Four days, a Bag Pack and A nomad in search of himself

Ever since I was a child, I had the the thought of just picking up a bag pack and leave towards a land that I had never seen, go there, meet the people there. so this time, when I finally managed to get a 10 day holiday, I decided to fulfil my dream of doing just that. My intention was to cover 5 places in four days and then spend the rest of the 5 days at my humble abode in Kolkata in the lap of my mother.

So, I chalked down a trip starting from Mumbai, circling through the central, west and north India, through to East India, and then back to the south west corner which was Mumbai.

My trip diagram looked something like this:

Mumbai --> Ujjain --> Jaipur --> Pushkar --> Ajmer --> Jaipur --> Delhi --> Kolkata --> Mumbai.

Why was I doing it? I don't know. Sometimes, I had the thought of not wasting the precious holiday and spend all of it at home, but I was rebellious and adventurous enough to go for this trip. After all, how many times would you get such a chance?

The Ticket to UJJAIN

The beginning of the trip was not without its share of headaches, anxiety and legwork. For getting the first flag-off, I had to run to the Bandra Railway Terminus in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon.

The story goes something like this.

Initially I had booked a ticket in Pune-Indore Express and had got a WL-16 Status. I still had a week to go but as the days passed and the date of journey approached, the status did not budge an inch.

I could not abandon this journey for the world as everything I had planned started with me reaching Ujjain.

All my other tickets were confirmed except this one. And this being an E-Ticket meant I would not be allowed in the Train if the ticket was not confirmed. I waited till before 3 days before the journey date but the WL Status refused to budge.

I have an E-ticket booking counter right near my house and as a normal lazy fat-ass would be, I was as loyal to the counter as a cat would be to the nearest dhaba.

Finally, I decided to get a Tatkal ticket done for this one. I told the E-ticket reservation guy near my house to get the ticket come what may, as this was of prime importance and assumed that since I had been loyal enough to him all this while, he would be the same and pay heed to my repeated requests. However, on the 28^th of April, As I walked to the counter at 8 AM in the morning, I found myself standing in front of closed shutters. I tried calling him up on the number he had provided but all I could hear to was  "Zoobi doobi zoobi doobi..." a number of times.  Further investigatons revealed that the fat bugger was always late and would not open the shop before 10:30 AM. I sent him an SMS and left for office.

At around 9 AM, a sweaty me in a hands-up position, surrounded by people in Hands-up positions in a completely packed compartment of a Churchgate Fast gets a call from the E-Ticket guy. Apparently, my repeated calls had woken him up and the SMS had reminded him of my request.  I was now  looking at a WL -9 even for Tatkal now. Trying to keep a cool head, I asked him what is the next feasible thing to do for me to board the train. He aked me to go to any railway terminus and get a Ticket booked for general, even if it was WL, so I would be allowed inside the train, and then pay the TTE some money for confirming a berth to me.

Thus came forth my first Bike ride in Mumbai from BKC to Bandra Railway Terminus. For those yet to ride a bike in Mumbai, I must tell you, the first time you ride a bike in Mumbai traffic, it is AWESOME. The second time you ride a bike in Mumbai, it is GOOOD. The Third time you ride a Bike in Mumbai, you start yearning for two things: Looking at the other bikers with a sunglass wearing Lasses behind them, you yearn for a companion to share the bike ride with you, and secondly, you wish that the bike was your own and not a borrowed one from your colleague.

Anyway, I got a WL-141 for Avantika Express, which, in a way, was my pass to my first out-of-Mumbai Journey after coming to Mumbai.

Onboard the Avantika Exp.

TRAIN : AVANTIKA EXP.

BOARDING : BOMBAY CST : 6:30 PM

DEPARTURE: 7:05 PM

SEATED: TTE SEAT in S-5 Compartment

I knew that I would not be able to get a seat even if I wanted to with the kind of WL status I had. Having no intention of spending another 200 bucks on getting a seat, I made myself comfortable at the TTE seat with Gabriel Garcia Marquez to give me company as ‘One Hundered Years of Solitude’.

The train left the platform at the assigned time and seated near the compartment door, I saw the stations whizzing past me after a very long time. My first long distance train journey in over 2 years.

Resting my head on the window Sill, I did not know when I fell asleep, but I do remember waking up to a girl’s laughter. My trip had begun.

The Girl in Pink

As I slowly opened my eyes, I realized it was 1 AM in the night. The train was standing in the Vadodara station platform and right in front of me stood a beautiful 17 year old in a pink pullover and a sweat shirt, one hand trying to straighten her wrinkled hair, and the other in the hands of a guy who was standing beside her on the platform. Having been in Mumbai for some time, I had got used to such a sight, but what set me thinking was the time and the location of the scene.

I got up and took a coffee from a nearby stall listening to their conversation. As I made my way back to the seat,  I realized it was another classic Orkut meeting in the middle of the night, quite similar to one which I had had a long time back (Yes, I too had been through the phase like many of you). The guy was from Vadodara while the girl was from some other place. They had met on Orkut and had got closer with time. The girl was traveling with her family and had informed the guy that her train was going to pass through Vadodara getting the guy to come to the station at 1 AM in the night where they had their first face to face meeting in front of a few gawking hawkers who stopped hawking just to enjoy the scene, a bit-embarrassed railway guard and a spectacled guy with tea and a book in his hand sitting on the TTE Seat.

I had initially thought of taking a snap of the two for my photo-blog but finally decided against it for the fear of scaring the love birds away with the flash of my camera.

As the train started moving, the girl stood at the door of the compartment while the guy walked along the platform still holding her hand. As the train gained speed, the girl planted a light kiss on the guy's cheek with words of wisdom to stay woth him for the rest of the night. "Go, study. and don't think about me." Ah! Teenage love. How I miss them.

The station disappeared behind us with the guy still searching for her in the dark while the girl disappeared somewhere in the compartment receding to her berth with her parents. I still had marquez to give me company.

In the Couch

The rest of the journey was spent in a sometime sleeping, sometime reading, sometime clicking state. Stations which rang a bell in my mind whizzed by in the dark.

The lights near the lavatory (which incidentally is a place very neat to the TTE seat) never go off, which let me read my book. There were people all around my feet strewn as bodies without life. An occasional TTE or a railway guard would chance upon waking some up and asking for tickets leading to a sudden surge of life amongst them, only to let them go back to their original state after some time.

UJJAIN

As I set my foot down on the platform at 7 AM in the morning, a lot of temple bells greeted me. I made my way out of the station and the first thing I did was something which I had longed for all through my train Journey: A cigarette. I found a small gumti near the station which had cigarettes. Not Surprisingly enough, they did not have GF lights in their stock. Not stooping to the level of having a Four Square, I opted for a GFK. I lit the cigarette while I took an auto to my friend’s place and immediately felt that something was not right with it. In my five years of filling my lungs with smoke, the only time I had tasted a cigarette like this was on my way to Delhi from Kolkata one year back when I had bought a pack of Fake GFK near Kanpur. I took two more puffs just to make sure and then threw it away.

I suddenly remembered that I had a lone GF Lights in my bag which I had kept for emergency purposes when I was packing. I took it out and lit it only to feel a similar taste in my mouth again. I was sure that this cigarette was not fake as I had had its brother in Mumbai before boarding the train. What was wrong, I did not know. Maybe something was different about the air here.

My auto stopped in front of my friends’s house. My home for the next15 hours.

Of drizzles and spelling mistakes

Living in a small town has its advantages. Like getting a flat the size of an apartment in Mumbai for 2.2K. I drooled and drooled over her house as I went from one end to the other. It was one airy, comfy, had an attached toilet, and a kitchen, two book shelves, a bed, chairs, everything you would wish for. All for 2200/-. And here I was, spending 9K for a small room in Mumbai. Hmph.

We went out for a stroll around the city in the evening. Living in the hustle bustle of Mumbai would make you forget how a small town feels like. I was greeted with the funniest of Posters and Notices with spelling and Logical mistakes, a Restaurant which did not know how to pronounce its name in English, a shop selling heart shaped cushions, and above all, two watch towers on the top of temples, each showing a different time. There was a strange calmness all around, which you would never find in Mumbai. At that time, I realized that no matter how big a city you go to, you alw ays become more and more distant from the peace and calmness that a small town can provide.

There were policemen sharing a friendly chat with shopkeepers over a cup of chai. There were cows sitting  by the road, a marriage celebration went by blocking the road for some time. All this put a smile on my face, not the fake one which I put on everyday in my office, but a genuine one.

Walking back, I suddenly felt a drop of rain on me. Then another, then another till it started drizzling. Big drops of rain preceded by cold wind and succeeded by the moist smell of the earth made me  remember by childhood days in Ranchi.

Right from childhood, I had got used to knowing the difference between rain and a drizzle. Whenever drops of water interrupted our cricket, I would gauge with my trained 13 year old eyes and hands the time it would it take for the rain to stop. And more often than not, I was always right.

“it would just be 5 minutes”, I said.

“Are you mad?!” she shouted at me trying to find a shelter.

The raindrops started getting bigger and heavier. I stood in the rain for sometime, looked at my watch then started walking slowly towards her.

As I stood by her in a shelter of a cloth store, the intensity slowly decreased. When it came to a stop, I looked at my watch. It was 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I held her hand and we slowly walked home silently.

I left for Jaipur at 10 in the night in 'sleeper' bus. I never even knew something like that sort existed till I got in.

Fear and Loathing in Pushkar

The bus was similar to the normal buses except for the luggae section near the roof of the bus. Instead of the luggage compartment, sleeping bunkers were etched in. My friend had booked one for me for my ride to Jaipur. And here I thought an IIT Civil Engineer knows everything when it comes to transportation.

When I had made my plan for going to Jaipur, My sole intention was to get to Pushkar. Pushkar, being hailed as the Amsterdam of India, Me and my partner-in-crime Handeshwar had planned to get hold of a Handy cam and record our whole trip as ‘Fear and Loathing in Pushkar’, the Indian Counterp art of the Del Toro, Depp Starrer ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’.

However, the spoiler of the trip came much before I even reached Pushkar. Firstly, the bus which was supposed to reach Jaipur at 8:30 in the morning was standing in the middle of the desert in a place named TONK, 100 kms from Jaipur at 9 AM in the morning. The earliest I would reach would be 11 in the afternoon. Running on a tight schedule, my morning was eaten up in the bus journey and we were left with only an evening in Pushkar.

I called up Mr. H to break the news and he told me the driver of the rented car has been sitting at his home from 8 in the morning.

“Atleast we can still make the movie.”, I said.

“Movie? What movie?” came a startled voice from the other side of the phone.

“Fear and Loathing in Pushkar, remember?”

“Oh, THAT one! Yes that we can. You got the Handy cam right?”

“Handy cam? What Handy cam?! I thought you had the Handy cam!” I remember distinctly him telling me that he had the Handy cam with him when we had discussed the idea initially.

“DUDE! I NEVER had a Handy cam. I thought you had one when you had thought of the idea.”

“But, but….Hmph.” My DG Cam with batteries which last less than 15 minutes in video mode were of no use unless we wanted to make a 10 minute trailer for the movie.

A good Idea gone to waste.

We were still going to Pushkar, the Amsterdam of India. That gave me Solace.

“Banjar hai sab Banjar hai…

Jab dhoondne hum firdaus chale…”

This was the song which kept playing in my head as my bus made its way towards Jaipur. Barren land with sand everywhere surrounded me. Somewhere in between, I even saw the string of Lahenga choli clad girls with Matkas on their head going in search of Water. Looking from the open window, I was reminded of the scenes of Road, Movie.

Pitstops in the middle of the desert brought pagdi wearing Rajasthani people and long ghoonghat clad women to the bus looking for a ride towards the Pink city. This place seemed alien to me. The people seemed alien to me. And I guess, An aviator wearing white guy with a big black bag was an alien to all of them. 

Eyes searched me as I got down my berth and made my way towards the door.

It was 11:30 in the afternoon. 47 Degree heat and a half quarter wearing Handeshwar were waiting for  me for the trip we had been waiting for all this while.

Of Pushkar and All the G-azz

  A rented Indica can have four inhabitants when it is on a roll. But in our Indica, there were Nine : Me, Handeshwar, our driver and 6 small Pints of Beer. The number of Pints and cans kept increasing and by the time we reached Pushkar, we had already emptied around 6 cans and 6 pints of beer.   A lot of camaderie happened on the amazingly smooth highway which, as our driver told us, could also take us to Goa if we wanted to.

By the time we reached Pushkar, we both had no energy to move or look for the stuff which had brought us to the place in the first place. We booked a room, had lunch and then fell on the bed with no energy left in the body.

My eyes opened at around 7:30 in the evening, and I suddenly realized that it might soon be too late if we do not start looking for weed soon. Handeshwar was still asleep, so I decided to embark on the journey alone. My first enquiry was from a guy selling peanuts and his reaction told me the whole story. Pushkar might have been the Amsterdam of India some time back, but now, it is like any other city. In each curio shop, I would find the embroidery and posters of babas smoking chilams, but each time I approached a baba and asked him where I would find some ‘Ganja’, I was greeted by ‘wo sab hum nahi bechte hain’. One of them even went on to saying that ‘teen baba ye sab bechte hue pakdaaye the, ab jail mein hai, yahaan pe ab kuch nahi milta.’

After a lot of digging around and asking about, I was told of a Hotel where I would find ‘everything’. I made my way through the pathways and narrow lanes to that place. Just outside the place, I found a shady looking character who, in any other city, would have been selling weed. But here, me asking him about it seemed to have offended him. Moving and behaving as a Junkie, he told me that he did not know where to find any weed.

I reached a roof top restaurant where a lot of Israilies were sitting and having their Dinner .I approached one of the lonely looking characters and asked them whether they knew where we would find some weed, he told me that ‘ A lot of people have been approaching me trying to sell me stuff. They were standing right there’ pointing to the same guy whom I has asked previously and who had become offended then. Who said Apartheid was gone. It was right here, in Pushkar. White skin treated with Weed, while Us brown skins, not even a puff?

Handeshwar Joined me in the restaurant after some time as we snooped around some more. Finally, we both went to sleep having only the smoke of Cigarettes in our lungs and not even a whiff of weed in it.

Ajmer

After a disappointing Pushkar, we made our way towards Ajmer, the place where you pay your homage to the almighty and ask for his blessings. I had to reach Delhi the same day by the evening. That left us only about half an hour for Ajmer.

To put things in perspective, I am an agnostic when it comes to religion. I believe in Karma and spiritual energy. I think when it comes to god, I believe in all of them, and then, I don't believe in any. When it came to Ajmer, I did not know why I was going there, but something inside me told me that I should go there as I had the chance.

I had a habit of collecting 5 rupee gold coins and not spending them as I consider them to be special. I would always keep them in my wallet thinking that my energy would be passed on to them after staying in contact with me for so long,  and hope that one day, I would give them away in a special way to get all my wishes fulfilled. When I planned to go to Ajmer, I counted all my coins that I had collected so far. there were nine.

I thought of giving away these coins there and make a silent prayer to whoever is listening.

The road from Pushkar to Ajmer was more scenic than I had imagined. Passing through a valley of spirally curving roads, we reached Ajmer. The place near the main shrine was heavily crowded and we were asked to  park our car at an allotted place.

Handeshwar had known of people having bad experiences in the place. He warned me of talking any belongings to the place. We dumped all our belongings, including our mobiles and camera in the car and made our way to the Majaar, a decision which I still question myself for. Leaving my camera and my mobile there did not allow me to take any pictures of the shrine or its near-abouts.  I just took my 9 gold 5 rupee coins with me and made my way towards the big white gate I could see from far away.

We took our shoes off at the main gate and suddenly realized that we do not have a single paisa to pay the guy who was taking the shoes except for my coins. I did not want to give my precious coins to this guy just for keeping the shoes. But I had no other option. thinking we would pay the guy in the end, we kept our shoes there and made our way inside the big gate.

Inside, there was a whole marketplace with people selling flowers, rose petals,  cloth to put on shrine, big degchis in which people throw in stuff to give as sacrifice for the almighty. There was all sort of stuff inside the degchi right from gold watches to burned 1000 rupee notes. A guy later told me of a story when someone had put in her baby as a sacrifice to god. I could not hear anymore and moved away from there.

We had only 45 bucks in the form of 9 gold coins to spend there, which forbade us to get anything. I finally decided to give the coins in their physical form itself to the shrine. While Handa went in empty handed, I went in with gold!

In front of the shrine, I made my first offering. Two of my gold coins. I was greeted with a strange look by the guy who was taking the offering, as if he was questioning me with the eyes. “only this much?”

“there will be more” I said as I made my way towards the place to bow my head to the main shrine. I gave three of my golden coins to the next guy who was collecting the offerings there. Same look greeted me.

I had spent an year collecting these coins. It was not for the monetary value that I was doing it, but for the belief that these coins were the ones which had spent the maximum time with me, more than anything in this world.  I would not spend them even in urgency because I believed they were a part of me, and someday, I would give them away at the rightful time and the rightful place where it would matter the most. And now, when  I was doing it now, and all I was being greeted were empty looks.

For the first time, I felt sad. Because maybe, for the first time, I was feeling what a poor guy would feel if he comes to get blessings in a holy place. Though no one would ask him to leave, he  would be glared at and and told in the language of the eyes that you do not deserve to be here because you are not rich enough.

In an act of bizarre judgement, I felt a strange anger inside of me then. I don’t know what took me over, I threw two of my  coins over the shrine where people were throwing flowers. Yes, it was something which no one would do. I don’t even know whether it was allowed or not, but I did it. I paid my homage to the shrine, touched my head on its feet, made a prayer, and put a single coin there.

I was left with one coin when I came out of the place. I used that last five rupee coin to get our shoes back from the gate.

As we walked back, I suddenly realized that I don't remember what I wished for. In fact, I didn't even remember wishing for anything. I looked around, and everywhere, I could see a rush for getting money out of the visitors. Beggars with no hands, no legs, amputated body parts were sitting near the streets begging for money, People would keep our shoes safe for money, some would give us a ride to the shrine and back for money, the parking lot guy wanted money, even the people who prayed, prayed for money.

Handeshwar, walking beside me, was telling me about his uncle’s experience in Ajmer when his wallet was thrown into the Degchi when he had come to offer the prayers. I was lost in my own thoughts.

Even in a holy place like Ajmer, everything was commercialized. I know it was a silly thought because in today’s times, only an idiot would not to try making profit in a place frequented by thousands a day, but still, I did not find a single soul who was not looking for money there.

“Did you notice there was not a single foreigner there?” Handa exclaimed while he was getting inside the car. “ Do you think it was because of the 9/11 thing?”

I switched on the AC without saying anything.

Of Delhi and Beyond

We reached Jaipur at around 2 in the afternoon. After having a light lunch in Handesh’s house, I boarded a bus to Delhi at 3:15 PM. I remember the time because I DO remember the exact time.

According to my calculations, I was to reach Delhi at around 9:15 PM, or to be on the more realistic side. 9:45 PM.

It was a simple non AC bus which was taken by regular commuters everyday for their daily commute. Two conductors sat beside me smoking bidies which they threw away as soon as the bus started. Talk about following rules.

DD had been calling for quite some time asking me when I would  reach Delhi. When I asked the conductor duo about the time we would be reaching Delhi, they both started debating amongst themselves. One said 9:30, while the other said 10:30. Their debate went on for some time and finally concluded on “saadhe 9 aur saadhe 10 ke beech mein pahunchenge.”

The bus kept moving on and on and on, so much so that the 100 years of solitude seemed short enough for the whole trip. Reaching the Half way mark, I had to abandon the reading because of bad light. Repeated calls from a concerned sister made me even more frustrated as every time I asked the people around me about when we would reach Delhi, I was be greeted with a different answer.

Looking outside the window watching the sand, the mountains and the trees passing by, I was lost in my own thoughts. Wehn you have nothing to do, your mind goes in an overspin and turns into a devils workshop. Mine was in a similar state of mind as my habit of questioning all my past decisions started taking toll on me. The decision of not going into the coveted IIMs, the decision to stick by my dreams not going down the usual path of an IITian, all came back in a haze. Yes, I could have been those white coller guys, infact, I still could, but then the guilty conscience of killing my dreams was too much to handle. Looking back, there was nothing to go back to, nothing to stand by, nothing to laugh at, nothing to cry for.

As I always do in my hours of need, I turned to my little namesake sis who, incidentally, could not meet me in Delhi because she was having –AHEM- problems with herself then. Her solution was simple. “Look out of the window. Is there any car moving? Good. Now look at its headlights, or tail lights whichever you can see. Now keep looking at it. are you doing it? good. That would keep you from thinking too much.”

Maybe I do think too much. And while in the process, assume, rather mis-assume a lot of things about a lot of things and eventually end up reaching to a conclusion without even doing anything. Its like running a simulation in the head with only one condition and reaching a conclusion on the basis of that. Maybe she is right. Assumption is the mother of all Fuck-ups.

Finally, at around 10, we entered Gurgaon. ISBT still seemed far away. I got down at Pul-Bangesh and made my way to Dilshad Garden where JJ was waiting for me. I entered DDs Home at 11PM, around an hour and a half late than what I had thought I would reach.

The only good thing happening that day was right in front of me on the dinner table. JJ and DD had prepared these humongous Prawns for me, something which I had not tasted ever before. And they were exquisite to say the least.

All the tiredness, pain and sad thoughts went out the window talking to them. Maybe, there was something more to it than just the present and the past. Maybe the future had something special for me. Maybe that was the reason I had come for this trip, this journey of self realization, a coming of age for a lost soul who was still looking for the answers lost in the sand.

The next day, we had the most amazing at Karim's near Jama Masjid, one of the most famous Non-Veg restaurant in Asia before I boarded the train for home sweet home.

As I lay on my berth in a random berth in a random compartment of a random rajdhani moving km. by km. towards Kolkata, and jot these words down, I still have Gabriel Garcia Marquez to give me company, and there is a girl siting in a pink suit right in front of me. but it is a different girl, it is a different train, it is a different day, and maybe, it is a different me.

Mama, I'm coming home.

P.S: the blog covers only the first 4 days of the trip. the rest of it was spent in Kolkata. I met my mother after a gap of an year, met some old friends, and above all, met myself. The one who had left home an year back was not the one who had come back. Maybe for the better too. Maybe, everything does happen for a reason.

P.P.S: I had initially intended this to be a photo blog, but could not click the right pictures at the right time, not because I did not have the camera, but because whenever I wanted to click the picture, the batteries always used to run out. Always at the wrong time. Whatever pictures you see here are just some of the selected ones I had clicked. the rest will be uploaded in a picture gallery and the link will be posted here soon.