Pegging Patiala- Part 2

Absolutely non-discrepit. Thats how you feel about Patiala city. To someone who's grown up north of India, the city is non-distinguishable from any other. In fact you wouldnt even know that its Patiala until you reach that one big chowk with the State Bank of Patiala building nearby which welcomes you there in big fonts. Hmm...now what? is perhaps the question which would spring up in every tourists mind.
Yep..we thought as much. But we'd heard of a couple of places from friends. Though sceptical we were, we were deprived of civilization, fairly confident of the peg at the end of the rainbow (read: day), and therefore knew that we couldnt do much wrong. Sheesh Mahal is where we headed to first.

Unlike the n number of sheesh mahals in n cities of India that n number of tourist mom's drag their bored kids to, this one here in Patiala has no mirrors. Can you beat that?? Whoever has heard of a Sheesh Mahal with no mirrors. I felt cheated. And almost wanted to demand my money back from the guard. Particularly after having seen the interior of the palace converted into a museum. We were desperate to see the sights and sounds of the city instead, here we were pretending to appreciate ancient tibetian art inside a dinghy gallery. But then there's a upside to the Sheesh Mahal we didnt realize till late. And i'm sure even the late Maharaj Narender Singh, the founder of the Sheesh Mahal was not aware of this. They serve Fountain Pepsi in paper cups on the gardens outside. Ah bliss! To get to taste cola after all that time almost made up for having to see Narender's collection. On later reflection, maybe Narender's future generations had gotten plagued with guilt over their Sheesh Mahal with no mirrors and decided to make amends with all those glass structures we saw along the road? Tch...Tch...one wonders..maybe it would have been just easier to re-name the damn thing?

Anyways, it was already late afternoon by this time and the next two city-must do's was the gurudwara Dukhniwaran and Baradari gardens. Post that, we could safely say been-there-done-that and down those much talked about pegs. On the way to the gurudwara is when we had the first chance to really travel on Patiala roads. Smooth and neat they were. And running alongside elaborate tree line bungalows on either side of the roads. And for a change, none of those bungalows had football, Maruti-800, or Jet-plane shaped water tanks on their roofs (this is fairly common in rural-Punjab). The roads ended in circular roundabouts with well maintained gardens and designated yellow road signs. Not bad for a small city, one thought. The Gurudwara itself was in a busy marketplace and was sort-of special to me becuase it was the first ever i'd entered in. Maybe i'd never write about religion in my blog, so i am choosing not to elaborate on this.

Next stop was baradari gardens, which I remember more becuase of its huge and ancient peepul tree more than anything else. Navnit had a good idea and decided to take some sepia tinted pics which give it a very bhootia look against the late evening sun. Other than that, the garden has a decent joggers track which i remember being quite inviting to break into a run in.

Having done the mandatory touristy thingy we realised we were hungry and had not eaten post lunch. Thats when the hunt for the highly recommended M/S Oberoi and M/S Verma bakery of baais no. phaatak started. Of course, as with almost every highly recommend places this one also had to be exclusive to the point of being obscure. But after a sizeable number of bewildered passer by's and nauseating u-turns later we did manage to reach this market below a flyover which had two bakery shops resembling the describtion. The bakes were good but Mr Oberoi was better becuase he seemed knowledgeable and did guide us to the right watering hole. It turned out to be a nice place with a breezy garden and tables with white cloth on top.

Yep folks..thats how the peg finally got downed. I think it was Vodka, though we didnt down it neat as we perhaps should have, as a mark of respect to the city that's given th world the measuring instrument tipped 30 ml more towards the correct side. But what the heck, the city has also introduced the trend of glass less sheesh mahals. We mixed it with sprite, and aptly so becuase the mix symbolised how our experiance was.

Pegging Patiala- Part One

We knew we had to go. Being stuck in a plant site in a remote village on weekends is not exactly fun. You do that for for 3 weekends in a row, and somehow you know u've reached the tipping point. But where to? is the question that bothered us. For making it to Shimla or Delhi you definitely need more than a weekend, even Chandigarh with its added attraction of sophisticated civilisation (read malls!) was annoyingly slightly more than a day's journey away( four hours one way). But why Patiala? We kept asking ourselves. We didnt get any reasonable answers though. Its just another small sleepy town. Allright, maybe 30 ml more, but could we drink to that?

But then we didnt have much of an option and therefore set off late morning on a Sunday. It was a boring two hour ride through empty rice and paddy fields. Perhaps the only point of attraction in that journey was two varieties of structures which i can only classify as being punjabi architecturul marvels.

Let me introduce the first as being symbolic of punjabi foresight and vision. Circulars steel mesh boundary walls covering an empty area as large as a cricket stadium. Set amidst lush green rice fields culminating in large ornamental greek gates of intricate columns and gargoyles. The gates are fabulous structures in pristine white marble carved into cupids with pointed arrows on one side and greek godesses, shielding themselves with bare hands, on the other. With a huge signboards over them announcing, "Gaurson: Rural City" or "Dhillons: Countryside Town" or "Ravinder's: Village Appartments" or something equally ridiculous. Of course, the signboards and the elaborate intricacies in the gate design varied, but the consistent part was the stark emptyness inside those gates. Some of the most populated "townships" we saw, at best consisted of a merrily grazing goats. I guess the only real similarity these places had with the promised comfortable punjabi rural life were crooked land agents and Swades inspired Kannada returned NRI's rolling in cash.

The other structure, and one perhaps much more common, consisted of slick glass covered nursing and engineering colleges stretching the entire highway. We were there towards the end of May so it was holiday season for the schools. Juxtaposed as they were against numerous rural straw and bamboo hutments and townships, at first it elicited a snigger. In a green landscape, they resembled shining-square alien eggs. Most of them didnt even have their base cemeted structure nor visible pathways leading in from the highway. Viewed from a passing car, they just seem to be sitting there (waiting to take off to intergalactic worlds?) in the green fields. All glass emerging from the earth. Sadly, unlike the above"townships", this blot cannot be easily laughed away and is perhaps more harmful to more than just a few rich NRI's.

Anyways, this is just the story while I was on my way. Let me tell u what Patiala looks in my next blog.

Mumbai Rains

Everyone has their respective best rain story to narrate. Here's mine.



Since i've returned back to Mumbai last week have been really keen to get back to my jogging schedule. Came back early from work last evening and headed straight to the park. I had just about completed two rounds when the heavens opened up.



Now, this rain was no drizzle. Unlike short burst of light rainfall which was typically the pattern that monsoons were settling into this season, this one had large and heavy raindrops. The kind of rain which stung if you stood in it unprotected. Combine this with un-predictable winds and imagine me caught in white sneakers, black shorts and white t-shirt, and an i-pod (without a water casing) and you know I have a situation at hand. Running back home is not an option at all, and autos-taxi's in mumbai would rather drown than ferry me for such a short distance. The park where I jog in is circular and is surrounded by a busy roundabout leading into the sion-trombay highway. Finding nowhere else to take shelter in, I had to cross the road and take cover below the awning of a bakery shop. This was at about 8:30 PM in the evening when traffic was at its peak. From below the awning i had a view of the road leading in from Chembur rail station which circles around the park, and hits the sion-trombay highway.



Initial relief at having found protection quickly gave away to irritation at having my routine disrupted. But looking at the heavy downpour, very soon i realized there's nothing to be done except to stop and wait for the rains to subside. I possibly couldnot afford to have my gadgets getting drenched. I turned on my music and started listening to Indian Ocean. I think the song is Kya Maloom and very aptly some of the lyrics went "teevra aandhi, mrityugami baadlon sangh chale...". Trees around were swaying around in the wind almost as if they could listen to what was being played. Meanwhile people around, who like me initially ran helter skelter from the onslaught were fast recovering and getting back on their feet. Roads which had turned empty of pedestrians for a short time were now beginning to show some activity. Cars, which had parked themselves on kerbs because of sudden lack of visibility were beginning to rev up and pull out. Large multi-coloured brollies sprung up and people around started pairing up, with the request of only reaching upto the nearest auto/taxi. As for me, perhaps of all the people under the awning who stayed the nearest, I had comfortably resigned to me fate of being stuck. The rain showed no sign of relenting and there was no one who could come pick me up as well.

Thats when the smell first hit me and I realized what a fool i'd been all along! I was standing in front of a god-dammed bakery shop. Quickly i rushed in to make amends and bought my self a large blue-berry muffin. Indian Ocean had meanwhile moved on to "Arre ruk jaa re bande" but i didnot let that deter me. I came outside and slowly let myself sink into the bliss. Rain drenched wind on my face, a muffin to finish off, good music, and time to kill while u watch other people scurrying around. God, i could do this forever.