Chapter 1 - THE PLAN
Me and Abdul planned for a trip. A trip to the north. This time it was just the two of us. Our plan was simple. Literally simple. He said, "We go to Chennai, board the train to Delhi. On the way, we'll plan where to go and everything else. " That sounded like a pretty plan to me.
Next week I came home, it was a Sunday and we suddenly planned to move the next day to Chennai for the trip. Even we dint expect it to happen so fast. It was easy to pack our things as we did it for the last trip. That evening I skipped my play so that I could get my backpack ready.
We were roaming around and that's when we had the worst idea to move the next day. So we checked the tickets online. This time, we booked it to Nagpur. As usual, there were no tickets to Delhi. Next day, we boarded a bus to Coimbatore.
We had to stop somewhere in the middle to get a DSLR camera from a friend.
Once we got that, we moved to Coimbatore. We boarded the bus to Chennai. We boarded by 10 AM so that we might reach Chennai by 8. I was like, "Dude, like last time there should be no running and chasing. So we'll move earlier. " It was a A/C sleeper and we were discussing where to go next. That is when we thought to call Jo for the trip.
Jo is a friend of Abdul who studied with him in his college. So we called Jo.
'Jo, where are you.
I'm in the office da' , said Jo.
Abdul : We are planning to go north are you in?
Jo : No, I have office tomorrow
Me : Ask him to apply for a leave.
Abdul : Not tomorrow morning, come by today evening. It's Holi tomorrow. So take leave.
Jo : Where do you want me to come and where are you guys heading?
Abdul and Me : We are going to celebrate Holi!
Jo : I'll join you guys.
So we booked him the ticket in the Rajadhani express to Nagpur. Yes, with his money!
So, we added another person to our unplanned trip.
We noticed that the bus was going slow. We came off from our seats and went near the driver and asked him to drive faster. Within minutes he stopped for lunch. After lunch, we never left the driver. We pestered him to drive faster. He never stopped for any breaks.
When we reached Chengalpat, the point where we reached the Chennai border, few passengers asked the driver to stop for tea and recreation. The driver had to stop. We made sure that the bus took off within minutes. It was 7 pm and we are nowhere near the railway station.
We were in this situation before and we knew exactly how to proceed further. The bus pulled off near Tambaram and we got down and managed to catch the local train. We reached the station before 5 minutes and we had to run 1 kilometre to the Central railway station. We reached there at time and Abdul's sister came to the station with his clothes. From there our journey to the unplanned destination began.
Chapter 2 - THE CITY OF ORANGES
We calculated the timing of our train and of the Rajadhani and booked the train to Lucknow. The train was at the evening. Next day morning, we reached Nagpur. Dinesh would reach by evening. So we started to roam around the streets of Nagpur in search of ATM.
We had our unpleasant lunch and noticed the peculiar crowd of people in Nagpur. The tickets to Lucknow was not confirmed till evening. Only by then, we noticed that we booked the tickets for the next day. We had nothing to do in Nagpur but to stay for one night. We took a room nearby the railway station and waited for Dinesh. We bought a lime juice. It created an urge for water. We had no idea what caused it.
Dinesh came with a huge smile on his face. When we said about the train, the smile faded away. We had no other choice but to explore Nagpur. That evening, we went around the streets buying colours for the holi. We bought some oranges as Nagpur was famous for the oranges. We had lime juice several times and only after that we noticed that they are adding some substance like jeera to the juice which causes thirst.
Next day we had nothing to do, so we planned to visit a zoo. The zoo was very big and we went in with a camera to capture the wild animals in it.
We were shocked to see couples cuddling and romancing around every corner in the zoo. We found nothing but a tiger which was laying around counting it's last days.
Every corner there were couples and we were guessing whether we paid money to see the animals or the couples. It was a total waste and we left as soon as possible. We roamed around the streets and found that there was nothing worth seeing. We took our bags and headed to the railway station. We boarded the train and spent our night playing business game.
Chapter 3 - FESTIVAL OF COLOURS
We reached Lucknow in the morning, managed to check in at a hotel. We had our breakfast and it was Holi. We started celebrating Holi on the way to Anjali's house. Finally, we reached Anjali's house and the very first thing they did was, they took the wallets and phones from us and started to pour water and apply colours on us.
Then they started serving is with sweets and chocolates to celebrate Holi. They stopped the Hindi music and started playing Tamil music. They enjoyed the tune and played with us. They splashed water from one end and colours from the other. After sometime, we stopped playing. We thought it was done. From there, we moved to Renuka's home. We were greeted with sweets and once again they started to splash colours on us. We played for hours and finally ended with a group photo.
I looked at myself and noticed that I've never been so colourful in my entire life. My face was red with black and gold colours everywhere. I never thought about the difficulty in washing those. We stood long enough under the sun and made sure that we were dry. We had no idea about washing the colours when it is dry. Each of us took nearly 1 hour to wash ourselves. We used scrub, soap, shampoo and whatever we got in the bathroom.
Every now and then, we checked our faces in the mirror. No matter how hard we tried, the colours won't wash off. After a long struggle, we gave up on the fight with the colours and looked at eachother. We knew that no one was back with their original condition. Still we made fun of each other. We got ourselves cleaned and were ready for the lunch.
Renuka took our clothes for washing but Abdul insisted not to clean his shirt. He wanted to keep his shirt as a souvenir. We came downstairs and were able to guess the menu for lunch as a good smell of the roasted chicken pulled us straight to the dinning table. They served rice with chicken gravy, chicken fry and variety of different dishes. They served much and didn't let us leave the dinning table. We could barely walk to wash our hands.
Then came the second turn. They served ice cream which we couldn't resist. We managed to swallow it. Then came the sweets. The laddu was one which no one could forget. I had as much as I can. It tasted too good as I urged to have more despite the fact that my stomach was full. After few minutes, they served tea. Not only tea, but with the sweets and snacks that was made for the occasion. We knew that their family does not understand the word "NO" that day. So we had to have everything that they gave. Not that we dint like food, but were eager to try everything and there was no space left in our stomach.
We spoke to Renuka's father and came to know about many things. He was their best cook. Her family welcomed us happily throwing colours on us. It was too hard to say goodbye to them. Her sister in law dropped us near Anjali's house. We were amazed by the way she drove the Innova. We got down near Anjali's home and said goodbye to them.
Once we went in Anjali's home, her grandparents welcomed us. He spoke to us about the old times when he came to south India and worked here. We had a good time with them and they left early. We spent sometime with Anjali and soon Renuka joined the party. It was fun spending time with them. We planned for the next day. They wanted us to come by 9 or 10 in the morning. They had some plans for us. We left them and travelled back on our own to know the places.
Chapter 4 - BADA IMAMBARA
Renuka and Anjali had some classes next day, so our plan was postponed. We started by 10 in the morning and checked Google for the best places to eat and visit. We went to Bada Imambara. It was a fort. It was mighty and took several hours to check every part of the fort. There were several statues of Nawabs who built it. It had one way to enter and other to exit. We kept an eye on our pockets and wallets now and then as it was heavily crowded.
There was a warning sign stating, that people get lost in the caves within the fort. People used guides to help them into the fort. And there was us, who never take the help of guide to explore. We went to several parts and were lost. Few started following us and finally knew what we were upto. So they left us on half way. We managed to enter into every possible entry.
Few caves or man holes lead us into different part of the fort. We walked in circles and finally found the exit and checked into a common path to the top of the fort. It was way too crowded. We managed to reach to the top. The was no shortage for couples. We could barely get a good place to get a click.
On the way down, we took a detour and was able to reach to the ceiling of the first floor. We could see everything down without being caught. It was a safe place to hide. We explored every nook and corner which lead us to a dead end. We had to go all the way back to reach the common path to head back to the ground floor.
The fort was way too old with lots of history. Alongside was another Imambara. But a small one. There was a mosque nearby within the premises. We spent several hours outside the mosque taking pictures at different angles.
Chapter 5 - THE CITY OF NAWABS AND KABABS
...
Me and Abdul planned for a trip. A trip to the north. This time it was just the two of us. Our plan was simple. Literally simple. He said, "We go to Chennai, board the train to Delhi. On the way, we'll plan where to go and everything else. " That sounded like a pretty plan to me.
Next week I came home, it was a Sunday and we suddenly planned to move the next day to Chennai for the trip. Even we dint expect it to happen so fast. It was easy to pack our things as we did it for the last trip. That evening I skipped my play so that I could get my backpack ready.
We were roaming around and that's when we had the worst idea to move the next day. So we checked the tickets online. This time, we booked it to Nagpur. As usual, there were no tickets to Delhi. Next day, we boarded a bus to Coimbatore.
We had to stop somewhere in the middle to get a DSLR camera from a friend.
Once we got that, we moved to Coimbatore. We boarded the bus to Chennai. We boarded by 10 AM so that we might reach Chennai by 8. I was like, "Dude, like last time there should be no running and chasing. So we'll move earlier. " It was a A/C sleeper and we were discussing where to go next. That is when we thought to call Jo for the trip.
Jo is a friend of Abdul who studied with him in his college. So we called Jo.
'Jo, where are you.
I'm in the office da' , said Jo.
Abdul : We are planning to go north are you in?
Jo : No, I have office tomorrow
Me : Ask him to apply for a leave.
Abdul : Not tomorrow morning, come by today evening. It's Holi tomorrow. So take leave.
Jo : Where do you want me to come and where are you guys heading?
Abdul and Me : We are going to celebrate Holi!
Jo : I'll join you guys.
So we booked him the ticket in the Rajadhani express to Nagpur. Yes, with his money!
So, we added another person to our unplanned trip.
We noticed that the bus was going slow. We came off from our seats and went near the driver and asked him to drive faster. Within minutes he stopped for lunch. After lunch, we never left the driver. We pestered him to drive faster. He never stopped for any breaks.
When we reached Chengalpat, the point where we reached the Chennai border, few passengers asked the driver to stop for tea and recreation. The driver had to stop. We made sure that the bus took off within minutes. It was 7 pm and we are nowhere near the railway station.
We were in this situation before and we knew exactly how to proceed further. The bus pulled off near Tambaram and we got down and managed to catch the local train. We reached the station before 5 minutes and we had to run 1 kilometre to the Central railway station. We reached there at time and Abdul's sister came to the station with his clothes. From there our journey to the unplanned destination began.
Chapter 2 - THE CITY OF ORANGES
We calculated the timing of our train and of the Rajadhani and booked the train to Lucknow. The train was at the evening. Next day morning, we reached Nagpur. Dinesh would reach by evening. So we started to roam around the streets of Nagpur in search of ATM.
We had our unpleasant lunch and noticed the peculiar crowd of people in Nagpur. The tickets to Lucknow was not confirmed till evening. Only by then, we noticed that we booked the tickets for the next day. We had nothing to do in Nagpur but to stay for one night. We took a room nearby the railway station and waited for Dinesh. We bought a lime juice. It created an urge for water. We had no idea what caused it.
Dinesh came with a huge smile on his face. When we said about the train, the smile faded away. We had no other choice but to explore Nagpur. That evening, we went around the streets buying colours for the holi. We bought some oranges as Nagpur was famous for the oranges. We had lime juice several times and only after that we noticed that they are adding some substance like jeera to the juice which causes thirst.
Next day we had nothing to do, so we planned to visit a zoo. The zoo was very big and we went in with a camera to capture the wild animals in it.
We were shocked to see couples cuddling and romancing around every corner in the zoo. We found nothing but a tiger which was laying around counting it's last days.
Every corner there were couples and we were guessing whether we paid money to see the animals or the couples. It was a total waste and we left as soon as possible. We roamed around the streets and found that there was nothing worth seeing. We took our bags and headed to the railway station. We boarded the train and spent our night playing business game.
Chapter 3 - FESTIVAL OF COLOURS
We reached Lucknow in the morning, managed to check in at a hotel. We had our breakfast and it was Holi. We started celebrating Holi on the way to Anjali's house. Finally, we reached Anjali's house and the very first thing they did was, they took the wallets and phones from us and started to pour water and apply colours on us.
Then they started serving is with sweets and chocolates to celebrate Holi. They stopped the Hindi music and started playing Tamil music. They enjoyed the tune and played with us. They splashed water from one end and colours from the other. After sometime, we stopped playing. We thought it was done. From there, we moved to Renuka's home. We were greeted with sweets and once again they started to splash colours on us. We played for hours and finally ended with a group photo.
I looked at myself and noticed that I've never been so colourful in my entire life. My face was red with black and gold colours everywhere. I never thought about the difficulty in washing those. We stood long enough under the sun and made sure that we were dry. We had no idea about washing the colours when it is dry. Each of us took nearly 1 hour to wash ourselves. We used scrub, soap, shampoo and whatever we got in the bathroom.
Every now and then, we checked our faces in the mirror. No matter how hard we tried, the colours won't wash off. After a long struggle, we gave up on the fight with the colours and looked at eachother. We knew that no one was back with their original condition. Still we made fun of each other. We got ourselves cleaned and were ready for the lunch.
Renuka took our clothes for washing but Abdul insisted not to clean his shirt. He wanted to keep his shirt as a souvenir. We came downstairs and were able to guess the menu for lunch as a good smell of the roasted chicken pulled us straight to the dinning table. They served rice with chicken gravy, chicken fry and variety of different dishes. They served much and didn't let us leave the dinning table. We could barely walk to wash our hands.
Then came the second turn. They served ice cream which we couldn't resist. We managed to swallow it. Then came the sweets. The laddu was one which no one could forget. I had as much as I can. It tasted too good as I urged to have more despite the fact that my stomach was full. After few minutes, they served tea. Not only tea, but with the sweets and snacks that was made for the occasion. We knew that their family does not understand the word "NO" that day. So we had to have everything that they gave. Not that we dint like food, but were eager to try everything and there was no space left in our stomach.
We spoke to Renuka's father and came to know about many things. He was their best cook. Her family welcomed us happily throwing colours on us. It was too hard to say goodbye to them. Her sister in law dropped us near Anjali's house. We were amazed by the way she drove the Innova. We got down near Anjali's home and said goodbye to them.
Once we went in Anjali's home, her grandparents welcomed us. He spoke to us about the old times when he came to south India and worked here. We had a good time with them and they left early. We spent sometime with Anjali and soon Renuka joined the party. It was fun spending time with them. We planned for the next day. They wanted us to come by 9 or 10 in the morning. They had some plans for us. We left them and travelled back on our own to know the places.
Renuka and Anjali had some classes next day, so our plan was postponed. We started by 10 in the morning and checked Google for the best places to eat and visit. We went to Bada Imambara. It was a fort. It was mighty and took several hours to check every part of the fort. There were several statues of Nawabs who built it. It had one way to enter and other to exit. We kept an eye on our pockets and wallets now and then as it was heavily crowded.
There was a warning sign stating, that people get lost in the caves within the fort. People used guides to help them into the fort. And there was us, who never take the help of guide to explore. We went to several parts and were lost. Few started following us and finally knew what we were upto. So they left us on half way. We managed to enter into every possible entry.
Few caves or man holes lead us into different part of the fort. We walked in circles and finally found the exit and checked into a common path to the top of the fort. It was way too crowded. We managed to reach to the top. The was no shortage for couples. We could barely get a good place to get a click.
On the way down, we took a detour and was able to reach to the ceiling of the first floor. We could see everything down without being caught. It was a safe place to hide. We explored every nook and corner which lead us to a dead end. We had to go all the way back to reach the common path to head back to the ground floor.
The fort was way too old with lots of history. Alongside was another Imambara. But a small one. There was a mosque nearby within the premises. We spent several hours outside the mosque taking pictures at different angles.
Chapter 5 - THE CITY OF NAWABS AND KABABS
...
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