My visit to Lucknow

A train journey atlast. Its been more than a couple of years when I last been on a train. Time crunch and long distances have all contributed to me not being able to take a train journey. But the opportunity came, when we were to visit Lucknow for Manisha’s wedding.

Tickets were booked in advance and we were ready to hit to road, rather tracks. The wedding was on 28th and we had booked our tickets for 27th. Nupur and me were to meet at the station itself. It was KKR match night and I didn’t want to miss the match. But the KKR guys are so accommodating, they played to their potential and by 10th over the match was decided. I rushed to the station and reached well before time. That’s the good thing about the Indian Railways they always have a hedging with the time. So you can never be late.

Nupur reached soon after and as we settled in, the train moved and we were on our way to Lucknow. Night was of course dedicated to some office talks and some planning for the next day,. We talked into the wee hours of the morning and then slept took over and we were deeply into our sleeps. The train was 2 hours late and we reached Lucknow around 9 am. Fatima and her sister, Mariam, were there to pick us. Mariam enlightened us with her knowledge on politics and Mayawati. We reached their place, had our breakfast there. Some hot jalebis, breads, butter and makhan… what a breakfast. Jalebi anytime is welcome. So breakfast was done and now we were to move to Manisha’s wedding venue. Rajesh never says no to food and therefore when he was offered breakfast once again he didn’t shy away. All full he lied down and slept.

By the time he woke up, it was 1 pm. We were running late, we needed to go to Rahul’s place and in a new city its always a tough task to find a proper location. After much search and research we were able to find his place. We were served what I call a deliciously homely lunch, I think Rahul’s mom would be right up there in my top 5 all time fav cooks. She definitely made me eat till I die. Thanks Aunty the food was simply great. We were dead tired by then and so we fell on the bed and slept.

We woke up at 5:30 pm. I was new to the city and had asked Hadia, Fatima’s sis, to show me the city. So she did exactly that. She picked me up and we roamed around the nawabi city. It’s the culture of the city that you can see in every single person you meet. By the time we were done it was evening and time to rush to the wedding and that’s exactly what we did. Our stay at the wedding was brief as we had to take a late night train to Delhi. So we left the venue before the wedding take place and reached the station in time. The journey back home was quite, as we fell asleep even before the wheels moved.
It was a great journey I must say. One day is not enough to know Lucknow and therefore we might be revisiting the place, the culture, the people and the food will always pull us to this city, again and again… One of my most memorable journeys.