At the breakfast table, amidst questions of “What do we do today” and “Where first” and statements like “You’re ugly” and “Why were you born!” (4 days together, 24X7, kinda get to you ;D), we were pleasantly interrupted by an elderly gentleman sitting at a table across us. Col. Khurana from the armed forces, was quite amused by our conversation and decided to show us around the army club while we still bantered about where and what!
We first had to settle the matter of being able to park the car in the Nest for 2 days while we roamed Aurangabad. Upon asking earlier we were turned down flat by the guy at the reception!! But now with our new friend – Khurana uncle ;D – we decided to take another shot. And sure enough, he jumped to our defence and helped us out by getting us to talk to the AQ (Col. Joshi). Danish made me talk “because being a girl helps!!”. Anyway, Col. Joshi was quite helpful and ultimately (after a little persuasion and name dropping) we got to leave the car there with the assurance that “even though Joshi saab said that we will not take any responsibility for the car and the stuff, it’s our duty to do so. So please don’t worry!” :D
The army club was awesome as usual! And AT1 and AT2 were quite amazed by the sight! J The golf course was sea facing, the lawns perfectly manicured, the bar was open at 1100 hrs, the swimming pool was a dream, the pool table looked inviting through the window, etc..! Well, Danish and I both are unanimous about the fact that being an Army kid the best kind of kid to be :D
After we had a couple of (soft) drinks at the club, we headed out in a bus to Regal Cinema. (Pic taken). The first place we headed to was Phillips. This is a European and Oriental works of art collection. Amazing maps of the country and around dating as early as the 17th century are available for a fee affordable by the king of Nepal. I mean, we buy maps for a buck a sheet (at least in the good old days when we were in school) and these range from 2200 to 4000 bucks! But I guess for a collectors item, it’s quite nominal.
Now.
This is when we started walking! And from now to dinner, that’s all we did – walk!
But I’m not complaining! This place is a walker’s paradise! The British architecture and some before the Brits came to India are just plain beautiful. I just wanted to keep taking pictures of every angle of every building!
This I say purely as my point of view – the fact that these buildings are being used as government offices and post offices and the high court makes me cringe! I hate that. But it’s just me!
We walked down Madame Cama road and then Veer Nariman Road. We were visitors to the Mumbai University, the Mumbai High Court and Hutatma Chowk, the flora fountain,Horniman Circle, Old Customs house road-don’t miss the painting on the wall next to “Elephant Gate” of the Naval station.
We continued walking and headed towards Apollo Bunder near the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel. Though built for King George VII on his visit to India in 1911, we looked at it in light of the 26/11 attacks….”they were here”, the fire brigade was here, “the NSG stood there” ……
The Taj gateway (Old building) was closed and it had barricades saying “
We had our train to catch at 2100hrs and it was already 1930….we caught a cab and headed back to the “nest”, freshened up and checked out.
Caught a cab to VT or CST as its known now and grabbed a bite at McDonalds. Reached the station well in time around 2045 hrs and boarded out train- Devagirgi Express to Aurangabad from Platform 14. The train departed on time, and before we knew it, we were on our berths, sleeping our tiredness away.
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