G'day mates, 2/3rd of the trip in delhi is done..the last phase but the painful one as the days r getting hotter, drier and no flying...studies after many years makes me feel old...ah well only thing progressing is my beared...jus one of the days took a break from the books to get out and chk the net after a while...going thru some old mails to look back and ironically found this one...when i returned from australia.
setting:
arnd the same motnhs, march - april 2005
same place - Delhi
Similar exams - DGCA aviation.
Date of the mail - 25/o4/2005
G'day, this is the second half of my trip from delhi backhome after the rishikesh one. By the time i had reached delhi i was dead tired and dint have tix booked for jammu ,The bus was always avaliable but with my sore body and considering its 16hrs by bus, i wld have no hope of coming back in onefull piece, but at thew same time i wanted to make it to Vaishno devi temple coming this far. Hence as s0on as i reached delhi morning 3a.m ..took a power nap for 2 hrs and then rushed to anearby train booking centre for tatkal. To my suprise the queue was long and mostly ladies taking advantageof thier so called "sexual minority listings", But in reality i cld see more than half of the ladies were stronger than me and i wldnt last more then 5 mins on a one on one dual with them. as i went for my tix tothe counter i cld see something southish abt ticket attendant:P..and found out he was from andhra...spoke the few words i knew in telegu.....he was delighted to see his statesmen and said he wld get me tix in a train..jus need to hold on for few mins till he finsihes off 2-3 other customers..i waited and he succesfully got me a tix that afternoon...so immediately took off to the station and left for jammu. My coupe in the train had 6ladies (in thier 50's) missing thier children whowere elsewhere. not that i cld understand full of thier hindi, but told them i'm a return from Australia after long time and going for pilgrimage. This was to save myself from explaining a long story of my hindi handicap and how am trying my best picking up the language fast(and i was!!)....then slowly i started speaking to them abt changing socity , generation gap, etc..jus to kill time and to involve them in the conversation....and then two of the ladies challenged me for a game of sudoku, was a absolute cracker as the ladies took sides, 3 with her and 2 with me.:)..I was lost halfway, i stopped thinking, jus admiring the hearty laughter and energy the ladies showed..., hence my team lost and it was worth the loss, jus observing them:)!!! i got all the ladies dinner from a transit station and they became delighted with tears.... Finally had to part ways with my 4 lovely backpacking girlfriends..
i reached jammu the next morning.. from jammu to katra is abt 2 hours of hill driving andi get nausea usually...but to my luck i got hol dof angovt bus which i freaked when i saw it..its anabsolute beauty that bus..no one knows where theengine is or how its running..but it runs..it coastedat 30kmph and was a very slwo journey that made mefeel comfy...the guy siting next to me was from army and he was speaking to me in hindi for 30 mins and i tried my best with my broken hindi (using more ofmatlap, hanji, phir, aur...)..but by my native habit i uttered " aamaa saar"...that guy freaked out and told " r u tamil"...and i said yes..he said " i thgt u were a pseudo telegu(US return working in microsoft-u) " so dint know whether to speak telugu or hindi and chose hindi..for which i told him " i dont know either of the language"!!..then i went and sat in the front near the driver who was a sardar..sang him some dance punjabi songs i knew (thanks to my 2 yrs experience of kitchen hand in a punjabi restaurant) ..ofcourse it dint sound like a typical punjabi song..it was lacking the nose twisting accent..but he was laughing when i told i was from madras and singing punjabi and we both sang some famous numbers together.....finally got down in katra and proceeded in pursuit for my stay..
My ACCOMODATION CRISES, A quick Stunt -
thgt it wld be easy to get a room..but all booked outand had to wait 2 hrs to get any if avaliable as that was the check out time. then finally i thgt i will pull out my old stunt i pulled 8 yrs back in madras. wentto the reception and told confidently i was the nephewof Chief vigilance commishner of delhi and needed a room. First they looked at me twice , they cldnt ignore for if it was true thier, they wld be in serious trouble of ignoring.. at the same time they cldnt belive as i dint have any letter nor intimation to prove. So he then askd me queries and i got fed up and dialled my madras number and quetly told my mum in tamil what happend and asked her to speak, when they spoke , she said yea we r related.then immediatly an Ac room was alloted for me...took a warm shower and started to trek by 2p.m...looking at it , it seemd easy..but trust me it takes half ur life.climbing 15kms upto 6500ft abve sealevel...killed me..but all along the way there were some stunning views, valleys, birds, water flowing which made it soothing...to my luck the mandir was abt to close and was the last one to have the dharshan, a small white marble tunnel leads you to the three pindi's (lord vishnu in form of 3 ladies)...
then climbed down to the foothills, totally took me 7 hrs..and nextday dint know what to do as my train was in the night..so i climbed again rather than sitting in the station...this time climbed with all my 10 kilobackpack, but as i knew what to expect, made it easier and more indulging in nature....again got a quckdharshan...came back and took a bus to jammu and from there to delhi ( and this time no Mrs. Gopikas or ppl for conversaton)! jus a sober trip back:)
Hawk
