Jaipur !

Rajasthan was on the cards for quite a while now. The BhanGarh fiasco comes to my mind. There were slight feelers about Jaipur after Christmas, but then as usual, nothing was concrete. Come friday evening, around 2130, and I am back from watching Madgascar-2 (ok types movie) and Suneeth is back from the gym. We decide to head off to Jaipur.

The spontaneity of the decision and having no chalked out plans to do whatever gave us the initial adernaline rush. Tanked up Suneeth's Lancer. stored some essentials from an In and Out and we were zooming off on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. The road to Jaipur is pretty good, except that there are too many trucks at the nighttime. Around 0000 hours and we hit the first toll booth.

Not much cash was the first of the issues, loads of fog the second. Hunger struck. We stopped at the first dhaba and the dal fry was delicious. Not many times have we paid 50 bucks for a dinner for two. :-) The elusive ATM was nowhere to be found on the entire highway..! We made it past the last toll booth with 0 cash left. Reached Jaipur at around 0330. ATM problem solved we drove off to the railway station. We rested in the lancer after steaming hot tea and sandwiches. It was soon daylight.

Looking for a place to freshen up and breakfast, Suneeth found Pinkz (Breakfast from hell).
The buffet breakfast there was horrible. If not for the interiors and the people this could actually have been a lowpoint in the trip.

This done, we were off to the walled city (which is actually pink) and houses the famous HawaMahal. This structure is beautiful. We met a tour guide here who offered to show us around the city for a meagre 50 bucks. We hired him.

So now that we had the tour guide with us. Heres some interesting trivia : This facade was built so that the Queens could see the parade passing on the road below and fitted with black curtains so that nobody could see the queens. I wonder why ? The queens were all supposed to be good looking, why then were they so averse to being looked at ! Anyways the next stop was Jhulelal Temple. Then Queen Gayatri Devi's handicraft factory and then the City Palace.

JhuleLal Temple



City Palace.

Having had enough of museums, it was time for some forts. However the guide suggested we go the Shashoidya Gardens first. We took his advice. The gardens were ok, but we gathered another fun fact here. Rani Shashodiya agreed to marry the Raja only if he built her this palace outside the city with exclusive gardens. That he did. And then she had a son named Madho singh. Madho Singh was 250 kgs, 7 feet 3 inches and had a chest expansion of 3.5 feet ! He also had nine wives and 101 dasis. Too bad he still never became a father. Anyways I did get a chance to do my famous handstand so was feeling pretty good about myself as we left the gardens for Tiger Fort(Nahargarh).

Rani Shashodiya's palace

Near perfect handstand.

Nahargarh was elusive. We lost our way once, corrected it but found another landmark enroute. The Jal Mahal. This was Raja's 'pleasure palace' for which he got a dam specially to create the lake and then this palace in the middle of water. Some antics these Rajas had !

Jal Mahal.

There were a lot of tourists here, mostly Indian. It was sad to see how everybody was littering the place so much. When will we start to care !

Anyways, off to the tigerfort. This one was Awesome.

Tiger fort

Inside the fort.

From top of the fort.

With this done, we quickly headed off to JaiGarh. This housed the famous Jaivaan which is the largest canon in the world. Had to walk around a km to reach this one, but then the superlative canon was enough to keep us motivated. ;-)

Jaivaan inside JaiGarh

Road to Amber fort(as seen from Jaigarh)

Next stop was Amber Palace. This one was the oldest and very beautiful. It also has an elephant ride but the jumbos were nowhere to be seen while we were there. This palace is also called the Mirror Palace for all the mirror work done inside.

Amber Palace

Tiny mirrors used in this artwork.

More art.

This was the last of our stops in Jaipur. We reached the parking and were about to take the car when we could actually smell heaven. The fragrance of food was actually so good that I had to enquire its origin. Turns out there is a small Paratha shop nearby. We helped ourselves to steaming hot and delicious Parathas. They were pretty awesome. :-)

Finally with this happy conclusion we bode farewell to Jaipur. Its a nice city and a quick weekend getaway from Delhi. Some spots were missed esp the Pandavpul village. Next time. :-)

We had a flat tire on the way to add to our experiences and were back in Delhi by around 0030 after having a near midnight dinner at a Dhaba enroute.

Awesome trip ! Cheers !

Ah my first movie review. Rab ne bana dee jodi. Superly sweet movie, set in Amritsar, and as I was recently in that city, this did strike a chord. The Golden Temple bit is mesmerizing. Also there were a bunch of kids sitting behind me and given that the movie didnt really need me to concentrate, I was kindof enjoying their chatter.

So, theres was a scene when SRK doing his 'simple guy ' bit is taking a bath sitting on a stool on his haunches under a high tap on the terrace, and the kid behind me goes, 'mere papa bhi bilkul aise hee nahate hain' if that wasn't enough for the spontaneus giggle it invoked, he actually stood up and asked his dad (who was sitting a little away), 'Papa, aap ekdum aise hee nahate ho na ?'. This sent all the people within earshot into peels of laughter.

Allright back to the movie, SRK did his employed with Punjab Power bit flawlessly and the office antics were also brought out well. Anushka looks great in the patiala suits she adorns in most of the movie. Also the songs are great, esp the one with Kajol, Bipasha, Rani and Zinta. The movie does get a little longish in the end, but given that it was a 10:30 PM show and I had gone all by myself, I won't comepletely blame the movie for the odd yawn.

So all in all, a decent outing and you come out of the hall with a smile on your face. :-)

Cheers,
Vikram

P.S : Why, whenever I go to see a movie alone, am I placed next to a canoodling couple is something I'll never comprehend !

The Argumentative Indian - first essay

I started with Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian recently, have finished the first essay and this is a review of that. A general observation : his writing is like classical music, you have to pay a lot of attention and appreciate it as it flows down your senses and you fully grasp the author’s intent. A little different and very enjoyable.

Ok about the first essay, the book derives its name from the first essay itself, it too is titled : The Argumentative Indian. In this essay Sen explores the deep routed tradition of discussion, arguments and basically loads of talking in the Indian ethos. He gives a lot of historical examples, right from the Mahabharatha and Ramayana to Akbar’s court of nine jewels. Historic traditions of debating and reasoning are also presented as one of the pillars of our tolerance of diversity and richness of culture. Sen also points out that argumentativeness cuts across gender and caste biases which were very much present in the historical Indian society. He gives examples from the Vedas, Upanishads and other ancient Indian texts. The example of Bhagwad Geeta which is a discussion between Arjun and Lord Krishna is also highlighted.

Our culture of reason, arguments and discussions is also thought to be the source of tolerance to heterodoxy and our significant advances in Mathematics and Sciences in the ancient India. Even the very existence of God is questioned in none less than The Rig Veda itself. To quote a line from the essay, (which quotes it from an english translation of The Rig Veda) :

Creation Hymn :

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen -perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it didnot - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he doesn’t know

This is an example of questioning even the most basic of religious beliefs (that of the very existence of God) in a religious book of the stature of The Rig Veda.

The first essay is full of such examples and makes for very sound reading. Amartya Sen has done a pretty good job, at least in his opening essay of the book. Lets see whats in store ahead. I can’t wait to find out !

Cheers !

Vikram