Mumbai to Delhi like never before

I am a bon vivant. Although not a food fanatic or a food-o-holic, I have penchant for good taste and meals are essential to me. I like wholesome repast that enlivens the epithelium of tongue, only to leave behind burps that stand testimony to the grand and scrumptious meal. I like fluffy cheese omelette and fruits with white bread toasted to golden brown perfection with a rich layer of butter on it as my morning feast. But as it were to be, I was left deprived of anything that could qualify as a good breakfast, that morning.

The salad years of my life that these are, I get up in time, do things that would keep me athletic and fit (I hate to use the term exercise) and then go about doing the usual morning errands, if you know what I mean! So, after satisfying myself with the colour of my teeth following rigorous onslaught with a toothbrush and spending time in the water closet, I got dressed and stepped out of the house.

Subhash, the cab guy, was waiting and once I was seated and morning pleasantries exchanged, we hit the road, on our way to reach the airport. How I wish I weren’t running on such a tight schedule, because I would’ve loved to drive down to Delhi, so that more experiences could be shared. Still, this was not all that bad. Rather, as it pains me to say this, it was even entertaining at times!

I belong to the ‘observant’ clique of humans and couldn’t help but notice that Subhash honks a lot and rather gratuitously at that, most of the times. What I also observed were the surroundings, as I never did before. I drive down these roads very frequently but today it appeared so different to me. There was enough time to soak in the vista. That marshy land below the bridge was reflecting the soft rays of sun that warmed up the land and the humble beings were getting ready to go fishing which would provide for their livelihood. The hilly hinterlands near Mankhurd stand as virgin beauties that invite you to explore them with their sensuous presence.

As the usual Mumbai chaos begins to settle in, you’re left with not much to do but listen to FM, and so I did. In the messy throng of Reshamiya’s chart-busters and the regular racy Bollywood numbers that carry the famous ‘one-minute-of-fame’ tag along with them, there stood apart one song that caught my fancy instantly. Sung by Karma6, “Aye dost, aye yaar” is a song that stands for a social cause towards saving electricity. How noble is that! The simplicity of this song hits you hard in the face and the effect it has on your mind is profound. So engrossed I was in this song that even the traffic bedlam caused by flyover construction near the airport did not bother me nuts. The only thing that made me observe and smile at it was a moving art – a man riding what seemed like the ugly, abandoned love child of a Bajaj Sunny (do you even remember it?) and a moped.

It was business as usual at the departure lounge of Mumbai airport. Although flying an airline that has a name same as that of a mythical bird (Kingfisher) does shorten your wait at the security check-in, the wait beyond that, for the airliner, is inescapable. It was during this time that Martha and I got talking. Martha is an English woman who was vacationing in various parts of India and today was the day of her return to her native place. When asked, she said that she would, along with some other very beautiful memories, carry along the sheer lowliness of India. Meaning to understand clearly if lowliness meant humbleness in her terms, I requested her to elaborate and she said that India has always been known as the land of snake charmers and whatever modernity there is, it is all due to the ‘west’.

Without trying to sound rude or insulting, and wanting to give her the correct picture, I made myself vocal towards the achievements of India in spheres beyond just fashion that she’d seen. And continuing on that, I recited facts that I remembered watching in a recent-ish Bollywood movie (thanks Akshay, Katreena) which left her with a grim and apologetic face. It wasn’t my intention to make her feel sorry for what she said, but I wanted her to see the correct picture and wake up to reality, for it is time. If you were offended, accept my humble apologies, Martha.

Boarding announced, I walked through the tunnel to enter the aircraft and made myself comfortable on the window seat that I was given (without even asking for it!). One Miss Yana Gupta appeared on the screen. Her horribly irritating lip sync in Hindi made me turn the screen off and pick up the in-flight magazine Hi! and flipped through its pages. Flipping stopped and I actually started reading the content of the magazine with keen interest for it was, er, interesting.

Dr. Vijay Mallya writes that this is the only airline in India with a 5-star rating. Reserving my comments towards the take-off and landing, I can only but nod in agreement with everything that ‘The Chairman’ wrote. Then there was some sort of contest being promoted wherein one could win anything ranging from a TAG Heuer watch to a four-wheeled, lifesize mechanical product from Mercedes-Benz (if I can recollect clearly, it was the new C-Class). Make that TAG and the Merc for me, thank you.

This package of glossy papers had a section that incarcerated my focal attention. Models were clicked posing as famous personalities of the yore in that section. My eyes were affixed on this lady model who was impersonating Scarlett O’Hara of Gone With the Wind fame and she looked indistinguishable from Vivien Leigh who played the role of Scarlett, daughter of Gerald and Ellen O’Hara. And then there was another, completely opposite of the previous one, but it got me hooked nevertheless. You see, I am pretty fond of ‘timber’ as well as of ‘lake’ but far from it when the two words unite to form the name of a guy who sings (Justin Timberlake). The model, Suneet Verma, though a perfect copy of mister ‘wood and water’, saw me shake my head in disgust. Apart from this, the magazine was quite enjoyable and being passionate about watches, I was overjoyed to see Girard-Perregaux occupying the main pages.

A feature called Padmavati captured my attention. It was full of drama, nadir and ardor. Alauddin, Maharaja Ratan Sen and Padmavati were the main characters of this opera-ballad directorial debut effort by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The pictures reflected upon the grand and extravagant milieu, as is to be expected, since grandiosity is tantamount with Bhansali. I am expecting this to be a general trend, that when one comes out of a movie, corresponding meal is usually outside as well. So, now that the ‘movie’ was done with, the food guy inside me took over.

I could only but feast my eyes upon preparations that sounded enticing when being read about in the magazine, and I am pretty sure they taste so too. Robust tenderloin wrap, Arabic falafel, ginger-oyster salmon wrap and malai paneer tikka – all did well to make me salivate beyond measure. To my mercy, the on-board gourmet was announced just in time and I got busy with the paneer tikka and dark chocolate tartlet. The paneer melted in my mouth oh-so-tastefully. It was soft, and the masala, combined with the rich aroma of the preparation, made it taste (and smell) heavenly. And that dark chocolate was as sinfully close to perfect chocolate as it could be. Ah… lip smacking! I also managed to read the travelogue on Rajasthan that made me visualize the whole place and made me realize how much of this lovely land I’ve not explored yet. I’ve gotta go around it again, properly. Have to work out a schedule for that, remind me please.

I kept Hi! back in the holding net and turned on the tele and hopped from one channel to the other. I am quite fond of NDTV Good Times and my fingers stopped their calisthenics once the channel was traced. I was quite intimidated by the Blaupunkt Hamburg MP57, Velocity 2Go and the Apple laptop that weighed just about one kilogram! Then something on Golf was being telecast and the fact that I actually find this sport boring attracted me to this program since I desperately wanted to find out as to what those dumb-wits had on offer. And boy was I in for a surprise! It was quite an eye-opener and all my preconceived notions were crushed. I know that motorsport is an expensive sport, but I know now that Golf is no cheap deal either. Plus it is getting fairly high tech. I have now developed a newfound respect towards this sport.

I just happened to look out of the window and the sight made me smile with rapt approbation. It was one of those few moments that left me feeling awestruck. One of the most beautiful sights I’d ever experienced, for sure. It’s hard to describe, really. The vivacity of sun; the cloud – it seemed like heap of cotton. I wanted to jump into it, feel the softness and caress of the stratum that is believed to be the home of gods. It was magical. An arcane beauty, that’s what it was. Just then we started to descend and my reverie faded away and I realized that soon it will be the usual commotion of materialistic world that we will be back into.

A Sardarji was awaiting my arrival and once on terra firma, I sauntered towards his cab, still in some sort of trance. The gracious folks at Hyundai had arranged for our stay at The Heritage Village, Manesar. So off to Manesar it was. While on the road, I noticed as to how much better it is to drive around in the capital city vis-à-vis the financial capital of India. So, quite a long drive later, we arrived at the tavern which would be our place of abode for the following day and a half. My eyes were eagerly hunting for a known face was when Aparna and Karishma came and greeted me. We chewed the fat for a while and when the other auto journos started pouring in, we went to our respective rooms and dumped the luggage only to assemble in the lawn for cocktails and dinner.

As was to be expected, the evening was great – flavoursome food, fine bar arrangement and company of some great fellows. It all went smoothly and soon, as everyone started feeling ‘merry’, it was time to walk to our respective rooms, for the next day was to be an (un)eventful drive that would see us getting tortured to our skins. I retired into my room, threw myself on that relaxing bed, shut my eyes and a film of events of the day flashed past in my mind. I had a soft smile on my face. I took a deep breath, let out a sigh of contentment and slept. It was good.