J'adore Indore

Everyday, well almost, there seems to be an update of pictures and albums being shared by my friends from their trips to Goa, Bangkok, KL, or even home.  The thing about photographs is you love browsing through them, even more than reading your favourite book.  Its got something to do with our undying love for laziness and lack of exercising our brain!  Every album I sift through, smiling, surprised and more often than not completely awestruck and mesmerised has one thing in common - people.  It might seem rather mopey of me to complain every once in a while about having to go about alone every place I wander off to.  Such is the irony of it all, I ended up alone on a business trip as well.

To be honest, I was not exactly on cloud nine when I got Indore in the lottery system we used at office to assign cities.  I try not to be prejudiced against cities, but Indore just did not have a very welcoming ring to it.  Sure it could possibly translate into an important business hub for us, but the prospect of going to a newly industrialised town of a state already lagging behind in development did not seem to do the trick.  Planning to make the trip as short as possible, so that I could be part of the Mumbai madness again, I laid down a jam-packed itinerary for the next two days.  Our business event well, much to the amusement of many.  Rocketsingh stole the show, but that's a story for some other time.  As luck would have it, the positive response generated meant I had to prolong my stay for at least 4 more days, because of the weekend in between.  

I am an avid traveler, and its rather blasphemous for me to get goosebumps on the prospect of having to stay in a city on the premise of being "possibly bored".  Yet here I am, a mug of coffee by the side, music playing, typing this post on a Sunday afternoon.   Its cool inside, with the AC blaring and the scent of fresh lemon all around, compared to the scorching dry summer of Indore at 45 degrees on the Celsius scale.  Not surprised anymore as to what I am doing inside at this hour are you? :)  Due to lack of companionship on such trips, I often find solace in my writing and photography, more as a way of talking to myself than to you, dear Reader.  It makes for brilliant conversation.  You might bob your heads sideways at such a remark, please spare yourselves the trouble, its not meant to sound bleak.  I must confess, however, I committed a mistake for this trip.  I chose to not pick up my mammoth camera, a decision I have been regretting ever since Friday evening came.  

A bout of tummy trouble from Friday evening's dinner that carried over to Saturday morning did not particularly cheer me up.  I sulked most of Saturday morning, wondering how I'd be able to get through the painful two days of holiday without considering suicide for want of game.  Chats with a couple of friends back in office, telephone conversations lasting 10 minutes were short-lived engagements.  The prospective dinner date also didn't seem enticing anymore.  I just lay in bed blankly switching between TV channels cursing everything I came across from mind-numbing soaps to ridiculously-misrepresented news.  Logging in and out of my Gmail account didn't help much, except add to the annoyance of a few who were not particularly happy seeing "Kshitij is online" notifications pop-up on their screens every 10 seconds!  It was time, I had to budge from this situation and make something of the predicament I found myself stuck in.

Picked my satchel, changed into shorts, put my sneakers on, wet my hair, left my key at the reception and wandered out into the simmering heat.  It was 7 in the evening, and it still felt like the sun was overhead trying to suck every last drop of water from inside of us with a straw.  I hailed a rickshaw and asked him to take me to the Sarafa market.  If nothing else, always go for the famous food joints in a new city, is something I have learnt from experience, you never get disappointed.  After a lengthy bargain of the graduated payment scale depending on where the rickshaw driver would drop me off at the market I finally got moving.  Now the unique feature of Indore traffic is that irrespective of the number of wheels on your vehicle, your average speed hovers around 20 kmph, not because of traffic jams, but as an understanding people here have established by choice.  

So after a rather lengthy and tiring rickshaw ride, I was finally standing at Rajwada, which equated to 30 bucks as per the agreement with the driver.  He zoomed off as a traffic policeman came charging towards him yelling to move away from the building's entrance.  Like any other tourist, my first instinct was to look up at an angle of 45 degrees to the ground to get a feel of the surroundings.  Another fun fact about Indore - buildings here suffer from stunted growth, hardly any grows beyond 3 storeys, so for a bloke of height 5 feet 7 inches, 45 degrees was quite a stretch, and all I ended up seeing was towering lamp posts and haywire wiring.  It wasn't difficult to spot the entrance to one of the most busy streets of Indore at night time, so I ambled slowly towards the noise and brightly illuminated street.

As I approached the first few shops, I was greeted with shouts of "side ho be andhe", "hat hat hat abbe hattttt" and the Mumbaiyya "smooch sound" as bicycles and motorbikes squeezed by in a lane which was far too narrow for even three people to walk side-by-side.  I was amazed and completely dazzled by the brilliant colours on display in this little street - the yellows of poha, the light browns of gulab jamuns, the whites of rabri, the reds of chutneys, all adding to an aroma that would tingle your senses!  Fun fact #3 about Indore - NEVER look away from the street you're walking on, you will be hit!  Apart from the usual two lane traffic, people here have a habit of forming a single file "geisterfahrer" (German for "ghost driver") either side of the usual traffic and trampling pedestrians is their favourite sport.  After being rammed into by two bicycles, I reached Vijay Chaat House and opened up the small paper chit on which I had scribbled down what to have and preferably where.  "Khopra pattice" it read against Vijay Chaat House.  I have a penchant for trying out new cuisine, but unfortunately my tummy has an affinity for trouble, so I had to first check what exactly was I getting into.  

A small shop with no place to sit and people regularly ordering stuff, knowing the rates, handing over change, what were my chances of squeezing past them and asking patiently, what exactly the khopra pattice was and how much was it worth.  I took out a 10er, waved it at one of the guys and ordered one.  A sumptuous blend of mashed potato and finely ground coconut fried into a small ping-pong ball, the pattice simply melted in my mouth, with an after-taste of tangy chutney.  I had worked up an appetite by now as I went in for another round.  Bidding adieu to the considerate guy handing over the food to me having realised I was an outsider, I moved forward to check off the next item on the list - Joshi restaurant.  A restaurant, here?  As it turns out, not a restaurant but an upgrade of the usual mobile junk food vendor, "Joshi dahi-wada dhaba" had been in business for several generations.  What makes such specialty places a delight to visit is the warm welcome you receive and the eagerness to display their art with food.  So while I ordered a "bhutte ka khees" - a concoction of powdered corn and grated coconut lined with minced tomatoes and onion, sprinkled with a tangy spice and coriander leaves - Joshi ji tossed up a plate of dahi wada for me.  When I say tossed one up, I mean he literally tossed it up in the air.  Jugglery, apparently, is a genetic trait in the family.  Onlookers stood in awe, locals most of them, as they watched him swerve the plate full of curd in the air and sprinkle one spice or the other as it landed right in the palm of his hand before being spun into the air one more time.  For these locals this sight was a part of their daily routine, yet every time they'd stop by, the amazement in their eyes would be afresh.  Gobbling down the delicacies I listened intently as he narrated stories of his childhood, legends of his forefathers, how they had served in royal courts and been renowned for their talent in cookery. The enthusiasm in his stories and preparation was infectious.  People who knew the stories by heart, joined in, as they kept prompting him to tell me the one where his grandfather cooked for the Viceroy, the one where they cooked a meal for 500 people in a matter of 2 hours, the one with his great-grandfather coming up with a cure for fever by accident stumbling upon a recipe he was trying out.  Okay, some of his stories were just too fantastic to be true, but where is the harm in giving an elated man who loves his job a clap of appreciation even if he glorifies it just a little!  I was almost full, burped out, and took Joshi ji's leave, promising to come back again before leaving for Mumbai.  I ended up having fruit rabri and matka kulfi on my way back, before getting on to a rickshaw lest I burst my tummy out of gluttony.  The ride back to the hotel was equally slow as the one from it.

Entered my room, changed into my night clothes, and cozily nestled into my bed, put my specs on and sat up half way with a book in hand, picking up from where I had left it the day I left for Indore.  On page 95 I slid the bookmark in, smiled at the fun I had in the evening thinking being alone here isn't all that bad after all and slid off into deep slumber with VH1 playing on the TV and the dim light on the other side of the bed still on.