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Mumbai-Delhi-Rae Bareli-Delhi-Mumbai

Yeah! That’s what I have been doing in the past 3 days – having spent all nights on Train berths rather than any beds. 

I left Mumbai on Aug-Kranti Rajdhani on Friday evening for Delhi, reached Delhi at 11 AM on Saturday. Milind had come up to pick me up from Nizamuddin railway station. On our way, I marveled at the well developed road infrastructure in New Delhi – the underpasses, overpasses, the big 8’s and big O’s creating a seamless flow of traffic at the junctions and crossovers.

I stayed at to AshiMil’s place in Gurgaon for the day. This was my first visit to Gurgaon and I should say I was impressed - wide roads, huge open spaces, humongous buildings and malls and good road connectivity to New Delhi. If the development here is managed well, it may as well end up becoming the Shanghai of India (blowing Mumbai’s dreams!). Some essentials which they need to do:
  • Expedite the metro connectivity to Delhi
  • Decongest the internal road traffic (create multilevel flyovers, underpasses and overpasses
  • Improve public transport – run more AC buses, star buses etc
  • Concretize all roads
  • Improve power situation 
Of course these are more of outsider’s perspective points and I am sure there’s a lot more which locals can add.

Anyway, back to my itinery - Ashita cooked a delicious lunch of Chooley Chawal which we as well carried with us as Tiffin for dinner. In the evening, Ashi dropped Milind and me to Old Delhi from where we boarded Padmavati express to Rae Barely (RB).

We reached RB the next morning. RB as suggested by >Chaos< (whose wedding I went to attend in RB) is a sleepy town very similar to Durg in CG. Life is simple here – you travel from anywhere to the railway station in a bare Rs 5 on a rickshaw (the cycle one not auto); narrow roads – lot's of shaties and thelas and the modernest market called “Super Market” is just a small 'E' like formation of 5-6 shops; you can walk through each lane of town in an hour max which is what we did after the morning ceremonies and breakfast. 

The ceremonies were planned the Dharmshala which is bang opposite the RB Railway station. This is where we had our lunch as well and then retired to our hotel room where I napped and Milind watched the India-England match (which we serendipitously won thanks to Gentlemen Duckworth and Lewis).

In the evening we joined the Baraat from the Dharmshala to the reception venue (which was again just behind the hotel where we were put up - it’s really a small place!). On way we danced to the tune of the local band till we were sweating in our suits.

After reaching the reception venue, Varmala was conducted in a dash and then the bride and the groom dispatched for fere. We were then free to pleasure ourselves with delicious UP ki Chat, Marwadi dinner and host of other delicious stuff! We were joined by Chaos’s engineering batchmate and the 3 of us spent the evening chatting and eating.

The bride and groom reappeared at the venue at around 11.00 when everyone wished them again. That was it for us at RB, we went back to the Hotel, changed and left by cab to Lucknow at 3 AM (when the newlyweds were just entering the ‘home’ for the first time as man and wife – which is also a ceremony in itself). We reached Lucknow at 4.30AM; waited till 5.30 for Gomti express which took us to New Delhi.

Everything went to the clock and here I am onboard the Mumbai Rajdhani which I boarded at 16.30 from New Delhi on my way to Mumbai!!

Milind said during the day that he had never imagined he would travel to a place like Rae Barely. To be frank even I had never thought so – but this is precisely the reason why I decide to do it anyway. It’s always an adventure to do something you never thought you would ... must do more such stuff in life going forward!

Wishing a great life ahead to the newly Married Couple ...

Comments

  1. "blowing mumbai's dreams"....well that was clairvoyant

    ReplyDelete

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