Mathura trip: Looking for the lost years I
The plane landed at 11:55 at Delhi Airport. It was probably the roughest landing in my life. A tremendous jerk followed by the noise of the air hitting the airbrakes, that along with the engines and the hydraulic brakes made the noise levels inside the fusalage unbearable. But thankfully, we came to halt finally and it wasn’t long before I was standing beside the luggage carousel waiting for my maroon strolley. I don’t know why I bought a maroon one, (probably because black, navy or gray were not available).
Then started the actual journey to Mathura.
Outside the airport, I started with haggling with a cab driver for a ride to Sarai Kale Khan bus stop. we started at 320 bucks but couldn’t settle on a final amount. I didn’t budge from 150 and he didn’t move from 180. The next target was an auto rickshaw and the chap agreed to take me to the bus stop for 150 bucks (not without making faces and exclaiming how I was taking out the last penny of his munafa). I thought I’d driven a bargain. To my horror, by the time we reached Sarai Kale Khan, the meter read only 94 rupees and 25 paise. The autowala won again! Phew.
The UP road transport buses that run from Sarai Kale Khan all the way to Agra were waiting in a neat row, one behind the other in a perfect order. That is where the order in the system ended. Once inside, the buses were just as filthy and stinky as any other public transport vehicle that ply on National Highway 2. The jouney was supposed to take around four hours including a twenty minute stop at one of the dhaba conglomerates (read: one big dhaba, surrounded by shacks selling namkeen and coloured water in the name of soft drinks; one stinky dysfunctional toilet in a corner, which people generally bypass to pee under the open skies instead and a tubewell which yielded nothing more than brown water from drying water table underneath) which sold everything from snacks to suitcases.
I reached the township at around half past five and spent the rest of the day roaming around the campus, catching up with colleagues and had a delicious dinner comprising steamed rice and chicken. The usual mess fare on Wednesdays. However, after a gap of 15 months, it tasted brilliant.
