.... Continued from North India Part III: Pushkar Fair)
Upon reaching Allahabad, I checked in to the hotel and immediately headed out to make the most of the few hours I had in the city, though there wasn't much to see. My first stop of the day was Anand Bhavan, the Nehru family home, now converted to a museum exhibiting the family's possessions. En route, I took a 5 minute pit stop at Company park, where Chandrashekhar Azad was killed. A small statue is erected in one corner of this sprawling garden, and I paid my respects.
The displays at Anand Bhawan were designed to show a room each for Motilal, Swarup Rani, Jawahar and Indira, as well as a guest room often used by Gandhiji on his visits and a meeting room used for Congress working committee gatherings. Many of the personal rooms had separate study rooms, each with a huge collection of books. Notwithstanding controversies surrounding Jawahar, it struck me how well to do the family was even before independence yet he chose to dedicate itself to the nation's cause and braved suffering.
As the sun dipped to the horizon, I reached the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. There was no habitation for a huge area adjacent to the confluence, presumably because the area was kept clear for the kumbh mela. The area was unfortunately but expectedly quite dirty, even as slogans to save the Ganga were plastered all along the approach roads. A lot of visitors, presumably a mix of tourists and pilgrims, were taking boat rides along the Yamuna towards the Ganga, and taking dips in the water at the confluence point. I loitered around for a bit, trying to see if I could click a good picture, but to be honest, the place was ugly from an aesthetic viewpoint.
From the Sangam, I took a rickshaw to the Allahabad High Court. It's a beautiful building in itself, but history buffs remember it as the court that overturned Indira's election, ultimately leading the dark moment of the declaration of emergency. The building was open and there seemed to be no guards around, so I took my camera out. Just as I was about to depress the shutter, I heard a whistle from a dark corner and a hassled guard ran to me, rebuked me and checked my ID. I don't know what purpose does prevention of explicit photo taking serve in this modern era of satellite surveillance, especially since it was so easy to take one without being noticed if I wanted to.
From the high court, I walked a couple of blocks to the All Saints Cathedral, a beautiful neo-Gothic building that unfortunately could be viewed from inside only on Sundays. Disappointed, I headed to Loknath lane in the Chowk area, armed with a list of best street food joints in town. At Hari Ram and sons, I had a samosa and kachori. At 14 bucks apiece, these were prices that a Haldiram charges in Mumbai. When I asked for some chutney, I got a condescending look and was told they didn't need any accompaniments. One local who was picking up a parcel figured I was out of town and told me with pride that this was the Allahabad way of eating samosas. With or without the chutney, I wasn't impressed with the fare on offer. Across the road was the famous Raja Ram rabri wale. He sold only one product: rabri. Again, I wasn't too impressed. I went back to the hotel, had an apple and went to bed early.
The next morning, I woke up at 3:30 am, did half an hour of pilates and boarded a train for Lucknow at 6 am. The scheduled 4 hour journey became a 6 hour one, including a 45 minute wait hardly a mile before Lucknow station. I was scheduled to take a train that night to Varanasi, so I left the luggage in the cloak room, secured with the locks I had bought in Amritsar.
It was close to 48 hours now that I last had a good meal, and I headed to Shree Lassi wala in the chowk area to enjoy some chole bhature and sweet lassi topped with cream. Both items were delicious. A short walk away was Raja Thandai wale. There was only one flavor of thandai, and the only choice the customer had was if they wanted bhaang added. I was tempted to go for that option, but was warned I shouldn't unless I had the option of heading straight home and sleeping till next morning. With or without the bhang, the kesar lassi was delicious.
Thereafter I walked to the nearby Bara Imambara, a mosque and mausoleum complex built by one of the Nawabs in the 18th century. It was an impressive complex with its highlight being the bhool-bhulaiya, an intricate network of staircases and corridors over three storeys where even the smartest tend to lose their way. It was compulsory for couples to enter with a guide, less they find a quiet corner for their romantic pursuits.
A short walk away from the Bara Imambara was its smaller cousin, the Chhota Imambara, whose highlight were its ornate archways with intricate carvings. In the same compound was the Shahi Hamam. It was such an ordinary building that I couldn't imagine how it justified an entrance fee. A block away was a picture gallery, filled with portraits of the Nawabs across the 17th and 18th centuries. The feature of all the portraits was that the subject's eyes and shoes seemed to point at the viewer at whichever angle he or she stood. This seems to me to be a standard feature of Indian portraits made in that period - I recall visiting galleries in Junagadh, Mysore and Hyderabad as a teenager, and portraits therein had similar characteristics.
My last sightseeing stop of the day was the British Residency, setup by the Nawab in mid-19th century. It is a collection of exposed brick buildings set in the classical style among a sprawling park called Qaiserbagh. There is an average museum too, which requires one to deposit phones and cameras in a clock room, as if people would be scrambling all over each other to take snaps of the Mona Lisas and the Starry Nights they have on display.
I was hungry again after all the walking and it was the right time to head to the Royal cafe in Hazratganj and have it's famous basket chat. As the name suggests, it was a potpourri of chat - chana, aloo tikki, puri, bhalla, all put into an edible crunchy basket with all the chutneys and dahi poured over in generous portions. The chef preparing it was a Marathi Manoos from Pune, and he told me Lucknow didn't have much to offer except good food, and Mumbai was a real fun city.
Hazratganj itself was an attractive area, with it's main boulevard lit with decorative streetlamps and lined with shops and restaurants. A side lane called Rajpath was the hub of Lucknowi Chikan work, and I picked up a couple of dress material sets for Jyoti.
Feeling full from the basket chat, I decided to cover the 4 km distance to the station on foot, traversing through the bylanes of the city. Halfway through, in the neighborhood of Aminabad, was Prakash Kulfi, recommended by all and sundry. The only choice you had was to decide whether you wanted a half or a full plate of the kesar pista falooda kulfi. There was a sugar free option too. The kulfi was good, but the overall experience mixed. In fact, at many of the street food joints I visited during the trip, the proprietor or manager just sat back in his comfortable seat and the staff delivered what was asked for with a whiff of arrogance. With the kind of reputations these places had garnered, they could afford to do that. Any questions about what was on offer was met with stern or bored looks.
Right across the street from the railway station were vendors selling baati chokha - I tried some, for the first time in my life, and loved it. After a good day of sightseeing and delicious food, it was time to wait for another delayed train.
A slight aside on Indian Railways, and be forewarned, a pessimistic one. If the railways are the arteries of this country, then it's in for a heart attack. It seems even "super fast" category trains run late all the time. Platforms are clogged with people whose trains are one, two, five hours late. Displays show expected time of departure is nine pm when the clock has already struck ten. When you do board a train, the coaches are dirty and washrooms even worse. It struck me that besides wasting everyone's time and national resources, the tardiness of the railways tends to seep into people. I think if the railway sorts itself out, it would have a huge snowballing effect on the psyche of the people in terms of expecting and delivering tight timelines.
... To be continued (North India part V: Varanasi)
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