LuCknow

In cities, one has never visited, it helps for the place of work to be far away from the place where one is put up. More the travel, more the glimpses of another city going by! A rickshaw would have taken 15 minutes to Ameenabad! Uttar Pradesh Parivahan took 45 minutes. It stopped, packed some more people, trundled along the streets of Lucknow! I feasted on sights like Umraav, the theatre showcasing Babbar, a hotel called Man Ka Meet, the Vidhan Sabha, road signs announcing Charbaug, Chowk, Hazratganj, Barielly, Unnav… all coming to me through the bars of the window of a rickety CNG bus.

I left early to reach Amausi airport. The rickshaw too took a longer route. Such a beautiful coincidence! I did not care about not visiting touristy places when I got to sit in a rickshaw that traveled through the city for 50 minutes until it dropped me off at the airport. 50 minutes of pure Lucknow! No chattering tourists. No cameras! Only the city, unaware, going about its business…while I watched!

A striking moment was when I was driven to my place of work in Charbag one very hot afternoon. I sat cool and refreshed in the air conditioned jeep while watching the city simmer outside. Ghulam Ali played softly in the jeep and life had the perfect background music! Yes, he sounds more authentic in Lucknow. Yes Lucknow seems more Lucknowee. Life seems livelier when there is apt background music! I, however, felt as if in a dream….

Lucknow is much more than chaat, chikan and kebabs…. It’s a place that is capable of making life look as profound as Ghalib’s poems and as melodious as Ghulam Ali’s ghazals…. It is a place where life can have the perfect background music…

It is a place like itself.

*Disclaimer: I am well aware neither Ghalib nor Ghulam Ali have anything to do with Lucknow. I however associate both with it... simply :)