UK-UP-Delhi

After trying really hard and waking up early morning could not get me a train ticket so I had to take a bus.
I was overly sure that my bus-journey is going to be pretty bad as I could not even get a bus-ticket of AC bus.
I took a ticket of Uttar-Pradesh Parivahan, minimum fare. I tried to make myself happy that at-least I am saving on money.
I took a window seat. The first double seat (in local buses you can not wish some cute-sweet guy to come and sit next to you so I kept my bag on the other seat and moved it only when a girl came and asked me to move .

And the bus started… The bus left early morning… leaving the mountains behind… but wind was still a little cold and we crossed the border of Uttarakhand…
road was still giving a hint of being from the hills as it kept twisting and turning till we reached Roorkee.
At the bus-stand people were eating all sorts of chat and gola… UP is pretty famous for its snacks… (I donno why the little neighbor Uttarakhand is not learning to have some more masala in its plate. Uttarakhand being a hill state is very chilled. Suraj aast banda mast!!! but the story of female-power is different over there…).

So coming to the right track… I crossed Roorkie, chutmatpur (i donn know the history of its name, but its very funny…), sahanpur, meerut and gaziabad.
Till Saharanpur I had great time as the bus passed through some green area of UP. There is a demand of Harit Pradesh by the people of Brij region. And it was quite pleasant to see never ending green fields, mud-houses and heaps of cow dung cake.
I even got amused by the names of the places like Purkazi. Most of the time ‘pur’ comes later like, saharanpur, kanpur, rajpur etc… but here its pur+kazi.

to be cont…

32 Hours Bus journey

This is one incident I can not forget.  I wanted to go home and as usual NO tickets were available.  But I was very keen to meet my family and did not wanted to waste- time in Ahmedabad.  So me and Shailu Bhaiya decided to go by bus. Great decision !!!!

On my way to Jaipur, I really liked the street graphic on the  Ahmedabadi Dhabas. The ride from Ahmedabad to Jaipur was not that bad, but I must say Jaipur is expensive and autowala we took was really bad in terms of manners. The next stop was Delhi and then another bus for Dehradun. huh !!!!!!!!!!!!

Journey was not this fast but I just want to think of that experience and not the actual situation.

Dehradun Visit

In between the semester Meenakshi (my batchmate) came up with this plan of going my home town Dehradun. Without giving the second thought I was ready to go back home. Me, Tanima and Meenakshi left NID in the night around 9′o clock for Vadodara. There we stayed at Grishma’s place and ya! Deepak came with us till Vadodara. From there we took a train called Dehradun Express and we moved at 7: 45am 11th september 08.

Early Morning in Vadodara

Our journey was quite long and boaring sometimes as train was supposed to take around 36 hours, I started sketching to kill the time, but I was enjoying the beauty of Rajasthani villages. Train was stopping almost every station and I saw lots of villagers selling cucumber and other fruits for less then 5 rupees a piece.

Somebody is getting bored

There were stations, where train was over crowded like Meerut and Kota. After Meenakshi got damn bored she went for sleeping and believe me her posture was too tempting for me to draw, what a perspective!

It was really crowded for some time.  And after a point three of us got irritared with the speed of train so we decided that we will be stepping down in Saharanpur in place of Dehradun. We took a bus from there and reached 3 hours before train. Now my mother cooked amazing food for us. Because of over eating three of us felt tired and we slept at 8: 30 (not me). Upcoming days we visited Dehradun, Rishikesh (only Tanima and Meenakshi) and some quite a good hilly places like Lakha Mandal, Chakarata, Tiger Fall and many other small villages.Mussorie Bus stand, Dehradun.

After This sketch I started enjoying the place and the wether so I clicked some photographs with my film SLR camera.

Self-study

2nd year of NID ended and I left for vacation but our Graphic design batch was supposed to do a self study. In which we were suppose to select any topic and clear our doubt about that.

A Jaad lady in her traditional outfits.

My native place is Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand. I’m a Garhwali and in my native place there is a community, called Jad. They are a subject of curiosity for me since I was a child. Because we the garhwalis, are not allowed to eat in their home, as they come under the cast of Schedule Tribe.

This time I found a golden opportunity to interact with them because it’s a part of my studies. So my relatives (especially my Nani and all) can’t say no. Ha ha…

I spent 2 weeks with them and found some interesting facts about this semi-nomadic tribe.

It was the start of my visit and I was in a great confusion. In Dunda there lived not only Jad but also Tibetans and Himachalis. And then I further dwelled to understand Rongpa and Khampa. I asked many people to clear up this confusion but “Jitne muha utani baatein” (Many mouths, differing stories).

At last I figured their origin. Actually Khampa were Tibetan refugees who are actually not Indian but they called themselves Indian.

And Rongpa are the people who are Indian tribe and they used to trade between India and Tibet. They have a blend of Indian and Tibetan culture, features, food and customs.