A Drink Unfinished: The Jaipur Odyssey

The story began when four friends, against odds decided - What the heck? Lets meet, it’s been too long. Others were consulted, persuaded, pleaded but I think fate was not on their side. So it was final, four of us at a place equidistant from each one's location; JAIPUR.

It was a three days journey to discover a city and rediscover each other. So everyone arrived on 1st of Dec. The first thing we did was- buy lots of beer. So it was a session of booze and music and our changed lives. Apparently it’s going to change much more.  Two of them confessed to have given in. They are getting married, in not so distant future. So we celebrated their sacrifices with more alcohol. Then we had a long walk to the nearest mall. There we ate, and we ate a lot. And then we saw something. It was a holy place, a BOSE Shop. But like most of the mall, it was closed for the day. We made a promise to ourselves to return and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we woke up a little late, well very late. Sightseeing was out of the question so we decided to go shopping instead. We saw a lot of stuff while we hunted for a watch for Ajit. I liked a watch but sadly my watch was still very much working properly. So I cursed my watch and dropped the idea. It was the temple we entered next. The Bose people gave us a demonstration of what can be called as the Big Bang. The sound was amazing. But we didn’t have that sort of money. So we settled for cool earphones. I and Ajit bought two pairs each. Our first Bose. We went to Planet M and I bought vcd of the must have ‘Rock On’.  GP bought clothes, lots of them; after all he had seen his favourite Fabindia and Tantra. We had Chinese for lunch. The pepsi we were having was a disaster. It seems that the dispenser had no water supply so what we drank was neat concentrate and mind you it doesn’t taste that good.

We bought more alcohol, and a little extra, at extra rate coz next two days were dry days –Elections. And then we watched Rock On. Cool movie. No one said it but we were missing our band. Then GP suggested that we should buy a small place and then equip it with everything (TV, music system, bar, guitars and drums) and we can stay there whenever we are together. We all thought it was a far flung fantasy but it was not a bad idea. It would have been like our transit camp. Then we dozed off, for the next morning we had to wake up early.

Our ride next morning was at our doors before we were even ready. It was a beautiful auto rickshaw with lavish interiors and even an LCD screen. So we hopped in and were ready to meet Jaipur, with folk songs in the rickshaw giving everything a rajasthani touch. Our first destination was the Amer Fort. I like forts and I loved this one too. But Ajit has seen a lot of them and that didn’t impress him much. It had a fortified wall going over a hill. It was looking like The Great Wall of India. The shutter bug came to life and GP run amok with his camera. We saw the weaponry, the buggies, the tunnel, the carvings and paintings. Some people climbed up the fort on elegantly decorated elephants. We had heard about the largest cannon in the world, but it was further up and we had other places to see. So we skipped it and went to see Kanak vrindavan, a beautiful temple. By the time we reached the doors to the temple were closed. So we saw the garden in front of it. Then we went to see the City Palace. It was beautiful and lavish. They told us that we had to pay 200 bucks extra for taking a digital camera inside. So we sneaked the camera in. It was worth it. In front of the palace was the Jantar Mantar. Ajit and Nihar were not too interested but I had to calibrate my watch with the huge sun dial. It was cool. It was amazing to see that people were so intelligent even in those times when there were no resources.

Now people started getting jittery. So we went to Jal Mahal, saw Hawa Mahal from outside and then we went to Birla mandir, but the gods were not willing to meet us. It was closed too. So we headed back. Jaipur is an inviting city, not too large and also not too small. It has the freeness of a town and lacks the arrogance of a capital city. We packed our bags. We had four more hours to pass. We had only one peg each quantity of alcohol left. All bars were closed. Only way to get more liquor- the hotel bar, that means a lot of pleading and skyrocketing price. GP and Ajit were on it, while I transferred material from their laptops, external drives into my laptop.

Gp and Ajit came back successful. They got a whole bottle. So we drank and watched Johny Gaddar. Nice movie, retro style music. Nihar came back and we had to go. Bottle was unfinished, drink was unfinished.

Jaipur odyssey came to an end. We departed in our respective buses thinking which city next to discover.