The Journey in an old city

 

Some say its the journey that matters, some say that the only points of importance are the start and the end. Is one approach better than the other ? The easy answer is "it depends", and arguably one that is true. You cannot always apply absolute frameworks to a relative world. 

Personally, I do like the results, but enjoy the journey more! Many times a literal journey teaches you a lot, allows for an impromptu experience that is fun and in a strange way, satisfies us. Our heart works so hard during normal living that even temporary satisfaction of a few moments is big! 

One such experience was on a trip to Udaipur. My sister and my mother loved the folk related experiences the place had to offer. They had booked tickets to a 7 pm folk dance show, and I decided to tag along. The place was a couple km away from our airbnb and google maps showed about a 25-30 minute walk.

With plenty of time to spare, we started out. One peculiarity about the old city parts of Udaipur is the roads get very narrow. As we made our way, the roads became progressively narrow. We saw small houses on both sides of the road. The road had enough space for the three of us, a 2 wheeler and me be a cow - Pretty narrow.

We had complete confidence in google maps! As we went along, maps showed a left turn - that left turn would have led us straight into someone's house! . Thanks to previous research, we knew a couple of landmarks - one of which was a famous temple. We decided to find a local resident and ask them.

Luckily, some of them were on the road. We asked one of them - "mandir kaise jaate hai? "- He looked at us as though he had seen aliens, and asked "chal ke jaaoge ?" (Will you walk ?) ... His perspective was 2 km is a long distance to walk. He confirmed we were on the right path (still surprised that some random people from random place are walking on his home-street :D) 

We kept walking, but there wasn't anything in sight except a stretch of narrow road. Our irrevocable confidence in google maps for the area had already been shown the door - literally and figuratively.

When we saw another person further down the road, we asked him - " mandir ka raasta yahi hai kya ?". As expected, he too stared at us, and replied - " yeh bhi ek raasta hai".. (literal translation - this is also a road to the temple)

After a further few minutes, we connected to the main road from the remotest of side roads, and our destination was right in front of us. We were treated to an authentic dance performance, I enjoyed it!, but enjoyed the journey to reach the destination even more :D

Adding below a small clip of the show...