Chandigarh. And a little bit of Delhi.

Long long time since this one came, but the break from blogger was pretty much unavoidable. Time was a constraint, but there were other issues to mull about. Not the negative conotations associated with the word 'issue', but, issue in it's true form, i.e. things to be taken care of!

And before I begin with where I have been hiding all these days, I would like to wish my sweetheart a very Happy Birthday! Hopefully, you would get all what you what (including a great brunch at Taj, and all the stuff you expect from the post today!)

Now, coming back to me, I had an awesome Chandigarh and Delhi visit, more so Chandigarh, simply because Delhi is not a place that I really enjoy a lot. The reasons could be more pyschological than anything else, but....! But Chandigarh, it is a different kettle of fish altogether. For starters, it seems to be a very planned city. Now, Gurgaon (that I also visited during my Delhi rendezvous) is also said to be a planned foray, but it is also a clear cut spillover of Delhi into Gurgaon, and that seems to dilute the presence of the latter.

Not so with Chandigarh yet. One look at the roads and more importantly, the road sides, would make you fall in love with this place. Again. And again. Add to that the fact the traffic on the road is so thin (especially for someone who has lived all his life in Mumbai), that it may end up giving Hrishita Bhatt a complex. Serious. The same distance between my home and my college (in Mumbai), that takes me around forty minutes, would get done in 12 minutes. On a Kinetic, that was allowed to travel at an average speed of 30 odd kilometers every hour.

The drastic difference of time can be attributed to the number of sped-breakers that Mumbai faces. Natural or Man made. Not a road bump, not a signal that lasts more than 30 seconds, no sign of civilians appearing from nowhere, trying to cross the road, nothing to break the speeds!

That said, I do not know whether I would be able to really settle down in such a place. A place where noise is so conspicous by it's absence, a place where the hassles of travelling are virtually non existent (though public transport here, like that in Delhi, sucks) and a city that does not have a bowling alley. Err...well, not quite the last point. But yeah, on a more serious note a place where you would end up getting that feeling that you on a vacation. Almost always!

And then came the weather. Picture this conversation. I am about to leave for Chandigarh.

Mum: You taking your windcheater along. Isnt it Monsoon there?

Me(scoffs): Yeah, in a place where the definition of Monsoon is - It rained for exactly three minutes and then a dry spell that lasts three days. No ways am I stuffing that thing in my bag.

Mum: Ok, your wish.

Have reached Delhi enroute Chandigarh. Stop over at the station itself for a couple of hours.

Waiting for the next train.

I always thought that Mumbai had won the patent rights for dishing out humidity to it's inhabitants. Little had I realised that Delhi was pirating the same too. One trip to the enquiry counter and two trips across the lengths of the platform, and suddenly, I was sweating like it's just rained just above me. Only me. Terrific. Heard it could only get worse in Chandigarh.

Tol' ya mum!

Reach Chandigarh. Scenes have changed damatically. It is cloudy. As cloudy as it gets in Mumbai. Ask Peeya a little apprehensively about the possibility of rains. She scoffs at me.

"It does not rain for more than a couple of minutes."

I stay in Chandigarh for six days. The first three record the highest rainfall that the city has seen for a long time. For many many years. I get drenched over and over again.

Because I have no wind cheater.

Because mums are always right.

Or most of the time.

The fourth day is spent in the hotel room. More specifically, in the bed, with a device that reads the temperature in my mouth, a crocin and a few biscuits next to the bed, and a bed sheet and a blanket covering me so that I am barely visible to an outsider.

Somehow, the situation changes drastically in the next two days that follow. It is as sunny as it was cloudy some days back. Vagaries of nature seemed as moody as a lot of people back home.

And then I go to Delhi. More on that trip in the next one!