Cold Excursion – Part 7

The Hotel that we stayed in was beautiful; it looked like a palace to me with domes on top of it. Our room was located in the basement where we had to reach via a tunnel. Perhaps it was some age-old construction which RTDC took over for business. The rates were fairly less compared to that in Jaipur and the room was better in all sense.

After stuffing our tummies with pakoras and sandwiches, we headed through the tunnel towards our room. Abbas and Bhaiyya went to get the luggage from Tulu. Tammu – “Amar aaa peyeche” (She wanted to go for potty) I told her that Baba has gone to get their potty seat from Tulu and that she had to control for a minute or two. After five minutes of tug of war between the two of us “Can’t control… Mmmmm”, biting lips, “Please control, only 1 min”, luggage finally arrived. She was made to sit in the potty seat. Before I could exhale a sigh of relief, I heard “Amar aaa peche”. Was our room echoing after 5 mins, me thought? Oh, I had another child too, the brain reminded! There was only one potty seat which was occupied but that’s alright. Mannu has a comparatively large bum, thanks to my genes. She was made to sit in the commode. She was taken into the loo with her clutching me tight. Tammu calls out to me “Mamma, aaa finish” I snarled at her tugging at Mannu “So soon? Tujhe bohoth zor se aa raha tha na? Itna jaldi finish bhi ho gaya?”. Pat comes her reply “Mamma ne itna der kiya na? Isiliye potty waapas andar ghus gaya” I couldn’t even roll on the floor laughing!!

After the potty saga, changing clothes and relaxing, we went to the restaurant again to hog. We had noodles, rice, dal, Gobi masala, Alu Gobi and some paneer dish. Abbas sneaked into the kitchen to check if they could make omelettes for him and was shooed off by the in-charge “Pushkar is a Teerth Sthal. Don’t even speak about non-veg here” The food was delectable. After going back to the room, we entered into  a discussion to decide our plans for the next day. Our initial plans were to return to Gurgaon the next day. But Abbas suggested we visited Agra. Bhabi said “You guys will hardly spend any time at our home then.” Abbas said “Anyway, we are all together na? How does it matter whether we are out or at home?” After a few moments of pondering, a nod from Bhaiyya, we learnt that we were travelling to Agra the next day and we had no Hotel bookings! Agra was around 360 kms away from Pushkar. We had to start as early as possible. But we played Uno yet again and called it a day at mid-night.

Next morning we woke up very late due to previous day’s stress and we reached the breakfast table only after 10. Abbas suggested we would just visit the famous Pushkar lake and hit the road towards Agra with minimal breaks. During check out, we realized that our Hotel was adjacent to Pushkar lake and we could see it from the terrace. We rushed to catch a glimpse of the breath-taking view. How we wished we knew this the previous day. We could’ve played Uno on the terrace by the lake side. Abbas and Bhaiyya suggested we better start travelling instead of seeing places in Pushkar which we all agreed to in unison. Ma was pulling our legs by saying that there was a famous temple where if you take a plunge into the lake, we would be blessed with a boy baby. I retorted suggesting her to get her sons take a plunge each and see if they could conceive a baby boy.

On the way we visited as many fuel stations as we passed by to check if they issued Pollution Certificate. And finally we got one done before noon. The way out of Pushkar is gorgeous as we had to climb down a hill. (We hardly noticed anything on the way to Pushkar due to hunger pangs the previous day). We enjoyed the scenic beauty as everyone’s mood was uplifted due to a sound sleep.

We reached Jaipur at around lunch time and stopped at a restaurant called Koyla. The ambience was stunning as it was actually a Hookah Bar. I took Mantam and Mimmi to the loo. And made each one of them pee. When Mimmi’s pants were pulled down, Tammu exclaimed with her mouth wide open – “Arrey, Mimmi ka bum kitna bada hai?” Feet tapping music was being played in the backdrop and Mantam and Ummi started dancing there. They had worn skirts and they are now obsessed with skirts and frilly frocks! (If you notice in the pic, they are wearing the same dress as in Jaipur, as we had a sudden extension of the trip.)

This restaurant also had Vegetarian food on offer much to Abbas’s displeasure. We ordered Paneer Tikka Sizzlers, Fried Rice and Veg Manchurian. The food was finger licking good. Sizzler was the bestest. We ordered extra plates of Fried Rice as we found the quantity per plate was less (Or perhaps our consuming capacity was more). That lunch was definitely the highlight of our trip. (Drooling now as I write this) Post lunch we travelled for a long time at a stretch and stopped at a Dhaba in the evening only. As we entered UP, we had to get back our warm clothes before getting down from Tulu. We put on warm clothes on kids as made our way into the Dhaba to sip hot Ginger Tea, Tammu asked Mimmi – “Mimmi, Mimmi, Why should we wear sweaters Mimmi?” as if she thought the adults around were incapable to answer her technical question. Mimmi replied like a big sis (She is just 2 years elder to them) –“It’s December na? In this month, you have to wear warm clothes to beat the winter.” Kids drank milk and we had awesome tea at the Dhaba. I ordered for an extra cup after finishing my cuppa. The hot liquid flew into our systems to rejuvenate us.

We reached Agra at around 9 PM. We stopped Tulu to ask for directions to get into the city. There was a small isolated house, light glowed inside the house and window was open but curtains were drawn. There was no trace of any human being around. So Bhaiyya got down and peeped into their window by sliding the curtain. I said “Hope there is no busy couple behind the curtains. God knows what Bhaiyya saw in there”. And the naughty Ma says “You spoke my thoughts out. I was thinking the same” and we all had a hearty laugh!

The post has crossed 1100 words. I’m gonna continue tomorrow leaving you with a few pictures…

That was our room in Hotel Sarovar, Pushkar

Our room - outer view

Pushkar Lake

Me - with the Chillar Party

Ma and Bhabi