I’ve been in college for exactly 78 hours. I arrived here a day late cos I was on vacation. No, not the 30-60 odd day discontinuity from the college-hostel-college continuum that has become so routine and boring. It was a discontinuity from the beach-sitathome-party every wednesday night-home-beach continuum which I usually have to endure when I’m in the former George town. For the first time in like a million years, I went on a vacation with my family(minus the patriarch cos he’s busy getting poor souls to ram electric poles into fields of poorer farmers in west India). So it was me, the elder imbecile sibling, and the mummy, along with an aunt and a pesky brat cousin.
Rewind.
It all started with my mom suggesting that we go to Sikkim and/or Darjeeling on a holiday. And since for the rest of the country, North-east/”Nepal”= Insurgency/Maoists, relatives urged us to look at other options as they were “concerned about our well being.” I personally wouldn’t have minded kissing the clouds in Gangtok, but you can’t disobey a grandfather’s orders in the hep city of Chennai. So we decided on the closest thing to a Himalayan wonder- the Thar desert.
The next thing to do was to find a good package. Makemytrip seemed like a good place to do it in. So we call and talk to a chick in their call centre who thought it was cool to intersperse words like “theek hai” and “ho jaayega sir” among other words which have been accepted in Indian English, even when fully knowing that she was talking to probably Hindi challenged Madrasis. As her name was ****inder*, I had to resist the urge to use the few words in Pnjabi that I had picked up from Rang De Basanti(think- sister day, followed by the last name of Jackie Chan’s partner in the Rush hour series).
*name changed for security reasons
Anyway, she promised us “3 star hotels or equivalent” for our entire stay. And the entire cost of the package for five people came to ****************_
_ amount changed as my mom tells me not to talk money matters to strangers. And I couldn’t use a * here, hence the _
We also booked our flight tickets with the afore mentioned tuckers, and soon we were being served breakfast@ Rs.150 by not so well endowed plain janes in spice jet, which included a bhej sandwich and a slice of “cake” from Bangalore Iyengar bakery. Anyway the flight arrived ten minutes early in pink city, so I won’t complain too much.
We then proceeded to find our allotted driver, who stood at the arrival lounge with a placard having our names(all wonderfully misspelt), grinning from ear to ear, each of which was predictably pierced in true Rajput style.
Proceed to pick up aforementioned aunt and her offspring. Nothing eventful happened, and we went on to hotel.
Ahh the 3 star or “equivalent.” Not exactly, but it said heritage hotel on the outside, so I guessed they could be excused. Turned out Rajasthani heritage was painted white walls, 2 sofas, a double bed, and a nightstand bought from furniturewala, a 1995 Onida TV, and Oh, a reproduction of a painting of Sawai Jai Singh, which looked like it had been cut out of a calender and framed. That took care of the heritage part I guess.It wasn’t too bad a place and service was decent. But mmt needed some lessons on what exactly was ***.
Anyway, Jaipur was pretty good. The women went to shops and bought nothing, the 2 men(c’est moi und mein brudder- call centre officials aren’t the only ones who have a right to mix up languages) got themselves some “curt-aahs” as the Scripps spelling bee pronouncer would call it.
The Mango beer fort was nothing short of amazing, and the Jaigad fort was very repetitive. The air around Hawa Mahal stinks, and the Birla Mandir was the best I’ve seen anywhere in the country. Maybe that’s cos the illustrous family is from Rajasthan. And oh, if there are any southies out there who think the Birlas have a unique style of building temples(like I did), think again. All temples in Rajasthan are built that way, only these guys go overboard with the marble. but it was the Jantar Mantar which really took my fancy. It’s one of those “India was such a great country with such brilliant people back then. Look at us now” moments. I only wished I had visited the place when I was around 14. Might’ve helped me score a coupla marks more in Science in the boards.
City palace was another “waaw watay wunderpull palace” place, with guides plaguing you till you finally give in, and charge you what a breakfast in Spicejet would cost you, only for walking around and reading the placards placed in front of each exhibit.
We left Jaipur after spending 2 days, 2 nights, as per itenary, and went onward to Jodhpur. Nothing happened unless you count that the slacks my cousin bought at the local bazaar for the price of 1.4*10^2 were “gasp I cant breathe” tight, so she demanded we book a hotel room in the highway so she could change and come out. Kids these days(she’s an 18 yr old neonate), so adorable. Everyone including the driver lauded her brilliance.
Watch out for part 2. The real story of Sallu in the forests near Jodhpur will soon be revealed by yours truly muhahahahaha.
