My Retryst with India

I had waited for this moment to write about my Indian journey for long. Even before the journey had actually commenced. So, my pre-conceived notions are bound to adorn or pollute my writing quite often in between.

Since I left India about 16 months back, my obsession with India has grown manifold, to the extent that I have started viewing every development about and around me to its Indian connection. It has got a lot to do with my long held dispirted idea about India vis-a-vis the rest of world. As a result, I visualise every thing about my country through the ideas held in similar conditions by any foreigner.

Thus, I was a phirangi impersonated beforehand on my first trip to India since coming abroad. I started on 22nd Dec,07 with lots of unknown anticipation. The flight journey was as usual harrowing and exhausting. I now realise train journeys are more enjoyable and less tiring. Anyway, I landed at IGI Airport, Delhi and braced myself up for the famous 'assault on the senses' feelings. Going through the formailities at the airport with the tagline of 'World Class Airport Soon Coming' all over was a no-hassle show really, but my actual encounter with Indian order, say chaos, happened on the roads with zillions of things coming all around with no traffic control either. And it did feel a lot bizarre. Ashamedly for me, as it was my same country where I had spent all my life barring the last one year. But to say honestly, many subsequent things too did look out of sorts, and sometimes scary too, as it happens with many long-time travellers.

My enthusiasn for meeting my family was never diminished though, and it was really great to be back home at Patna. My first week passed in total slack mood, with the home and office works now thrown on the ledge. I was again a coddled child with attention and sumptuous food served to me by my mother and other relatives. My favourite pastime or rather say, indulgence was India-Australia cricket match watched in the wee hours of the chilly morning from the cosy warmth of the quilt. Few moments in my life could match that, and fortunately I was able to relive those, albeit for a few days only. Sadly India lost that match in Melbourne.

I was very happy at the end of the week that I had not fallen sick to any kind, as most of my friends had some really bad times with their health on coming back. Alas, my relaxation was soon to be over, as I caught serious cold due to my allergy to dust coupled with the freezing cold weather. It was really horrible as I had to celebrate the New Year in that sneezing mood only. I visited Vindhyachal on 1st of Jan. for a darshan of the Devi, which as a family we have been doing for years. Though the darshan was good, it was hampered by my irritating indisposed condition.

Returning home, I took a good rest and was ready for my Indian journey the next day with my father. Thankfully my health too had improved. The first leg of the journey was at Kolkata. I had not seen this metro before despite living so close to it. Its first impression was that of an as-told-before bustling city with people jostling for space. I visited the Kali temple first. The idol of goddess Kali was grand enough to have made a lasting impression on me. It felt really great to visit another place of religious mysticism, though made slightly off-putting by the haggling pandas. Victoria Memorial, Planetarium, Indian Museum and the milling streets of Chowrangee, Esplanade etc. were the next stop-overs for the day. It felt amazing to see Kolkata thrown back to the old days of man-pulled rickshaws and swerving trams. I didn't see the newly developed posh parts of Kolkata, so the experience despite its archaic charm wasn't a very pleasant one to my given-to-snugness mind.

Next day we flew to Bangalore to my elder brother's home. I liked Bangalore with the happening aura attached to it. Rightly called the Silicon Valley, if you ignore the dismal roads and traffic, it has IT building, malls, towers etc. sprawling gradually every day. I visited Iskcon and Kemp Fort temples too. It was a pleasantly good experience to watch such clean and modern temples with the surroundings developed as a stress reliever too. Though most of my Bangalore sojourn went in meeting relatives and friends, which in itself was emotive and refreshing, I found Bangalore a very happening city. But not much good happened on the cricket front, with India inexplicably falling in the dying moments of the controversial Sydney test. It did sour things a bit but now with mind extricated out of cricket, I could enjoy my further trip better.

We travelled overnight by train to Pune, the place where I had my first corporate life. I always had an affinity for this city even before visting it, and the enchantment grew bigger arriving here. Staying at my bua's place, I had some personal work, so remained totally engrossed in that. But I was able to meet my friends here with whom I shared an amazing evening and dinnner with talks ranging from heady college days to intoxicating girls to the now mundane office life. Those recreating days I have never or can never experience outside India. There was no sight-seeing here though, but I had already been to the most-visited spots during my earlier stay.

We left for Mumbai then after getting over the work in Pune. I had been to this glamourous city only once before. However much other cities might develop, Mumbai will remain the grand old Empire City of India. How much life it supports is just incredible to think. You don't need to look further than the tirelessly plying local trains carrying hordes of people every day. I too had a share of enjoyment, I can call enjoyment now, riding them. The fact that my glasses fell on the tracks, safely thankfully, while alighting from the coach only tells how life would be like travelling every day. Ah ! by now I had again started loving Indian chaos, nay order; its daily life of struggle and simultaneous hope. I could again breathe plentiful rich dirt and traffic smoke without feeling uncomfortable or falling sick. See the vagaries.......but my journey was going to come to an end soon.

We boarded the train from Mumbai to Patna on 14 th of Jan. to complete an awesome tour of fortnight. I slept the whole next day in total luxury to shed off my weariness of the journey. I really love the trains for the comforting space and time, if you need, they can provide. Having arrived again at Patna doing a ring-road service, I was into my last week of Indian stay and started preparing for the return. Also now I myself wanted to be a gratified child with cuisines and care coming from all sides to me. To cap it all, India played a great test match against Australia in Perth to come back strongly in the series after the fiasco in Sydney. It was undoubtedly one of the most awe-inspiring victories of my entire viewing career.

So, it all ended happily, sadly suddenly, with me again leaving Patna for Delhi to catch the flight abroad. In Gurgaon, I again had, for the last time of vacation, a delightful evening spent with my old chummies in a dhaba sipping on a chai and eating those delectable parathas amidst a youthful aura of chilly winter. Ask any Indian youth what does that mean! Meanwhile Gurgaon seemed like a US-like ultra-modern opulent city with dazzling night life. It was the show of how India is going to shape up in near future. My trip had come a full circle there.

I boarded the flight to Cyprus via Bahrain the next morning on 22nd Jan,08, rewinding the days spent by . How it started from a shock to endearment to infatuation. Having read many travelogues before the trip, I knew this is what happens to most of the persons visiting India. And I seriously wanted to digress from that with goodness right from the start. But it happened in the end only, making me more knowledgeable about India though. I can't seriously claim to understand her yet, but the sheer Indianness will never leave my pores, and it will come out every often I start pretending, thinking, talking or writing (like I did many times here to be honest to how I felt) un-Indian. Alas ! I also belong to those erudite section of people who can delight, ponder or rue over India with beautiful thoughts, but only from a distance. An Indian, feeling and boasting the glory, but hiding away from the real India. I am not strong yet but my ideas are, and hopefully one day I too will be like that, understanding and bettering India in my own way living home or abroad.