Half a Globe and back!

Phew!
3 weeks was all I got at home. A flight that took me across half the world, and brought me home, well not exactly. I landed on hot Hyderabad from cool LA. A week there involved each day filled with an activity. "Fanaa" (mushy tale with melodramatic nonsense) and "Phir Hera Pheri" (loud and comic) at Hyderabad Central was a learning experience. I learnt not to buy tickets without reading the review!
Laser Show - marvellous play of water and laser light at Lumbini Park, roaming in Charminar in search for "churi's", kesar kulfi at a roadside stall, famous Hyderabadi biriyani, bangalore visit for 12 hours, ISB campus visit, Shopper's Stop ...and yes sleep at nights filled my days at Hyd.
I got to see the IIMB campus- lush green and bordered by forest, it reminded me in part of BITS, Pilani.
I saw ISB campus too and well I found it cleaner and greener. Its a huge campus, and the students get to stay at "villages"! in rooms fitted with AC.

Kolkata. City of Joy.
The place is timeless. It looked the same as I had left it almost a year back. The buses are no match for the Big Blue Buses here, but the people there speak a language that sounds sweeter to my ears. At Kol you get a receipt for the money you pay (a ticket!) , while in LA you just give the quarters away! I remember as a child, I had a hobby for collecting tickets and comparing my stock with my playmates. Am sure no child in US will ever get to cultivate such a hobby! :)
I watched some movies and soaps on TV. The soaps here never change. Women dress up in the gaudiest of dresses and wear tons of makeup for just being at home and bicker with each other over men and materials! Either the daughter or the mother-in-law is oppressed, while the man decides between being more of a hubby or a son.
Bengali Food and loads of it, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, chatting on phone, talking - I learnt that there were so many things that I had forgotten. I learnt that there was so much I never thought about. I learnt that I knew very little about the ways of the world and there was still so much to know! Ironically, my learning was more at my home than at the university where I have come!

I went to Akshardham Temple in Noida. It's an amazing piece of architectural excellence. Expansive, green, wooden and stony. The "Musical Fountain" is a treat to the eyes. 5 years of toiling and crores of money went into this project. I am glad I visited it.

I am back now - travellling the same half of the globe again. The journey was uneventful except for a turbulence in midair. The plane jerked and jumped and made me wish for a little more time - to live. My wish was granted. I am back.

3 weeks passed in the blink of an eye. I did what I could within those few days but there is something I wish I had done but couldn't. Hope I get time for that.
Till next time...

:)