Four Years Later

After much contemplation, I went to Pune this past weekend for my convocation ceremony. And well, I did everything except get the degree. Don't ask why. It should suffice to know that systems fail in a lot of places.

I flew via Bombay and experienced the city at leisure for the first time. Had always rushed there - be it for flights or interviews. Robin took me to a place called Candies. A nice place, except that I could not help but notice the number of stairs I had to climb.

The evening in Pune was split between Sheesha and Stone Water Grill. Both these places are quite popular with the locals, but I could never get myself to like Sheesha. Starting with the name, it's all too ordinary and less. But Stone Water Grill I enjoyed. Did the much overdue tequila shots and danced till my foot could not handle more. The highlight was a routine with some Korean guys with a robot dance. You really had to be there to know how much fun that was because it was really really fun!! :D

Met a few people that I was looking forward to see, and looked through some whom I really do not give a damn about.

About the new hairdo, from rockstar to power corporate to school boy to downright uncool, I got all sorts of comments. Attention is always good. And you know which comment I loved the most. :D

And a stranger got curious about how I look with longer hair. ;-)

I was glad to half-strip at the Delhi airport security check because of the metal round my leg, and Mumbai airport security I wanted to slap someone for the non-sense they put me through. :-/

---

I am now off to Uttarakhand for a week. Covering almost the entire Kumaon area for an official project. Super excited!

---

Now I do not even care about getting pictures clicked with people who are important. Not sure if that is because they are not important enough any more or if it really does not affect me any more. But I have definitely come a long long way from the time when I obsessed about these things.

I will hopefully click some pictures over the next week though.

I'll do the new year post once I am back. Looking forward to the reflection hour. :-)

For now, ta!

The Big Fat Punjabi Wedding

Relatives from outside of Delhi came over about a week in advance.

A lot of chai happened even though the temperature was going through the roof.

People noticed every single thing that the groom's immediate family wore at every function.

People checked me for not wearing make-up.

Everyone danced like crrrrrazy. Danced to the beat of the dhol, live music, a DJ, the baraat band, and to whatever else you can imagine.

In spite of a lot of planning and colour-coded Excel sheets, there still were things that we forgot at the last minute and had to run about for!

Chikan and daaru happened!!

Jealous relatives made their presence felt too.

The groom's cousins & friends did compete with the bride's cousins & friends over dance/joote/sarcasm and all things mindless.

Most cousins did not sleep before 6:00 am on any of the days and I hated sleeping earlier than the rest but the day-time responsibilities did not leave me with a choice.

The baraat was not on time.

As our guests increased during the pre-wedding days, the cooks shifted their set-up to our backyard and played punjabi music through the day too.

Bahut saara meetha tha!!! :D

But almost as expected, my parents and I hardly ate at any of the functions or even otherwise. So while people came and told us how the food was, we did not quite taste most of it.

A female cousin of the bride stared at my un-waxed arms at the wedding.
a) I did not have time for that stuff.
b) I had (and still have) sunburns all over both my arms because of all the running around in the heat. :-|

The groom was the calmest person in the house on the day of the wedding.

The whole house was nothing better than a railways platform. Things we managed to keep away before people came, lived. The rest - left shoe of a pair, right shoe of another pair, that watch, those papers, those clips, that charger, and a whole lot of other stuff - is yet to be found.

Power cuts did not cause the kind of problems voltage fluctuations did.

Paisa paisa paisa... so much frikkin' paisa got spent that I killed my age-old fancy for a fancy wedding for myself.

AND the maintenance of a double chin-less face is going down the drain as I am putting ALL the left-over juices/carbonated drinks/mithai/chocolates in my system!

Earthly

Nothing can be defined as 'effort' if not waking up at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning. But like some efforts are totally worth every penny, or as I'd like to say, every minute of precious sleep, so was today's for me!

Daksh, my cousin, and I had planned a trip to Rajasthan for my first week in Delhi this time. But my father often plays spoilsport. And so he did this time too. So, as Sariska waits for me, a green patch en route to my current office greeted us this morning. Asola Wildlife Sanctuary was once home to a host of animals including the leopard. Today, it is said that there are more birds than anything else over there.

We did know the route, just had to ask around to find the entrance to the वन. At a check post I asked a police guy for the route, and he was surprisingly sweet enough to offer us tea too. ;-)

We reached just when the sunlight was perfect. But it took us a while to spot our first friend for the morning. Huuge peacocks, lots of deer, white camels, pretty butterflies, some animals whose names I did not know, and unfortunately very few birds - they were all there!
Moreover, I had good company in human form too.

His father was nice enough to let him take his car on his 22nd birthday! :D

Poor guys were scared!

And I was super-excited! Not because of the thorns and wild twigs in my jeans though. :|

I read somewhere that Pune also has a little wildlife sanctuary. I'll have to check on that soon. But a good, bigger national park can't be kept waiting for too long. The itch is getting too much!

P.S. - Every morning should be like a Sunday morning for Mathura Road and the B.R.T. corridor. The drive was dreamy!

The Orange Mirrors*

As it often happens in big groups, you can never find a time/moment when everybody would be willing to do the same thing together. Reasons are mostly valid.
Our plan to set out to Kashid/Murud/Panchgani/Lonavala/ANYWHERE on 2nd evening got cancelled. The rigid me spoilt her mood even though I understood why we could not go. We could not even have gone partying for the same reasons.

Through the early hours of that night, I looked up places close to Pune where I could go myself the next morning. I liked Wai, but dropped the idea because of Anant Chaturdashi on the 3rd. Tamhini Ghat was next. The pictures looked good. The distance didn't seem too much either. And so I knew what I was going to do on my 23rd! Away from the black cat who was crying non-stop in the hostel that night!!

We maintain the standard midnight cake culture here on campus. But I was not expecting it to happen because of last minute changes in plans, and also because of the fact that we had classes till late on the 2nd which would have meant that nobody could have gone to the city to get the cake. I forgot that Priyam was missing from the last class.

Ridhima came to invite me at 11:55 p.m. Yumm chocolate truffle was waiting. With some 18 people. The damn mood finally behaved.



Lots of people, lots of smiles, LOTS of cake on my face, cake horns, a few phone calls, flowers, hugs, pictures, and a cold water head bath on a kinda chilly night, and it was 1:00 a.m.!

Retarded kid with papa who's afraid of getting cream on his tee

She came licking!!!

Everybody! Priyam clicked.

The girls - Ridhima, Swetha, Priyam, Ruhi, and Vrinda - had more plans for the night. There were balloons, alcohol (minus the soft drinks), and music. My room: Swetha's speakers connected, lights dimmed, and the floor had Ruhi beginning the dance-y bull shit of the night. :D
How the next couple of hours went by, maybe Priyam can tell best because she captured every single moment on her camera. The obscene dances, the mad laughters, the yuck whisky with kaam chalau iced tea that everybody still had, and the non-publishable pictures made for my typical birthday night in a girls' hostel.

Ahem.

Ye kali kaudiyali raaat :D

I was also informed that I needn't go to the Ghat alone the next morning. Everybody will come along. :D

Swetha's injuries from an accident the previous week had put her in too much pain the next morning. She could not have afforded to exert through the day. I hated leaving her behind! But the rest of us did carry on. Add Robin and Sahil to the list of girls mentioned above, and we were ready to drive out!
It was a much longer drive than we expected. The waterfalls were nothing like the pictures Google threw at me. But the drive was superb! It was raining, and the view was brilliant! We sang along with the Pune radio and just laughed through the two hours of the journey. Sahil sat with a long face through most part of the journey, but he improved over his long face of exactly a year ago. So we have to give him the benefit of doubt here, especially because he got perfectly okay once we reached the waterfall.

Our Liril girl

The girls!!

The Liril girls with a lucky boy

The water was a little cold, it was still raining, none of us had a change of clothes (even though we all knew where we were going), but what the heck! We HAD to climb up the slippery rocks and play with the water. AND we forced Priyam to let us use Mr. 1000D for the pictures too! Who knew that Robin, the creep had his digicam nicely packed in his bag! Ridhima was the only one dressed for the occasion (as always). A combination of her shorts and Vrinda's green made for the perfect Liril (la..lalalala....) moment! Sahil just enjoyed the moment.

The sweet driver offered to click

Once the tryst with little black worms (who WERE there in spite of running water) and all the slipping on the rocks was done, we began the journey back. The radio stations' frequencies were getting mingled and we got to hear some of the worst remixes of our lives. It was still hilarious because mindlessness was the order of the day. Being completely wet and sitting in the car was a tad bit uncomfortable in the beginning, and the lack of washrooms in the wilderness on this cold rainy day made it extremely uncomfortable by the end of it! To beat the cold (or not), we took out a bottle of Old Monk that was left over from last night. We had Coke on us this time! But the ones sitting in the back of the Tavera put neat alcohol in the Coke bottle, said it out loud too, but Priyam ignored (read never heard) the disclaimer and had a huge sip of the same. She was a sight after that! Uff!! She was the entertainment factor for the next half hour.

Priyam!

:P

Robin Bobbin

Pizza Hut is becoming my birthday lunch ritual. I have lost count of the number of birthdays I have gone to that place to eat on. This time the reason was exactly the same as last year. Last time it was Ganesh Chaturthi, this time Anant Chaturdashi - most roads were blocked because of the processions and celebrations. Pizza Hut comes closest to good food in the accessible areas.
The wet us started shivering the moment we entered the air-conditioned restaurant; that was funny too. And then we started hogging!

Nanu called..

While we were there, one of the many processions were passing by on the road outside. It was a group of young boys in white kurtas and red stoles with huge drums. The rhythm with which they played those drums was to die for! I swear I generally don't find these things too entertaining, but this group was plain BRILLIANT! I stood outside and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. The beats, the symmetry, the ambience, the frolic... it was all out of the world! I especially liked the fact that they were not dancing to filmy numbers, and were instead doing it in an authentic style.

A moment anything but blurred

Exhausted, we got back to campus in the evening. I took a little nap, attended a few more phone calls, and quietly closed the birthday with four Muskeeters from Rohini. :D

__

I had not had time do this year's birthday shopping until today. And what did I buy? An expensive, girly dress!
With lotsa green in it!! :D
And now I am completely broke. But completely satiated. :-)

*It somehow translates into 'My 23rd!' in my head. :D

A Drive in the Sahyadris

When Delhi airport's roof flew away on Friday evening and flights got cancelled I was pissed. Not just because it meant that we have a lame system in place, but also because it could have meant that my flight to Pune the next morning could be rescheduled/cancelled. And I was in no mood for yet another flight fuck-up. Missing flights always tops such fuck-ups. I indulged in that earlier in the month. But things at the airport were thankfully in control.

I landed here at 10:30 a.m., reached campus by 11:45 a.m., had a nice lunch in the mess (yes) with a couple of guys who were already here, and that's when we decided that we should go to the Mulshi Dam in the evening.

Nishant had Regil's car, so we were going to pool in for the fuel and drive down to this place which is about 50 kms from our campus (The taluka of the village I live in is Mulshi only). So, Venky, Kausik, Nishant, I, and my camera with the new lens (:D) took off around 4:30 p.m.

The almost empty campus before we left

Kausik at the petrol pump he helped us find

From the moment I sat in the car, it was fun non-stop. I had not laughed that much in ages!! So much so that I lost count of the number of times I lost my breath while laughing.

We never got to the Dam. Instead, we stopped at Mulshi Lake a few kms before the Dam. It was much prettier. And obviously more serene too. The water was absolutely clean and made the most musical sounds. We walked over a few slippery rocks to reach a perfect point to sit for the next hour or so. We enjoyed silence, and we talked a lot too. I clicked my pictures as well. :-)

I was having fun !! :)

Good I wore these. Those rocks weren't too easy to walk on.

Nissant aur main

On our way back, we first had bhuttas. Then we stopped at Pirangut (a small village) for vada pav and bhel. And then we headed straight to Dhole Patil Road in the city for dinner. These guys wanted to try something new, so we went to a place called Southern Spice which serves authentic Mallu food. Yours truly was obviously most apprehensive because she cannot try new food. But she was brave! Appam with veg khorma, and payesam. Not bad, I say. But that's only because of the company I had. :D Oh, I had to confirm with Venky that south Indians like to enjoy their food in peace because every time I burst out laughing, everybody in the restaurant turned around and looked at me. It was a little awkward, but I was too happy to bother. Our Tam-Bengali-Gujarati-Punjabi combo was also turning out to be fun. Venky ko sikhaya gaya 'kutte ki maut marna', and Kausik & I learnt 'vaa pollam'. :D Nishant is a Gujarati Shah, but has lived in Chennai for long. So non-stop 'machan' punctuated the entire drive too.
Then we heard stories about spirits from Nishant. He believes in them. Kausik does not. Uff! The sarcasm running through my blood felt alive yesterday.

The bhuttas we had

The place where we stopped for the corn

Got back to campus around midnight, and I closed the perfect day by going through the pictures twenty times. :-)

The side we felt kinda lazy to walk towards

We found a juvenile home for Venky and Kausik

Auto mode!! :-)

A trip of sorts was due considering that it's becoming a routine to do something like this every two months. I am so happy this happened. Especially because after a two-week break the college is going to fuck our happiness with all seven days working and LOADS of classes. :-|

PS - I watched Kaminey last week. The movie was good, but it is the music I am tripping on nowadays.
Meri dosti kameeni...
Mere yaar bhi kaminey...
Ik dil se dosti ki...
Ye huzoor bhi kaminey...

UFF! Gulzar!!!

The Jaipur Charm

I have never visited Jaipur even though it is pretty close to Delhi, and in spite of the fact that I have heard everybody finding something or the other that they love about the city. But guess what! I found something fun about the city without even visiting it.

This morning, I left campus much before the scheduled flight time. Went to Good Luck Cafe for my standard cheese omelette and ban maska. There I shared a table with an old lady who was originally from Jaipur, but had travelled all of India. Had a nice conversation with her, heard her speak pretty flawless Marathi, English, Hindi, and Punjabi, and figured that she was in the same line of work as me. And we thought it is a new field!

From there I moved straight to the airport. I was there less than four months ago. And they've constructed a whole floor ever since! It is quite possible that the observant me nicely overlooked the construction process last time, but I was pretty surprised to see the first floor today. But let's not digress. We're talking about Jaipur stuff.
In the lounge, two seats away, I saw a super-hot guy. I'd say, if ever there was a man who did justice to a big moustache in the contemporary, non-military context, it was him! Casual chappals, jeans, and a blue tee.. with the moustache! Oh man!!
Between his newspaper and my Kite Runner, we exchanged a smile. Overheard him speak on the phone - definite north Indian touch! There were four flights to Delhi scheduled over the next hour. My superfast, analytical brain immediately figured he must be on one of them. And how I hoped it was the same flight as mine. Next thing I knew, he turned to me, asked me to keep an eye on his bag as he excused himself to the men's room. I was having fun imagining things in my head when he came back and sat one seat closer to me! Ha! I SO saw a conversation following. :-) So I shut my book too. :P And there we were!
Hometown Jaipur, mechanical engineer, one month in Pune, had made a trip to Lonavala last week, and the works. He was on the Jet Airways flight to Delhi. Damn! It left 30 minutes before mine. If I had got those extra 30 minutes with him, I am sure I would have got a ten-digit number too. :P We were two polite people. Exchanging numbers would have been TOO quick a gesture. So I just said good bye to him, and shook his soft, warm hand. :D :P


"Nice talking to you!" :-)


P.S. - I am not sure if you know this, but I have a thing for certain names. They sound absolutely perfect in my head and have a charm associated with them. Moustachio's was one such name. :P

The U.K. closer to home

The first time I was offered a trip to Rishikesh was in 2005 by Prashant. It took close to four years for me to make it happen for myself; it took close to 23 years for me to make a leisure trip without parental guidance with base as Delhi; and the feeling.... :)... let's not try to word it.

And now that my attempts at bringing out drama in words is over, I shall register this past weekend here as nicely as I can.

The deal was that while I was still in Pune, I had decided that I would go to Rishikesh this summer when I am home. Two reasons for it: 1, I HAD to make ANY kind of trip during these two months. 2, the whole world goes to Rishikesh if they are around Delhi.. so there is no reason why I should be depriving myself of it. As far as the concept of adventure sport and my relationship with it, and the water-related phobias were concerned... we were going to deal with them when time came.
Initial plan - Subhadip would come down to Delhi and I would join him and his friends to Rishikesh. Did not work out.
Next up - 140 phone calls to the entire world keeping in mind a Labour Day off, a weekend when I do not have to work on college submissions, when I manage to not miss my parents wedding anniversary, and so on. Had to listen to a lot of reasons why people won't be able to make it. So gave up the idea. Then some people said they'd come. Started planning. More hurdles, gave up. Some ray of light... planning again. Then cancelled. And then we were on. We? Nidhi & Samridhi, my cousins. Avan & Priya from the good old Watson Wyatt. Shagun from Avan's college. And Amrit, our imaginary 2nd male in the group to maintain the balance everyone's parents would have been comfortable with. So, until 7:00 pm on the evening of 1st May, we were still dilly-dallying with our 'plan'. Avan and I literally went crazy trying to organise stuff. We drove Nidhi and Shagun crazy while they were at work the whole day too. But finally we sealed the deal and informed respective families of the next morning plan.
We were six [or seven ( as you like it)] of us on board an Innova on the morning of May 2nd, Saturday. This was after being instructed that we should not travel at night. We had also explored the option of unavailable train tickets. Road by car was our only practical option then. We had also made bookings at a camp for our stay, food, rafting and trekking/rappling during the 24 hours that we intended to spend there.

Now! Not that I can claim to have travelled much, but I think I like the idea of travelling the way Prashant and gang do it. Just the way I had made my Ajanta/Ellora trip. It's fun that way because it's not binding. Advance bookings and guides kill flexibility to quite an extent. But there were some valid reasons for having made bookings as well. A major one being that everything there was full since it is peak season. But we all agreed by the end of the trip that next time we'd stay in a hotel and do our own thing after getting there. Yes, everybody was happy with the experience and decided right there that there will certainly be a next time. Also, for people like me and Avan, dry pits are the least of exciting things no matter what you offer us to use them a second time in life.

Coming back to our Innova. Our driver was super nice - sweet and proper! Shagun, the only guy in the group ensured that we got the best driver. Shagun's presence in the group cannot be undermined because if it wasn't for him, my father (and Avan's, and Nidhi's and Samridhi's) might just have said no another time because an all girls group outing via UP is not their idea of fun.

Nidhi and Samridhi surprised me by being on time. Avan says she surprised herself by being on time too. So since everyone was being nice to me that morning by respecting time, we were able to move out of Delhi by 6:00 a.m.
First pit stop was at Bikanerwala after Meerut. Nobody ate much. Samridhi just got herself a single kaju ki barfi without which her trip to a sweet shop is incomplete. And Priya got herself a couple of more smokes. After that we managed to speed a littttle. Next pit stop was at a dhaba near Muzzafarnagar, I think. People needed chai. A doggu threw a few tantrums while Avan tried to be nice to him. Priya voiced her opinion of BJP and the Congress to surprise the other two WW girls a little. We never thought Priya cared a damn about politics. Nidhi and Samridhi crossed the road to pose and click by some chaara. Maybe they got some kick out of it. I am sure they did. :P I floated around.

It rained a little too on the way. Made things a little easier. A few more conversations, and were in Rishikesh by 1:00 p.m. Some more conversations, and were through with a not-nice lunch at the Iskcon wala restaurant. By 3:30 p.m., we were at our camp in Brahmpuri. At 3:40 p.m. we were informed that we'd go for a trek at 4:00. I went down to my camp to change and put on my shoes, and that's when the first 'adventure' happened. A scorpio-like thingi stung me. I promised Shagun that I would google that thing and put its correct name here because it wasn't a real scorpio (chhota bhai types), but I could not locate it. :| The chhota bhai was still large enough to freak me out and put me in pain too. I was told that they are not poisonous, so I can relax. I was brave. The trek was tiring and boring. It took us to a lame waterfall. But we played along, did our share of drama, and came back down by 6:30ish.

In the evening we played dumbcharades. After all sorts of calculations, we decided it was going to be the Bhardwajs vs the Others. :P And we beat 'em! I'm glad it wasn't Watson Wyatt girls vs the Others (as initially suggested) because Priya is one lame thing when it comes to enacting. She is worse than me. In fact, my acting helped score a point. So I'm better in a quantifiable way. :P

A barbeque, a dinner, and a half hour later, Avan and I reached the conclusion about dry pits mentioned earlier.
And then we got to playing in the sand. The weather was getting kinda rough. It drizzled a little too. Our camps were about 50 metres away from the river. The current was pretty strong too. The moon was behind a cloud cover, and I got stung again. This time it seemed funny to the rest of the gang because I was the target another time and this time the intensity was lower. The doc thought to himself, "phir aa gayi", and Shagun kept saying that a mosquito bit me. :|

None of us had slept more than 2-3 hours the night before, so we decided by 11:00 p.m. that it's best if we got some sleep. Samridhi and I slept like logs, and the rest of them cursed us, the mosquitoes, the little humidity, and the spooky feeling in the air. :P

Next morning, we were ready to put on the gear and go rafting by 8:45 a.m. We were informed that we'd only be the 6 of us with our guide, Teku on the raft. Avan's size, Priya's lungs, and my overall strength were quite a reason to worry about the success of our venture. But the guide encouraged us. Plus, Shagun, Samridhi and I were quite pepped up about getting on to the raft. Samridhi and I so much so that we wore our life jackets inside out. :P Nidhi's handycam recorded it too. Damn these journalists!

Body surfing. I did it too. I DID IT. For someone who's never stepped into water 3 feet deep, you need to imagine what it meant. Avan is always cold. She did it too. Nidhi's fear of water was worse than mine. But her lust for adventure got the better of her. But Priya? She was floating way longer than she was rafting. She had her hands under her head and kept floating far, far away. Had to call her back everytime we approached a rapid. Ohhh... those rapids! They were so bloody exciting!! I loved them. Totally loved the rush. I wanted more. :D

Had lunch at a famous Chotiwala restaurant on the other side of the Ram Jhula, and we were off by 2:15 p.m. But traffic killed our happiness so bad that we wanted to kill someone by the end of it. BSP rally made us admire Modi Nagar for eternity. It took us more than nine hours to get to Delhi even though we'd done the first 100 of the total 250 kms in 2 hours. And this is when we skipped at least an hour's traffic by going on the wrong side and overtaking a zillion trucks and buses.

The thought of going to work in the moring killed me. So I ran into my house, and into my room, and into slumber by midnight. The body's been hurting quite a bit since morning. And it's past midnight again. So I shall upload pictures in the next post now. That shall obviously be very soon. :)

Till then, tada!!! :D

Some take-aways :

Samridhi read Anga Darshan on a hoarding which actually read Ganga Darshan. I laughed non-stop after that because I actually believed her.

If Priya were to stand for elections, her symbol would be Navy Cut, aam aadmi ka brand.

The rapid 'initiation' was dedicated to me for having intiated this trip.

Avan became a fan of Nidhi's "hardcore" journalistic life.

Shagun kept thinking that the five girls would give him a massage of sorts.

My first adventure trip got a certification by the pseudo scorpios.

Funny, but Lavale's scenic beauty is really in the same league as all the other famous places.

I got high on lack of sleep after really long. People got entertained. They actually let me sing! :O


Achha ok.. good night! :-)

This is what happened...

People I hang out with had all made separate plans for the holidays. I tried real hard to get any person I met on Sunday to come with me to a place other than Goa. I called Subhadip and did a lot of crying and cribbing. Sat with a long face at the dinner table, and tossed between making a boring trip to Mumbai and an adventure trip to some place nice alone. That's when Priyam came into the picture.

At 1o:00 pm, we had some 2o tabs open with Maharashtra all over them. And it was midnight by the time we decided that it was going to be Ajanta and Ellora. So we immediately booked a cab for 5:00 am from campus to be able to take the 6:00 am bus from Shivaji Nagar in the city to Aurangabad which is the closest station to both Ajanta and Ellora.
Cameras out, packing done, shoes on, and we were off campus by 5:10 am. We sped and as luck would have it... the first bus coming out of the depot was going to Aurangabad. We boarded it and managed to get only the last seat which did bust our asses during the five hour journey. It was 5:45 am when we started, the bus took one stop at Ahmednagar for 15 minutes, and dropped us at our destination at 10:30 am - bang on schedule. It was an MSRTC bus, the near-equivalent of the Haryana Roadways buses of the north, only with slightly more comfortable seats. The ticket was for Rs 195, and somehow I felt that was a little too much for a state bus. Anyway.

Ahmednagar bus depot

We made our first mistake at Aurangabad - taking a local bus to Ellora. The distance was less than 20 kms, and it took a little more than 1.5 hours to get there. It was certainly cheap at Rs 17 per person, but if you want to save yourself an incredibly slow and dusty journey, take a shared auto from outside the bus depot at Aurangabad. I'm not sure about how much that would cost, but I am sure it would save a lot of energy.

The local bus from Aurangabad to Ellora

At Ellora, there are a couple of dhabas and a small market outside the caves. We fed ourselves with some good, filling food there. Next decision that was to be made was for our stay. It's tricky business - Ajanta is 104 kms from Ellora, and almost the same distance from Aurangabad too. So we thought that the obvious and better decision is to spend the night at Ellora, and move further the next morning. But what most tourists do is go back to Aurangabad the same evening, spend the night there, and move to Ajanta from there. The reasons? There are more options to stay in Aurangabad, and you get direct buses to Ajanta from there. Yea, we did not know about the bus thing until we had checked into our hotel at Ellora. One either goes back to Aurangabad from Ellora to catch a bus to Ajanta, or changes buses at 3 different stops if they want to go directly.

Our hotel

Let's go to the caves first, and then I'll tell you what we finally did the next morning.


Entry ticket was the standard Rs 10 as at all other protected monuments. If you're the bottled water kind of person, carry your bottles with you because inside there are only two canteens where you will get it. It is 'only two' because it is a large area that the caves cover and canteens are not that close. But there are drinking water taps available outside almost every cave.

Underground water

Ellora has 34 Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves. The first one that you see after entering is the largest Hindu cave called Kailasa. It is massive, and it is extremely beautiful. We spent about one hour inside. Well, that's largely because we were kinda tired after a night where we did not sleep & a journey which was kinda long, and the crrazy heat. Even so, the cave is worth spending all that time in. There is a small shivling where people offer prayers inside the cave. I thanked the caretaker there when he helped me with light for a photograph, and he replied with a 'gracias'. Way too many foreign tourists. :)

Kailasa

View from top (Kailasa)

The little shivling inside cave 16

We spent about five hours in there, but did not really go inside each of the 34 caves. We'd enter one cave, sit there for looong and chat and click, and then make the effort to climb up another cave. Yea, for people who do not have ANY stamina, and are already tired, it can be an uphill task. But, it is Ajanta where stamina really comes into play.




After about 2.5 hours of moving around, we needed to refuel ourselves. So we had lots of water and a yumm aloo parantha at the canteen. The main entrance divides the caves into two sides, with number 16 in the middle. So, our second round of walking was to the left of # 16. There are a lot of autos that will offer to show you around because I'm guessing there are many people who are not too fond of walking. So these autos help you move around, take you to the important caves, and bring you back to the exit in one piece. We got many such offers in the second half because the walk to that side is longer and is on steep roads. But the boots were meant for walking, and walking we did. When it looked like the sun was beginning to take it easy, a new found energy took over me and I wanted to climb to the top of the rocks to see the setting sun. So I pushed the other two as well, and we climbed & climbed to settle at a decent viewing point. It had been only five minutes that two shady men came up as well. They had some foreign friends either waiting for them or waiting to be discovered by them. It looked like extremely shady business and we almost thought we'd surely get stabbed or something if we even looked their way. This killed the little joy we could have derived from the sunset which was average when compared to the sunset at Lavale, and we were just relieved to move out of there. Those guys also walked back with us, offered us a ride in their car, and had a weird english with accent for men who we thought would not even be educated.

They will come back next morning...

At the canteen

Dinner at another dhaba in the market. They served parathas which reminded of home

The place had no computer and I had only 1 GB of memory, so I ended up deleting some pictures to make space for the next day. Our neighbours in the hotel were a single German lady, and two men from Switzerland. All of us had plans of going to Ajanta the next morning, so the manager suggested we share a cab instead of the looong bus drama I mentioned earlier. It sounded convenient, would have only saved us some money, so we all agreed.

The next morning, all dhabas outside were shut because Ellora caves are closed on Tuesdays. So we had to have the relatively more expensive breakfast inside the hotel. And while we were at it, we saw the same shady men (who had also offered us a ride to Ajanta when we walked out looking for breakfast) come into the hotel compound with their car. They were talking to the manager, and we knew that was the car that the manager had arranged for us. We died. The three of us really lost it. But we were a lucky bunch and we were six of us who could not have fit into his Ikon or whatever that car was. Our prayers worked, and he did not drive the replacement auto which we got. The manager made money out of offering a car and ultimately sending us in an auto, but we were only too glad.

It took two hours to get to Ajanta. There are shuttle buses from where outside vehicles drop you to the caves. Rs 7 for non AC, and we were on board an MTDC bus. With us was a bunch of school kids. They helped me expererience the most embarrassing public moment of my life. We'd bought hats outside the caves because the sun was killing us. I had my sunglasses on anyway. AND my camera was in my hands (unlike Priyam's who decided to keep it in until we reached the caves). So, I could not have looked more tourist-y, and the kids thought that I'd also come from some foreign land. They all thronged to see me, made jokes about me, tried asking me 'what is your name' in a way that they thought should be comprehendable for me, laughed their wits off when they heard me talk in Hindi, and kept staring at me and my camera with non-stop giggles. I would have loved to click them as well, but they were so many of them that I was afraid of being killed in the process.


We took a guide in the caves because otherwise there were only paintings and paintings on the walls and we had no clue what they meant. In a big group, it came to Rs100 per head for us. Guide uncle was too keen on making us hear every word that he uttered, and he almost scolded me once when I was too busy clicking. I gave him a dirty look which he conveniently ignored, but then I ignored him too. Hmph.

The Ajanta caves

Lord Buddha

Painting of a thousand Buddhas

Lord Buddha in his avatar as a white elephant - offering one of his 6 tusks for the queen's ornaments

After the guided tour, we'd just rested our feet when we got talking to Anders, a researcher and lecturer from Denmark. His area of interest? Travel and tourism. He does research on backpackers across the globe, and also on the business impact of guide books that they use. Very interesting to talk to, and quite a funny man... he was nice enough to pay for our lunch at the MTDC restaurant as well.

At around 4:00 pm, we left Ajanta for Aurangabad. We wanted to reach the city and find an internet cafe so that we could plan our next move. It was another 2-hour ride (this time we chose a private bus over a local one) to Aurangabad. There we did find an internet cafe, browsed for an hour, looked at several destinations and finally came down to Srivardhan, a virgin beach about 200 kms from Pune. But when we got to looking for a bus that would drive us through the night to Srivardhan, we got to know that the travel agents had not even heard of the place. We were offered a cab, and that was the nth time in the recent past that I realised how painful it can be to be a woman in this mean world. Again, it was unsafe for the three women who were "alone" together, and they had no option but to eat and head back home.

We missed the Daulatabad Fort which is en route Aurangabad to Ellora because we did that journey only once and if we'd stopped over, we'd have missed Ellora caves which are shut on Tuesdays. Also, it was tooo hot to bother after that. We also missed the Bibi ka Maqbara which is better known as the 'Unknown Taj Mahal' in Aurangabad. This, because we used Aurangabad only to switch buses. And we did not want to spend another night there only for the Maqbara. But I guess we were happy with whatever we did manage to see as well.
One more thing that we missed and should probably not have was the Grishneshwar Jyotir Linga which is one of the 12 shrines of lord Shiva in India. Mom believes in him, I should have gone. It was close to our hotel, but we never woke up in time to visit and leave with the rest of the people on time as well.

Took the 8:30 pm bus to Pune. It took a little longer than the first journey, and we landed here at 1:45 am. Again, a private cab back to campus. The driver told us that Srivardhan can be done in one day from Pune. Also told us the rates. So, that's where we're heading next -- that is whenever we have enough money again. :)

The above-mentioned was not the only embarrassing moment. I was so tired and sleepy during the bus journeys that my sleep was not inducing little jerks of the head but wayward movement of the head in both directions in an area of about one meter. People say I was quite a sight. And Anders was finding it funny too. Well, I can only laugh about it too. I banged my head against the front seat, the window glass, and so on in the process, did not even sleep in peace, and entertained people too. Can anyone ask for more?

A couple of points...

# Ajanta caves are shut on Mondays. So the plan was actually working out fine.

# The area has some unique blood red guavas. We never got to buying and tasting them because we only saw them while we were on the move.

# I never thanked the makers of any shoes before this, but this time I owe it to Adidas. 5 am to 10 pm on one day, and 7 am to 2 am the next... I lived in an extremely comfortable pair of shoes.

# I walk fast. And when with a purpose, I leave people behind.

# We resolved that from now on we won't judge any person on the streets digging his/her nose. You CAN reach a point where you can feel dust on and inside every part of your body.

# The trip cost us about Rs 1700 per head. And this includes around Rs 300 spent on private cabs we had to hire within Pune.

# Learning Marathi is an absolute must for me now. Sometimes things become very difficult without it.

The apparent origin of the Garbha dance form

Phew! I've saved some pictures for my Flickr page. See you there as well. :)
And now I shall hope for a comment from you. :P