RECAP
An engraved joyride of Toy Train to Shimla was narrated previously (read it here http://ihaveastorytonarrate.blogspot.in/2017/05/the-toy-train.html), Lets move on ...
Rain and Chills says HI !!
People often say "Everything comes to an end" so did my joyride of the Toy Train. Yes, it was soothing to my soul (you heard it right, I am not mistaken its definitely soul, you must try it and I am not exaggerating) but being a human, I wanted more and Shimla opened up the heavens for my welcome.
Imagine you are a pahadi, you go to a hill station which you always believed to be overrated and the first step to you put on the land, its chilly with light shower!!! Won't you choke yourself off sheer disbelief that your belief was just proven wrong by a non consensual travel ticket, Imagine that feeling when you can only feel the overwhelm.
ARE YOU THERE YET??
My Mom always says that I am an overconfident fool and the reality struck me like lightening. I was a fool to live 23 long years without setting my foot to Shimla!! Wonders Old Monk and few good friends could do to you!!
Those feeling are impossible to express by pressing keyboard, be there and experience it. August is the time to go.
The station comes very close to cleanest place you can see in New Delhi, jokes apart but its beautiful and it has information board with places to visit in shimla as headline. Just when I thought it should be the end of the happiness, I cant have all the happiness in a day. We came out of the platform and the Road from station to Shimla main was a trek in itself. You can just immerse yourself into you past memories while you reach the main roads to shimla.Ever step forward was a flush of chill,rain and happiness.
We were on the main street of shimla and it was filled with people crying out loud different tourist spots, cheap hotels etc. People are so same everywhere you go, the slight difference is sometimes language or skin color and yeah culture. We were on a tight budget and the prices were hefty so we decided to take a walk and it was gem of a decision, we met lots of people with different stay plans,travel guides and it gave us the idea of the places we could go in our two day rendezvous to Shimla. Finally we met Mr. Parshuram, who made us drag ourselves to a place which suited our budget and we crashed in small room for Rs.900 for 24 hours (A Christmas offer, you never say NO to).
It was calm and peaceful to get a bed to rest upon after a two hour walk to the hotel (yes, we walked for two hour in our hunt of an affordable bedding.) Taking a bath is never easy for me, I am too lazy to do it and if you ask me to take a bath in freezing cold water, I would refuse on your face but it happened and I took a bath and the first meeting of that freezing water with my mortal self was crazy, never felt anything like what i felt during that bath, it woke me up and refueled me. I came out energized and was roaring to explore more. To my surprise, both of my travel mates were too tired and couldn't join me and it was best for me as I was able to experience Shimla with my energized self.
I walked out of hotel and felt need of food,so the search of food took me to a guy making snacks roadside in the main market. In my two years of studying in Delhi, I have seen lots of street joints pulling so much of crowd but this was not a street food joint but an old man trying to earn his livelihood and boy he was failing everything I have seen in Delhi. Two queues were waiting for him to make them simple Snack. Snack was available in two variety vegetarian and the omelet burgers. I waited for another half an hour to get my omelet burger and my first bite was convincing enough for me to grab another one and wait of half an hour ( I waited for another half hour to get the second one). It was like devil's food, you cannot get satisfied eating just one burger and it cost me fifty bucks for two. I wanted to get another one but I decided not to get it as people started widening their eyesballs after watching eat two burgers in no time. I thanked him for his creamy burger and moved on for further search of food. Ten minutes further, I found another small food joint decent and clean, so I decided to hop in try some more of Shimla and the food was crazily named, never heard such names for simple things. I ordered "DUBKI GOBHI","DAL-AE-SHAHI with plain rotis (chappatis) and when the guy arrived with my order, "Shimla, you beauty Stop surprising me now or I'll be dead" came out my mouth. DUBKI GOBHI is cauliflower with a thick sauce over it and DAL-AE-SHAHI is fried pulses with all sort of dry fruits.Smell was heavenly and taste was orgasmic,second only to Mom's made GAJAR KA HALWA, I can bet you that.Yes My Mom has magical hands and her GAJAR KA HALWA is to die for. My mom just appeared in front of my table and it was an experience I can never forget. I took half an our to eat my order as i wanted that extend my mom's little cameo to a little longer. After I was done and paid my bill with a tip and I have never done that before ever, it was that great. The food,Mom's cameo increased my craving to see more of Shimla, to be frank I wanted Shimla to keep on surprising me.
Walking bit further , I got a call from my friends and I asked them to join me after eating Burger from that joint and food of that restaurant at place which you can find everywhere in India, Tibetan Market. If you guessed it correctly, then you have traveled quite a bit i must say.
Tibetan market is like everything it always is everywhere else, Cheap clothes with brand labels, Food, local items, Liquor and crowd, lots of crowd. The place is so crowded that you cant visit every shop even if you wanted to.
My friends joined me at aforementioned place, a temple and they decide to go inside and me being me decided to explore market further than to go to a temple (I apologize if this hurts your religious sentiments). People here are another experience to observe, they never raise their eyes ever and unfortunately or fortunately if they even give you a glance you could feel that you have been stripped of your skin & bones deep down to your soul, such penetrative eyes the shimla pahadis have. Scary as it might seem but if you try harder you can see through their souls too and that is what travel is SOUL SEARCHING, atleast for me.
After a lot of dives into peoples souls, my friends joined me and we started getting further into the market and the road took us straight to christ church, which is the second largest church of north india. The view of the place in the evening looks stunning and more beautiful than a picture can you, eve those high def. ones.The surreal scene, the calm amongst the crowd is very fictional yet true. You can feel yourself breathe every bit of it. The pleasure of being there was so ecstatic that it gives me thrilling goosebumps while writing this piece. Its a place to visit, if you ever want to go to shimla do give it a shot, evening would be perfect time to be at this place,filled with people lots of them and yes you can shop too. The market has all the big names showcasing their merchandise.
After a long wandering, we decided to stop by an icecream parlour and enjoy the chill of desserts it offered. The taste of dessert was like cherry on the cake.A little food in a local restaurant was decent if not the magical but it filled up our stomach, we bought a bottle of rum, decided to gulp two shots each while returning back to our hotel. While returning we shopped for our little ceebration and went back to our room making plan for the next trip. Lots of plans were sketched and when guys plan for their next trip, Goa shoots up to the top spot and mention of goa ended the planning with a chuckle and unanimous agreement of Goa as next place to visit.
As we reached our room the inevitable happened.Every group has a friend who brag a lot about his drinking capacity and ends up throwing up after two shots and ruins the party for other.It happened to us and the blame was mulled to the previous shots that we had while returning back.After a long session of next day's plan over sip of whiskey, we were quite aquainted to each other and decided to sleep. My friend's decided to sleep and I took my diary and sat near the window. The chill of the wind was giving me a high of different level while I was interacting with my diary. After writing my day's experience, I decided to to sleep and rest as I wanted to dream my next day before the day arrives. As soon as I went to the bed, sleep was all over me in no time.
Thank you for your response and with hope of similar response and constructive critique to this piece, I will see you in the final part of this narrative soon.
Yours,
बेकार आवारा
An engraved joyride of Toy Train to Shimla was narrated previously (read it here http://ihaveastorytonarrate.blogspot.in/2017/05/the-toy-train.html), Lets move on ...
Rain and Chills says HI !!
People often say "Everything comes to an end" so did my joyride of the Toy Train. Yes, it was soothing to my soul (you heard it right, I am not mistaken its definitely soul, you must try it and I am not exaggerating) but being a human, I wanted more and Shimla opened up the heavens for my welcome.
Imagine you are a pahadi, you go to a hill station which you always believed to be overrated and the first step to you put on the land, its chilly with light shower!!! Won't you choke yourself off sheer disbelief that your belief was just proven wrong by a non consensual travel ticket, Imagine that feeling when you can only feel the overwhelm.
ARE YOU THERE YET??
My Mom always says that I am an overconfident fool and the reality struck me like lightening. I was a fool to live 23 long years without setting my foot to Shimla!! Wonders Old Monk and few good friends could do to you!!
Those feeling are impossible to express by pressing keyboard, be there and experience it. August is the time to go.
The station comes very close to cleanest place you can see in New Delhi, jokes apart but its beautiful and it has information board with places to visit in shimla as headline. Just when I thought it should be the end of the happiness, I cant have all the happiness in a day. We came out of the platform and the Road from station to Shimla main was a trek in itself. You can just immerse yourself into you past memories while you reach the main roads to shimla.Ever step forward was a flush of chill,rain and happiness.
We were on the main street of shimla and it was filled with people crying out loud different tourist spots, cheap hotels etc. People are so same everywhere you go, the slight difference is sometimes language or skin color and yeah culture. We were on a tight budget and the prices were hefty so we decided to take a walk and it was gem of a decision, we met lots of people with different stay plans,travel guides and it gave us the idea of the places we could go in our two day rendezvous to Shimla. Finally we met Mr. Parshuram, who made us drag ourselves to a place which suited our budget and we crashed in small room for Rs.900 for 24 hours (A Christmas offer, you never say NO to).
It was calm and peaceful to get a bed to rest upon after a two hour walk to the hotel (yes, we walked for two hour in our hunt of an affordable bedding.) Taking a bath is never easy for me, I am too lazy to do it and if you ask me to take a bath in freezing cold water, I would refuse on your face but it happened and I took a bath and the first meeting of that freezing water with my mortal self was crazy, never felt anything like what i felt during that bath, it woke me up and refueled me. I came out energized and was roaring to explore more. To my surprise, both of my travel mates were too tired and couldn't join me and it was best for me as I was able to experience Shimla with my energized self.
I walked out of hotel and felt need of food,so the search of food took me to a guy making snacks roadside in the main market. In my two years of studying in Delhi, I have seen lots of street joints pulling so much of crowd but this was not a street food joint but an old man trying to earn his livelihood and boy he was failing everything I have seen in Delhi. Two queues were waiting for him to make them simple Snack. Snack was available in two variety vegetarian and the omelet burgers. I waited for another half an hour to get my omelet burger and my first bite was convincing enough for me to grab another one and wait of half an hour ( I waited for another half hour to get the second one). It was like devil's food, you cannot get satisfied eating just one burger and it cost me fifty bucks for two. I wanted to get another one but I decided not to get it as people started widening their eyesballs after watching eat two burgers in no time. I thanked him for his creamy burger and moved on for further search of food. Ten minutes further, I found another small food joint decent and clean, so I decided to hop in try some more of Shimla and the food was crazily named, never heard such names for simple things. I ordered "DUBKI GOBHI","DAL-AE-SHAHI with plain rotis (chappatis) and when the guy arrived with my order, "Shimla, you beauty Stop surprising me now or I'll be dead" came out my mouth. DUBKI GOBHI is cauliflower with a thick sauce over it and DAL-AE-SHAHI is fried pulses with all sort of dry fruits.Smell was heavenly and taste was orgasmic,second only to Mom's made GAJAR KA HALWA, I can bet you that.Yes My Mom has magical hands and her GAJAR KA HALWA is to die for. My mom just appeared in front of my table and it was an experience I can never forget. I took half an our to eat my order as i wanted that extend my mom's little cameo to a little longer. After I was done and paid my bill with a tip and I have never done that before ever, it was that great. The food,Mom's cameo increased my craving to see more of Shimla, to be frank I wanted Shimla to keep on surprising me.
Walking bit further , I got a call from my friends and I asked them to join me after eating Burger from that joint and food of that restaurant at place which you can find everywhere in India, Tibetan Market. If you guessed it correctly, then you have traveled quite a bit i must say.
Tibetan market is like everything it always is everywhere else, Cheap clothes with brand labels, Food, local items, Liquor and crowd, lots of crowd. The place is so crowded that you cant visit every shop even if you wanted to.
My friends joined me at aforementioned place, a temple and they decide to go inside and me being me decided to explore market further than to go to a temple (I apologize if this hurts your religious sentiments). People here are another experience to observe, they never raise their eyes ever and unfortunately or fortunately if they even give you a glance you could feel that you have been stripped of your skin & bones deep down to your soul, such penetrative eyes the shimla pahadis have. Scary as it might seem but if you try harder you can see through their souls too and that is what travel is SOUL SEARCHING, atleast for me.
After a lot of dives into peoples souls, my friends joined me and we started getting further into the market and the road took us straight to christ church, which is the second largest church of north india. The view of the place in the evening looks stunning and more beautiful than a picture can you, eve those high def. ones.The surreal scene, the calm amongst the crowd is very fictional yet true. You can feel yourself breathe every bit of it. The pleasure of being there was so ecstatic that it gives me thrilling goosebumps while writing this piece. Its a place to visit, if you ever want to go to shimla do give it a shot, evening would be perfect time to be at this place,filled with people lots of them and yes you can shop too. The market has all the big names showcasing their merchandise.
As we reached our room the inevitable happened.Every group has a friend who brag a lot about his drinking capacity and ends up throwing up after two shots and ruins the party for other.It happened to us and the blame was mulled to the previous shots that we had while returning back.After a long session of next day's plan over sip of whiskey, we were quite aquainted to each other and decided to sleep. My friend's decided to sleep and I took my diary and sat near the window. The chill of the wind was giving me a high of different level while I was interacting with my diary. After writing my day's experience, I decided to to sleep and rest as I wanted to dream my next day before the day arrives. As soon as I went to the bed, sleep was all over me in no time.
Thank you for your response and with hope of similar response and constructive critique to this piece, I will see you in the final part of this narrative soon.
Yours,
बेकार आवारा
