sudhagee

My “now” song: Allahu Akbar

Posted on January 1, 2018September 3, 2018 by sudhagee

Do you ever have a song, an idea, a story line, or an image stuck in your head? And it just refuses to go away? For some time at least? I have this with music — it could be a song, an instrumental piece, a jingle, a background score, etc. That particular piece of music becomes my “now’” song, and the “nowness” (pardon my English here) could be for any length of time.

Music is my answer for everything. It is what I turn to in times of happiness or celebration or despair. Music is my refuge, my comfort food for the soul, my ‘blanket’, and often my support to tide over difficult times. My now song Allahu Akbar” sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan and Ahmed Jehenzeb to music and lyrics by Shuja Haider has been all of this and then some more.

When I first heard Allahu Akbar, I liked it and left it at that. But then something made want to hear it again and then again and before I knew it I was listening to it every morning and then again before I went to bed. My mother too joined in on these listening sessions and we would listen to the song together before we went to bed.

Sometimes it would be the orchestra part that caught our attention and sometimes it was the chorus.

Sometimes it would be the lyrics that would work their magic and sometimes the music.
But what never failed to amaze us were the singers, especially Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan.

We have listened to this song so many times now that we not only know the music and the lyrics, but every pause, every interlude and every musical expression.

But most of all we are aware of the comfort that this song offered. Even now, as I type this out, just 26 minutes into the new year, Allahu Akbar is playing in the background. I have begun my New Year with this song, which is not just my ‘now’ song, but also my song of hope for the times to come.

Happy New Year, dear friend. Which song did you begin 2018 with? Is it also your ‘now’ song? Do share. 🙂

For more of my “now” songs and my other writings on music, do click here.

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Goodbye 2017

Posted on December 29, 2017January 9, 2018 by sudhagee

I have never waited as much for a year to begin as I did for you.
I have never waited as much for a year to end as I have done for you.

Dear 2017, you were not what I wanted or expected you to be. Everything that I hoped to go right passed me by and everything that had to go wrong stayed right back with me. Tragic deaths of friends, illness in the family, health scares, and more shook up my life as I know it. In other words, you epitomised my favourite quote.

Just when I knew all the answers to life’s questions, the questions changed. ~ Anonymous

And in all the disappointments, unhappiness, turbulence and heartbreak that you brought with you this year, you imparted valuable lessons. Lessons that were sometimes gentle and subtle, sometimes rammed down my throat, and sometimes delivered with a rap on my knuckles.

As your year comes to an end (and I can’t wait to bid you goodbye !), I want to sum up what you were for me with a focus on the important lessons you taught, rather than on all the negative things you brought.

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Hadoti Map, road Trip, Travel, Rajasthan, Hadoti trip, Google Map, Travel Map, Places I Travelled to

The Hadoti Trip Planner

Posted on July 27, 2017 by sudhagee

The Hadoti region of Rajasthan covers 4 distrcits — Bundi, Kota, Jhalawar and Baran — and till I visited it in November 2016, this was the only region I had not explored in the state. It was a much awaited trip, one that threw up many surprises and one that left me with a “why didn’t I visit before?”. It was a trip of many firsts as well, including the first time I travelled with One Life to Travel (OLTT), and one that will rank in my list of memorable trips.

In fact, when I look back at my Hadoti trip in November last year, the word that comes to mind is ‘serendipity’.

How else would you explain a trip that started off as as a Bundi trip but ended up being a Jhalawar–Jhalrapatan–Kolvi–Ramgarh–Kota–Bijolia–Badoli–Bundi trip? How else would you explain a 3-day trip becoming an 8-day trip? How else would you explain the said 8-day trip leading to so many (19 at last count!) blogposts? How else would you explain connecting with people you’ve never met before and becoming friends?

Its been almost 9 months since my return and I have been reliving the Hadoti trip since I started blogging about it here in April ! If I enjoyed writing about that trip, your response to the posts was even more so. So many of you wanted to know more about the trip and the places I visited — more than what I had blogged about — with regard to itineraries, tips, etc.

And so here I am with a Hadoti Trip Planner based on what you asked via blog comments/ mails/ messages. 🙂

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Stepwells of Bundi, Indigenous architecture, Art and Architecture, Baoris, Stepwells of India, Rajastham Bundi, Hadoti Trip, Hadoti, Vernacular architecture

The stepwells of Bundi

Posted on July 20, 2017July 27, 2017 by sudhagee

This post is dedicated to Kukkiji without whom, it would probably never have been written.

It was past 8 in the evening and our OLTT travel group had just returned to our hotel in Bundi after a day’s exploration of temples and palaces. It had been a wonderful, but long, day and I was tired in the best possible way.

It was also the last day of our Bundi trip and we would all be returning home the next day — most would head off to Delhi in the morning, while Niti (my friend and co-traveller for the Hadoti Trip) would leave for Mumbai in the afternoon.

As I was getting out of the vehicle, Kukkiji, our guide stopped me. [1]

“Sister, one minute. Don’t go for I want to show you something.” Saying this he passed his cell phone to me which had a picture (left) on its screen.

“Where is this?” I asked in wonder.

“Here. In Bundi only. Just a couple of kilometres from your hotel.”

“Which temple is it in?”

The response was broad smile and a “It is not in a temple; this is at the entrance to a baori (stepwell).”

“Baori? You mean there are more baoris in Bundi? More than the four you showed us?

“Sister, Bundi city alone has around 52 baoris and there are more outside the city limits. I knew you would be interested in them; that is why I showed this photograph to you.”

“I want to see this, Kukkiji. I have to see this. I want to see all the baoris.”

“Meet me outside your hotel at 9 am tomorrow. You can’t see all, but you can see some of the baoris before you leave,” said Kukkiji.

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The painted rooms of Bundi Palace

Posted on July 17, 2017July 27, 2017 by sudhagee

When our group arrived at the ticket counter for the Bundi Palace on that November morning in 2016, the sight before me took my breath away. A path ascended and disappeared seemingly into nowhere, while part of the Palace loomed up above me, soaring up to the skies. In the distance, walls of the Taragarh Fort snaked away, disappearing into the mountainside it was built on.

If I had been awed by that first sight of the Palace and Fort when I had arrived in Bundi, I was spellbound now. I couldn’t help but recall Rudyard Kipling’s words when he first saw the Fort and the Palace at Bundi in the winter of 1887.

such a Palace [is] … the work of goblins rather than of men. It is built into and out of the hillside, in gigantic terrace on terrace, and dominates the whole of the city.

Our group was at the palace to see the paintings within and our explorations weren’t too different from Kipling’s. Like him, we too walked up a steep, stone-paved path and entered the Bundi Palace Complex through the Hathipol, and then explored its many corridors, rooms, halls, etc. with a guide authorised to unlock the many closed areas and tell us stories about them. [1]

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Bundi, Boondi, TRavel, Rajasthan, That and this in Mumbai, Non-touristy, Relaxing in Bundi

That and this in Bundi

Posted on July 10, 2017July 29, 2017 by sudhagee

When I arrived in Bundi, the last leg of my Hadoti trip, I had been travelling in the region for 4 days with my friend, Niti. That first sight of the imposing Taragarh Palace from the road was a sight to behold.

We were to join the group from One Life to Travel (OLTT) in Bundi, a place that had long been on my list of places to travel to. Thanks to OLTT, I was finally in Bundi looking forward to exploring it over the next couple of days. And yet… something was not quite right.

I was overcome with a sense of fatigue — not physical, but mental. Actually, fatigue is not the right word for what I was feeling; overwhelmed would be a more accurate term. Overwhelmed from all that I had experienced in the last four days — temples, museums, palaces, a fort, rock-cut caves, etc. all of which had been unexpectedly beautiful, enriching and thought-provoking. If you have been following my posts on this trip, you’ll know what I mean.

As I sat, listless and lethargic, having my evening tea in the lawns of the hotel we were staying in, I wondered what to do. I had the evening free for the rest of the OLTT group would be arriving late that night. Should I go to bed early or should I read a racy thriller I had with me or should I just sit in the lawns and listen to some music?

Let’s go for a walk and wander around in Bundi, suggested Niti.

Continue reading “That and this in Bundi” →