New Delhi: Revisiting The Elephant Graveyard

Mansi’s brother showing me the ropes on his Royal Enfield

When I was a kid, I used to watch The Lion King every week, without fail. It became so much of an obsession that I realized one day that I had learned the dialogues by heart and could repeat them word for word. (For instance, the opening line of the movie is, “Life’s not fair, isn’t it?” said by Scar, as he catches a little mouse for dinner.)

The movie had so much of an impact on me that I began associating things I saw in it to things I saw in real life. After a 9-month ordeal in New Delhi in 2009-10, I associated the city with the Elephant Graveyard in The Lion King – a dreaded place where no one went, and a place of evil where no one was ever happy. My time in New Delhi was the worst 9 months of my life. I haven’t been more miserable ever. So, once I returned back to normalcy and battled depressions and won, I vowed never to go back there again. Ever. But fate, it seemed, had a few ironies up its sleeve.

Mansi hails from Gurgaon, Haryana – an integral part of the Delhi-NCR, and when she insisted that I accompany her to Delhi, I was very hesitant. She convinced me that she was going to make me see the place through her happy goggles, and was very confident that I’d like the trip. Well, given that I am in love with her and have decided to spend the rest of my life traveling with her, I decided to face my fear and visit the Elephant Graveyard with her. And I was so glad I did, because she not only made me see Delhi in a whole new light, she even made me admit that I had fun on the trip.

We spent half our time in Gurgaon, meeting her old friends and revisiting her old haunts. A lovely breakfast at Sakley’s in Galleria set the tone for a lovely weekend. We went visiting the famous Delhi Haat, where we spent a very satisfying evening eating street food from all around the country and window shopping for colorful, over-priced junk. A highlight of the trip was the visit to the world-renowned flea market at Sarojini Nagar, where Mansi found a treasure trove of Desigual clothes and we spent all of our trip’s budgets shopping for clothes, shoes and other things.

We stayed at Mansi’s parents’ house in Gurgaon and I immediately made her mom, dad and elder brother fall hopelessly in love with me through my charm and my south Indian cooking skills. The sambhar I cooked for lunch, I am told, was finger-licking good.

The trip also coincided with the birthday of one of Mansi’s closest friends – Joanna. We dropped in on her birthday party, surprised the living daylights out of her and spent a very nice evening catching up and socializing with her old friends. I really did have a wonderful trip, and I never thought I’d say this, but Delhi isn’t so bad. True, I kept spotting rapists everywhere, but I guess that’s the charm of living in a nation’s capital. Whatever that means.

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7 Reasons Why Facial Hair On Travelers Is A Bad Idea!

Nikhil’s Homeless Guy Look

Nikhil and I, on most weekends, can be found roaming around the country looking for interesting things to do and wacky places to drink tea in. We are even experimenting on weekend travelling overseas. With the amount of travelling we do and the fact that we both work full time in advertising leaves him with little or no time to shave. Many a time, I mistake him for a homeless guy begging for food when I lay my eyes on him. There have been a couple of instances where I’ve either screamed in fright or thrown something heavy at him, for not having recognized him. I’m exaggerating, of course, but you get the idea. It gets really annoying when he doesn’t shave and gives lack of time as an excuse. So, I bought him an electric razor one day, and he complained that it’s too “itchy”. I don’t know what to do with him now. He’s walking around in public looking like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

I’ve compiled a list of 7 reasons why Nikhil should shave, especially because we travel so much. In no particular order, they are:

1. I don’t have facial recognition software installed on my laptop and neither does he. (Remember the Saif Ali Khan ad?)
2. I don’t want to retire for the night, look to kiss him good night and find a mini zoo on his face. I once found a colony of bugs in his beard that had evolved and were exploring their space program before I yelled at him and made him shave.
3. I have the most difficult time recognizing him in public. I once wanted a photograph of mine to be taken on the beach, while I posed with my bicycle. When I looked up, I saw this disheveled homeless guy with an ugly beard fiddling with my camera. I screamed bloody murder and ran after him, only to realize it was Nikhil. I beat him senseless, just for that.
4. When we are at airports, we can never pass a security check without incident. Nikhil’s always mistaken for either a homeless guy who wandered in, or a terrorist plotting to blow everyone up, with a bomb hidden in his beard.
5. He keeps experimenting with the way his stupid facial hair looks like. He once walked around with what he called the “Pharaoh Look”, with a thin strip of hair running from his lower lip to well below his chin, and I took one look and thought there was a centipede climbing into his mouth. I almost threw a book at it, trying to kill it.
6. Once in Goa, when we were trying to find our way back to a friend’s place at night and were lost on the highway, we stopped our car to ask for directions at a roadside dhaba. He went in, opened his mouth and was chased out before he could get two words out. I had to intervene and convince the waiters who had chased him that he wasn’t there to steal food. I made him shave his beard the minute we got home.
7. We live in a Christian locality of the Mumbai suburbs. Whenever we go out, small kids from the nearby convent point at him and shout, “Jesus!” And Nikhil finds it funny. I don’t.

If there was a way I could irradiate this guy’s face so that hair never grows again, I would. But I do love him despite his quirks, and I don’t want to deny him the pleasure of being yelled at by me. And the pleasure of shaving – I know he loves to shave, only experiments with funny facial hair designs.

Any other reasons that you can think of, please include them in your comments. I need tips. And badly. My face is starting to itch. 😉

This post is a part of the ‘Shave or Crave’ movement in association with BlogAdda.com

Gandhinagar: An Unexpected Food Trip

On November 7, Mansi and I ventured out to Gandhinagar, the capital city of Gujarat. Set about 20 kilometers from Ahmadabad  this small town is a weird place. I’ll tell you why soon enough.

The evening of the 7th was a very eventful one. The bus that we had booked from Mumbai was delayed by about an hour and a half. So much so, that along with a few other passengers who were supposed to be on that bus, we were sitting on the roadside, on the curb, smoking and talking about how beautiful life was, while the others around us fumed and yelled into their phones, cursing the driver of the bus, which was stuck somewhere in the heart of Mumbai in incurable traffic. Finally, when the bus arrived, it wasn’t the bus that was supposed to take us to Gandhinagar. This was a temporary make-shift bus, one that was already filled with passengers for some other destination, into which we were herded and told to stand in available nooks or sit on someone’s lap, until we were dropped to Borivali, where the actual bus was waiting for us. A lot of fighting and raised voices and heated tempers later, we were deposited into our rightful bus, two hours behind schedule, and finally, at a quarter to midnight, with the start of the journey delayed by 2 hours and 15 minutes, we began the journey. Mansi had the distinct honor of relieving herself by the roadside in the middle of the night while I stood guard, while the driver of the bus and the few passengers who were awake and still angry about the delay glared at us, but apart from that, it was an uneventful ride.

Dhokas and Poha at Heritage House

We reached Ahmadabad around 10 in the morning, and we met up with Mansi’s friends – Vishesh and his wife Dimpi – who courteously allowed us to use their bathroom to freshen up. At our request for authentic Gujarati breakfast, my new found friends took us to the Heritage Hotel in the heart of the city – a quaint, elegant place that was a perfect marriage of opulence and culture. We had the most amazing breakfast where we feasted on dhoklas and poha and washed it all down with the best masala tea I’ve ever tasted. It was and still is a breakfast to kill for. I dream about it sometimes…

Mansi and I then said goodbye to the lovely couple and took an auto rickshaw to make the 20 kilometer journey to Gandhinagar. We traveled on some very well-maintained roads and with the excellent meal settling into our systems, we were eagerly awaiting a weekend of more fun with my cousin and our host-to-be, Kruthika. We arrived at her place in Info City a little after 2 in the afternoon, and changed into comfortable clothes and settled down for a nice catching-up session with piping hot chai.

Hole in the wall at IIM Ahmadabad

Kruthika was also hosting another friend of hers – Jeanne – a mathematician who had come from Chennai to spend a few days with her. We spent the evening roaming around Info City, where the most prevalent object is an eatery. There was absolutely nothing else for us to do than visit one hotel after another, checking out what was on offer and eating it. We made the trip to Ahmadabad in the night to visit the IIM Ahmadabad campus and to have a cup of tea in the world famous hole-in-the-wall. It literally is a hole. In a wall. A hole through which a street vendor passes tea and cigarettes (a contraband) to the students of the university. Pretty neat, huh!

Mansi and her DSLR

On Sunday, the four of us made our way to the step wells of Adalaj, a few minutes away from where Kruthika was staying. Mansi went completely mad with her camera, clicking away the magnificent architecture and playing with the lights and the shadows. I did a half decent job myself, with my phone’s camera.

Back in Info City, we packed up, walked over to another eatery and ate mouthwatering dabeli and other kinds of chats, and after a lot of burping, it was finally time to say goodbye to my cousin and Jeanne. They were sweet enough to wait with us for our bus and waved us off once we had gotten in. It was a very interesting trip to say the least. We expected to do a lot of wacky things that weekend and we ended up putting on a couple of kilos each with all the food that we managed to eat. It turned out to be a very unexpected food trip!

R-L: Me, Mansi, Kruthika, Madhurima, Jeanne

Sunset at Gandhinagar

Shadows and light at Adalaj Step Wells

Me, trying to outmatch Mansi, and failing

Pune: 72 Hours Of Music!

In about ten days’ time, Mansi and I will board a bus (or take a cab or hire a bike) and make the scenic trip to Pune to attend the Bacardi NH7 Weekender. I had been there last year and it totally blew my mind away. Three days of non-stop music, unlimited booze (not free) and a dizzying variety of food to eat – it all adds up to a sinful weekend trip. I am contemplating having a stopover at either Khandala or Lonavla on our way – I haven’t told her this yet – and it’ll be possible only if we have our own mode of transportation. So, I’m planning that in secret, and writing that on a public blog. I’m such a genius!

So, for all of you who love music, here’s a chance to escape for a weekend. Tickets are available on BookMyShow online, or if you are in Mumbai, you can buy them in person at Rhythm House.

If you do make it to Pune that weekend (Nov 2,3 & 4), do look us up. Get on to the stage and scream out “I love chai!” and we’ll find you and buy you a cup of chai for your troubles.

Can’t wait for this!

Goa: Through Her Happy Goggles

I feel almost ashamed to confess that being 28 years old, I’ve never been to Goa. As an adult.

I’ve been there once when I was a 7-year-old kid, with my family and my relatives and all I can remember about that trip was collecting starfish in my dad’s handkerchief. Anyway, I’ve never been there after that and I have always felt like an outsider in any conversation that involved people making plans to go to Goa or people discussing their recent trip to Goa. I’d given it up as a never-gonna-happen event. I’d never go to Goa. I even convinced myself that the Goa scenes of partying, over-crowded beaches and limitless alcohol were not my cups of chai.

Martin’s Corner, Goa

Of all the beaches in the world, the only ones I consider worth going to are in Gokarna. Nestled cozily in the armpit of North Karnataka, away from prying eyes of soulless tourists, the place breathes magic and serenity at every nook. Mansi had never been to Gokarna and so, we decided to go there and it was decided that I’d show her why that place is so magical. I’ve written extensively about my travels to Gokarna on my personal blog at MirrorCracked.

To get to Gokarna from Mumbai, one has to either catch a direct bus at 3 in the afternoon to Kumta, which is about an hour away from Gokarna. This ride is almost 16 hours  and one would reach Kumta only at 7 in the morning the next day. But the sleeper buses are comfortable enough and unless you have a naughty bladder, you can fare very well. But given that we had almost a full day’s work to finish on a Friday, we decided to take the alternative route. Via Goa.

On the 28th of September 2012, Mansi and I set out at about 5 in the evening on a bus headed to Goa. We had four days ahead of us (October 2nd being a National Holiday in India, we had a really long weekend) and Mansi had big plans of showing me around Goa for the first two days and then it’d be my turn to do the same in Gokarna. I was apprehensive, i’ll confess. I never really cared for too many bodies on beaches. And I consider it sacrilege to see a beach being commercialized with people selling all sorts of junk food, junk jewelry, junk clothes and just plain junk in order to trap tourists and attract filth off the streets. I told her my fears, but she was quite cool about it. She explained the difference between South Goa and North Goa, and told me that we were going to South Goa, where it was peaceful, quiet and away from the mindless meat markets of the North. I told her that seeing was believing.

So, a very pleasant 8-hour overnight ride brought us to Mudgaon (or better known as Margoa on maps), which is the main trading and commercial center of South Goa. We had our trademark chai at a local vendor and were picked up by a friend in his car. A very pleasant drive through the narrow roads of the city brought us to Benaulim, where I could not see a single flea on the beach. There was no one. Vast expanses of empty beachhead, the sound of the gently lapping waves and the wind rustling through my hair, and I was hooked. A lovely quiet breakfast later, we stared our exploration.

We lunched at a restaurant called Dropadi, on Palolem Beach, which was a pleasant 45-minute drive from Margoa. Sipping our drinks and looking out on to the pristine blue waters of the Arabian Sea, shimmering in the afternoon sun was a lazy thrill that seemed unable to be surpassed.

A quick detour on our way back found us amidst the ruins of the Cabo De Rama fort. It was a humbling sight – sitting on the ruined fort wall and looking out on to the sea at a distance below us and the deafening silence enveloping us in its safe cocoon. We drove back that night with a happy smile on our faces.

Our second day in Goa began with a lovely breakfast at the legendary Martin’s C0rner. The quaint ambiance of the place set the mood for our memorable drive from South to North Goa, as we made our way to Anjuna Beach. With Google Maps supporting us ably all the way, we made the 50 kilometer drive in little over an hour. All the nightmares I had had about North Goa came rushing back as we stepped on to the beach at Anjuna, near a beach-side cafe called Curlie’s. Too many people and much too loud music – it was rape of the worst kind. We met the weird woman we were supposed to meet and barely twenty minutes later, Mansi and I were literally running back to our car to drive back South to peace and sanity. The weird woman gave me a headache which was cured by roadside chai, omelettes and Maggi noodles.

Through her happy googles, Mansi showed me a side of Goa that I had never imagined. I am in love with half of Goa.