Ever since I
came back from my Rajasthan trip blogging has taken the backseat. Maybe because
I am too happy these days. TOUCHWOOD. And happiness leads to writer’s block for
me. I need some turbulence, some longing in me to come up with something good. Besides
that, I am way too busy these days with my own place. And now I have developed
a new passion. Cooking. WHATTT?? Oh yes, you read it right. So most of the time
I am either drinking or cooking or cooking while drinking or drinking while
cooking. Rest of the time I am watching TV and sending voice message to my best
friend. And all the while I am waiting for summer so I can flaunt my treasure
trove I have brought back from Rajasthan. So even though there is a huge
backlog of posts lined up to be written and published, I am just too lazy to
write them and at the same time feeling anxious and guilty for not writing
them.
So anyway,
back to the story. It was our last day in Jaipur. We were leaving that night
for Udaipur. We were sad. I was devastated. I was in love with Jaipur. And it
is needless to say that, love is that fucking bastard that makes goodbyes a
million times harder. Even though a part of me was excited with the prospect of
seeing another new city, I still wanted to stay back for few more days.
Our bus for
Udaipur would leave at night and our checking out time was quite early in the
morning. As I said earlier, we were on money-saving mission so we did not pay
for another day’s tariff. Instead we checked out, left our luggage at the hotel
reception and set out to explore Jaipur for one last time. Our first
destination was Albert Hall Museum. I was not too keen to explore the museum
but we had nothing much to do anyway. So far I have been to many museums but it’s
still our very own Indian Museum in Calcutta that wins the first prize. Our tour
to Albert Hall was short and somewhat boring. Not to mention we were pretty
hung over from our last night’s vodka cocktail. So we chose to sit at the
museum garden and dozed off for some time. Fortunately, the museum premises had
a CCD outlet and after gulping down a few shots of Espresso we were recharged
again.
This part of
Jaipur is totally different from the other side of the city. This area is vast
and clean and less crowded. It reminded me of the Red Road area of Calcutta. The
famous shopping areas like Bapu Bazar and Johari Bazar were nearby and we
started to walk in that direction.
My bag was
already full with the crap I had gathered in the first two days. But that didn’t
stop me from going berserk at Bapu Bazar. The one thing that we did during the
entire trip with most consistency was walking. We explored almost half the city
by foot. And after exploring Bapu Bazar and Johari Bazar we realized we were in
an area which was not exactly a touristy place. We were in a narrow and overly
congested local market place. And people were looking at us because of course
we were the odd people there. There was a roadside stall where a large man was
frying pakodas in a kadai. We were famished and it was past lunch time. we
decided to sit on the sidewalk and have our lunch at the stall. Our enthusiasm
was met with double cooperation from the people around us and within minutes we
were seated amidst cycles and bikes eating chilli pakoda with kadi, and hot
jalebis. And once again, I was in love with Jaipur. I was in love with India. And
I was proud to be a part of this madcap nation.
And what I did
not mention till now is one of the important reasons why Jaipur was so
irresistible to me. The men of Jaipur. Yes. They are hot. They are good
looking. They are respectful towards women, or so we personally experienced. And
the way they will check you out will awaken the wild woman inside you. Here in
Darjeeling I cannot step out of the house without covering myself from head to
toe. In Rajasthan I flaunted. I flaunted what I so proudly possess. And the men’s
eyes were slipping from my face to other places in such manner that I was over the
moon. I hadn’t felt this sexy and liberated in a long time. So I flirted.
I flirted with my eyes, with my smile, with my extra softened Hindi and my best
friend was always there backing me up.
Bad news
came when were waiting at the travel agency’s office for our bus. Padmavat was
finally releasing (that was not the bad news) and Chittorgarh was shut down,
for the second time in history. Both of our parents were worried and nonstop
calling us to know if the situation was alright. Honestly speaking, we did not
face any hostility anywhere. And the hopeless, twisted girl in me was actually
excited to think that we were in Rajasthan when Padmavat was releasing. I mean
this is the kind of things that you can brag about years later. Oh yes we were in Udaipur on the very day
that movie released. And yet we were heartbroken. We have been practicing
Ghumar dance moves since the first day hoping to shoot Boomerang videos at the
fort of Chittorgarh and post them on Instagram. Even the previous night we were
chugging vodka and matching steps with Deepika. So we couldn’t feel more disappointed
at the bad news. By some unfortunate mix-ups our sleeper coach was at the very
end of the bus. So for the rest of the night we were both up clutching anything
to hold on to with dear life whenever the bus tried to throw us around like
stir fried vegetables.
We reached
Udaipur at six o’ clock in the morning. In western India the sun comes up late
so six o’ clock felt like three. We checked in to our hotel which was, by god’s
grace, was much better than our Jaipur’s counterpart. We freshened up and hit the
bed, and slept off immediately.
To be continued
Read the other episodes here.
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