaipur. On the day of the Sangeet night, I stayed back in the venue as I met my fried Rajat after a long time. As my colleagues wanted to roam around, they went back. On the way to the hotel where we were putting up, they saw very nice decorated hotel leela kempinskey Udaipur. Enchanted by its beauty, my colleagues thought og visiting there for having atleast a coffee each. But when they reached the entrance, they were denied by a bunch of security guards who said that the entire hotel was booked for two days exclusively by someone. They came back. Next day when they told me about this, I just could buy this stupid reason given by the security guards. So I decided that we were going to hotel leela kempinskey at any cost. As I always believe that confidence is the key to everything, I asked all of them to look, talk and walk confidently. As we reached the entrance, some SUV stopped next to us. I thought what a timing man!!! It looked as if we had got down from that SUV and we started marching in. Security Guards, considering 26/11, should have stopped us. We were 2 guys and three girls. They stared at us and may be wanted to ask our identity, but we stared back at them with full confidence. I think that sufficed all their queries. Next was a very sweet hospitable guard on the way to whom i said that we are resident guests and wanted to goto cafe. He showed us the way and we followed. We just couldn’t realised that we just broke inside the leela kempinskey jaipur without a security check !!!! Sometime confidence does it what even your talent cant ! Thereafter we explored the hotel at our wish and we rightfully started believing that we were the resident guests. Infact everyone was treating us as if we were the resident guests. As we entered the basement of the hotel where we could see all the operations, management, staff, kitchen, laundry and so many things that I had never so closely seen before. There were a couple of incidents that were shaky and we would have been caught but we managed. That emotions and events of that entire trip cant be put exactly in words. I would never forget what we did. Though we did not have coffee but we had something more than that.The taste of which shall always be alive in our memories.
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