myriad-mirages: January 2009

Day 7: 29thOct 08 (Mt.Abu - Ahnedabad - Kolkata)

My friend woke me up from a deep slumber… “Its morning… wake up… we have a long day ahead of us!!!” I woke slowly… as if from hibernation… and then it hit me… today was the last day of the trip… we were to travel to Ahmedabad to take the flight from there back to Kolkata.
“Its over,” I said, “time simply flew for the last few days…”
“ Yaaaa..” sighed my friend, “but what an experience!”
I smiled and nodded in agreement.
After we all finished our last round of packing and reshuffling our now bulging bags (thankfully my friend had got an extra knapsack from home… so both of us could stuff our ‘Mithai’ & ‘Namkeen’ there) we all trooped out to have our last breakfast of the trip…
As we walked uphill to the main building to have breakfast, we could still hear the noise of crakers bursting… it seemed that the people fo Mt. Abu, still hadn’t had their fill of celebrating Diwali… from the parking place in front of the main building I looked down… smog had settled all over the hillside, making it seem cloistered in cotton… as we entered the dining room, I veered over to the large glass panes… the haze had cut down the visibility to half … the sight was nonetheless awesome…
As usual I had a stuffed omelette, that had become a part of my breakfast for the whole trip…(for someone who is allergic to eggs… that’s an achievement!!!).
My friend had ordered a bit too much of food… I looked at him in astonishment…
“You gonna eat all that??” I asked…
“Will have no time to eat in between…” he shrugged nonchalantly.
How typical!! I smiled shaking my head…
None of us spoke much at the table, almost as if trying to absorb and accumulate as much memories as possible…
Seeing me a bit too quite, my friend asked, “any problem?? What are you thinking of??”
“Nothing…I just wish that time didn’t run out so fast…” I sighed.
He agreed…
Our bills had been settled the night before so as soon as we came back to our rooms, we were ready to leave.

Since we had travelled to Mt. Abu at night… I missed out on seeing the view of the scenic winding road… In the light of the day… I saw the dense vegetation; the raw hewn hillside… the towering smog covered mountain range…
As our car circled the mountain on its way down, the visibility made me aware how high up we were… with the other cars whizzing past us…I realized that one wrong move would be all it took, for us to take a tumble into the abyss!!!
Thankfully we had a wonderful driver, who not only knew the roads like the back of his hands, but was also a deft & cautious driver…
I wowed to come back again…
It was in deed a very long drive from Mt. Abu to Ahmedabad, the distance being 215 Km. I settled down with my book… while sometimes looking out to view the passing landscape… friends fell of to sleep…! I don’t know when I too fell off to sleep… The car suddenly ground to a halt…I woke with a jerk…
We had stopped at a level crossing, all the men happily got off the car to stretch their legs…! It was a 10 mins wait before the train came… and as usual, I saw people crossing the train lines, by slipping beneath the lowered bar, without an outwardly thought to their own safety (quite a common sight anywhere in India!!!)
We crossed the state border (Rajasthan to Gujarat)… our driver, Vinod… very sweetly always pointed out to anything he thought would interest us… however currently we were on the look out for a HDFC ATM… The whole state of Gujarat seemed to be in a holiday mode, it being the day after Diwali… all the shutters were down… banks were closed… we were afraid that even the ATMs would be shut…
After being on the lookout for quite some time, Vinod pointed out to an ATM across the street… an elated gang trouped out to fill their depleted wallets… (there were no ATMs in Mt. Abu).
We saw a central circle, which had tilted pot with milk pouring out… I realised it had something to do with a dairy farm… and then I saw the Amul Factory…
By this time my bladder was on an overdrive… I was desperately looking for someplace to take a leak… I saw a large shopping complex… believing it to be similar to the Malls in Kolkata… asked Vinod to stop the car… & jumped out…
As I walked into complex, past the roving eyed Romeos… I realised that even the women were looking at me… as if I had sprouted horns…!!! As I walked past the glass pane of a show-window, I looked at my reflection… I was still wearing my bulky red pullover that I had put on at Mt. Abu…( I hadn’t thought of taking it off, as it was cosy in the AC car), however the scorching heat of Gujarat was hardly conducive to such attire… no wonder people were staring!!!
Anyway… I looked around for directions, which pointed to Ladies toilets… and could see none… I walked towards a group of girls standing in a corner …
“Hi! Can you tell me where to find a toilet?” I asked politely.
They turned and gaped at me…quite blankly…
“Ladies Toilet ?” I prompted again.
One of the girls somehow understood and said “malum na thi..”
“Ok, thanks…” I said and moved ahead…
Next I decided to ask a shopkeeper…
“ Bhaiya, ladies toilet kahan hain?”
He gave me the directions promptly… I followed his directions, but couldn’t find any!! Again I spoke to a group of girls…
“Hi!” I said… they nearly ran…and then thought otherwise..
“Su chey?”
“So you know where is the Ladies Toilet??” I asked tentatively
“huh? Su boleche?”
I rolled my eyes heavenwards… what kind of a city was this? College going kids don’t know a word of English or Hindi for that matter!!
However one of the said something and they all smiled… and asked me to follow them… I did…I thought they were leading me to the toilet at last!!!
They climbed down some stairs and were moving towards the underground parking lot… I got a bit suspicious… I motioned them to ask the security there.
From what he said… I realised that the toilet was inside the Cineplex, and one could only go in if he or she had a valid ticket!!! And these poor girls were also looking for the ladies toilet themselves!!! DAMN! I have never felt so frustrated!! I waved at the girls and walked back to the car, cursing under my breath!

“Done?” my friend asked raising an enquiring eyebrow.
“@########@@$!!!” I said, finally giving vent to my bubbling irritation!
“Whoa… what happened?”
I narrated my encounter… he didn’t know whether to laugh or to empathise with me….
Vinod said… “ Aage ek Dhaba hain.. wahan pe mil jayega”
Sure enough, when we reached the water park, opposite that was a dhaba, which had a ladies toilet… albeit a bit dirty & covered with cobwebs… but I wasn’t complaining… the need was too great for me to be turned out by creeping arachnids…
After Vinod had his cuppa tea… we proceeded towards the airport…
A signage caught my attention…‘Amdavad’ spelt this way… I guess the locals wrote it the way they pronounced it…
A smooth drive along wide well planned roads…and we at last reached the airport…
The car stopped, and we were nearly at journey’s end I was indeed feeling very nostalgic… the past few days; I had been living a dream…almost like a romantic sojourn into the pages of history…
We bid adieu to our faithful & deft charioteer… he too became nostalgic and said, “Jaipur House mein Diwali ki shaam mere liye bahut yaadgaar rahega… ab jab kabhi Mt. Adu aaunga… aapsaab yaad aaengey…”
My friend replied with a smile, “Next time, jab desert ghoomney jayege, Hum aap ke liye request karengey..”
Vinod was gone with a wave after we got our luggage out… we entered the airport and had a lot of time to kill till our flights left.
We had sandwitches… walked about in the lounge…
Suddenly my friend said… “are you sure there is no security check happening?”
“I’ll find out..”, I volunteered.
I went up to the security personal… and to my astonishment… though there was

no announcement for our flight’s security check… people were actually checking in…
I ran to inform… and quickly made our way back for the security check.
While we were going through the metal detection by the guards of the CRPF, our hand baggages were being passed through the X-Ray machine.
I came out of the cubicle to get my backpack… only to find my friend, standing in front of the baggage desk… his backpack was sitting aside on another table beside the security personnel… I knew something was wrong…!
“What happened?” I asked
“They want to check my bag again”, he said with a sigh
“Ah… Its because of the metal idol…isn’t it?”
“Yep” he said.
“What if they ask for the bill? The shopkeeper didn’t give us any.. and hadbari mein we forgot to ask… ” I whispered.
“I have that guy’s number.. I will have these guys talk to him…” he replied.
“Lets hope it wont come to that..” I said
In the mean time… we could see the security guys looking at the bag and whispering amongst themselves… and our flight also announced its boarding (without announcing security check.. mind you!!)
“Kya hua bhaiya?” my friend asked.
“Iss mey ek murti hai..” remarked the personnel…
“Hain… ek aasht dhatu ki Ma Laxmi..” replied my friend…
“Zaara.. kholkey… dikha denge???” requested one of the personnels…
“Jaroor…” replied my friend… immediately opening the bag… and removing the packaging …to expose the exquisite goddess…
To my utter surprise… the personnel, actually looked shameful… he touched the goddess’s feet and crossed his hands while touching his ears…
“Maaf ker dijiyega.. ye hamari duty hai…”he said…
“Aare nahi nahi bhaiya… its ok” we replied in union…
we picked up our bags and moved away… when we were out of earshot… I said, “Lesson learnt. Never buy anything like this without a bill…!!!”
“Yes… I agree!” My friend replied… as we walked towards the boarding gate.
We all said goodbye and went off to board our respective flights…

The flight back was without any hassle… filled though it was with wonderful, unforgetable memories…

As the flight neared Kolkata... I looked down from the window...

The city slowly floated into view... as if rising from the dark abyss of the sea...

It glowed with a golden hue from, the twinkling lights of thousands of sodium lamps, that lit the city streets...

She looked like a beautiful lady bedecked in jewellery, awaiting her lover's return...

Landed at the Kolkata Airport to a huge queue at the Luggage conveyer belt… due to too many flights landing at the same time… Ah… the joys of a mega city…!
My faithful maroon suitcase came moving in, after a fashion… with that done… I ran towards the pre-paid cabs counter… having told dad not to come and pick me up…my turn came after a long wait… and with the receipt in hand I left the airport building, for the last leg of my journey home…

It was a bitter-sweet feeling to be back home... I was glad to be back to my City of Joy...!