A trip with Mangal Pandey... Review on Jaipur

Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Ho… Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Ho…

Don’t hit the back button on the Internet Explorer… This is the song that was playing for 3.5 hours on our way to Jaipur on Saturday night…

Me and my two childhood friends were sitting in a Club called Tapas in Hotel Vasant Continental and suddenly an idea struck my mind considering the weather that we must go to Jaipur so we hurriedly paid the bill, filled the Petrol and bought some more booze from a Highway Joint in Gurgaon and left at 2:30 AM in the night to Jaipur…Relax people I am not a Drunkard driver…I don’t drink but my friends do so I was the driver for the Trip…but I had my share of Mirinda Berry flavour and 7 UP Ice on the way though…

The National Highway 8 from Delhi to Jaipur is terrific and gave ample chance for our Maruti 800 to hit 130 Kms per hour…there are two toll roads on the highway which covers 180 Kms out of the total 217 Kms run from Gurgaon to Jaipur we paid Rs.82.50 and Rs.60 as the Toll Tax for both ways…so one can expect an awesome highway with good quality 4 lane roads.

After a long time we were going somewhere out of Delhi for a pleasure trip…and on the top of it the weather was perfect for a long ride albeit with two other guys…It was raining off and on and we were having the time of our life listening to the Mangal Pandey cassette I had bought the same day…even now the song Mangal Mangal is playing somewhere in my mind…my two friends were having their share of booze for the whole trip and were drunk to say the least…but they were egging me on to up the tempo of the car continuously but as I was completely in my senses I had nothing of it and was driving at a nice pace considering it was raining quite heavily…at around four in the morning we stopped for some hot Tea and biscuits and after getting rejuvenated I sat back in the car…prayed to God and literally just flew…then finally my friends were happy as for the first time we hit 130 Kms per hour…And for those who don’t know the top speed of a Maruti 800 on the Speedometer is 140 so the steering was shaking but I controlled it pretty well and after that again hit the mark 4 times and was averaging 100 Kms per hour quite frequently…there was not even a single vehicle which could overtake us throughout our sojourn…We overtook 2 Honda Cities, 10-15 Toyota Qualis, and a couple of Zens and Altos on the way…and anyway trucks, trawlers or buses were no competition.

We reached the Ajmer bypass and then we had our only scare of our trip…I was touching 120 and then suddenly there was a n uprooted tree lying on the right side of the road after heavy storms in the night…I took full advantage of my reflexes and swerved the car on the left and then again went straight and came out safely…all of us got scared but we chilled out reached Jaipur comfortably at 5:30 in the morning…just before we reached we saw the Aravalli hills on both sides of the road and the sleepy villages coming out of their night long slumber…there were low lying clouds also to beautify the whole scene.

We went to a very shady budget hotel and rented one Air-Cooled room for 200 bucks…had a quick bath and freshened up and went to have breakfast at the famous Rawat Restaurant whose Onion Kachoris and Jalebis are quite famous…we also had piping hot Tea. We saw the city just waking up to a Sleepy Sunday morning… I must say the Old Jaipur is a very different city…I mean there is nothing contemporary in the city…every structure is traditional…but a nice change from the Delhi and Gurgaon where there is only Shining Glass and concrete we get to see…after that we went to the World Famous HAWA MAHAL for our first Monument visit at Jaipur…watched the interiors of the Hawa Mahal and also the museum which shows some really very interesting snippets about the History of Jaipur…

After that we went to visit two huge forts named AMBER FORT and JAGARH FORT which are gigantic in size and built at a quite a height…there is also one temple of the Family Deity in the fort…the ascent towards the top of the fort takes quite an effort but we were ready for the kill…there is an option for taking an elephant ride but we being young and energetic rejected the option quite vehemently.

We visualized how royally the king might have spent his life sitting on the top of a hill in his fort and taking care of his kingdom. The interiors of the fort were very beautiful with amazing glasswork. We spent around 2 hours in the fort and on our way out we threw Flour Atta to the fish in a very dirty pond on the entrance of the fort, there were hundreds of people doing the same considering the pleasant weather and a Sunday to boot. We left the Fort at around 1 in the afternoon and then went to have a traditional Rajasthani Lunch comprising of Dal, Bati and Choorma, it was very delicious and a welcome change from the non-vegetarian stuff I gorge here in Delhi.

We debated for some time on visiting some more places but our beds back home were attracting us a lot so we decided to go back…Considering that I drove the whole night my friend took the wheels of the car and I dozed off in the back seat…at around 4 we stopped for our tea…it was raining profusely and there was also traffic on the highway so my friend didn’t have any opportunity to speed up the way I did in the night.

We reached the Gurgaon Border at around 5:30 and again the pain of Bumper-to-Bumper traffic and the Delhi heat to boot. Then we realized Jaipur was heaven considering the awesome weather we experienced there.

All in all it was smashing trip and we had our share of Highway scares, pouring rain, traditional Rajasthani Cuisine and the royal forts.

This trip is dedicated to the music of Mangal Pandey and it really made our drive memorable and now I am anxiously waiting for the movie to release.

Hope this review was interesting enough to hold you for 5-10 minutes.

So here it goes again…Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Ho… Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Mangal Ho…