TRIP TO KANPUR

My Trip to Kanpur was been planned a month in advance, I had booked the tickets online and was all set to go. The reason going to Kanpur was to meet my roommate from Pune, she was insisting me to visit, but I never knew if I could make it to Kanpur. I was not sure till I got a leave from my TL a day before; I was very excited and packed my bags. The morning I had to board the train from dadar, I went in time to the station and was waiting for the train to arrive. For my bad luck the train didn’t stop at that station and passed in front of me, I was shocked, it was like I had made a fool of myself, then I went to cancel the tickets, to my luck I got the ticket for the next day and then again I was happy I could go and meet my friend. The next day I arrived at CST (Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus) and boarded the train. The journey started and I quite enjoyed it, we were passing through different stations and excited to visit North India, as after Delhi which I had visited years before this was my second trip to North.

My train reached Kanpur an hour late, my friend and her father were waiting to pick me up, I was very happy to see them, after my journey alone. I had taken books, cd’s to pass my time in the train and they did help. The Kanpur station was very huge. When we went out the station, the Kanpur Station building looked good, it was typical kanpuri style. Then we took an auto, the autos over here had different colors then we see in Mumbai, they were cycle rickshaws all around the place. I was very excited to see all of these things around, Kanpur city looked a bit dusty and much unplanned, as compared to the places in western India. I reached my friends house her mom was happy to see me; I was meeting them for the second time previously had met them at Ambernath in Mumbai at her brother’s engagement. My friend stays at the Ordinance Factory quarters, her house was huge. I just loved it, was surrounded my huge gardens from both the sides and had huge verandahs inside the house. The house was beautiful which was built during the British rule. Then her mom had made breakfast. After that we had lunch, for lunch her mom cooked typical north Indian food like alu kobi ki sabzi in sarso ka tel, dal, garam rotis, kheer. The food was yummy. Then my friend had booked tickets for Dhoom 2 at Rave one of the malls in Kanpur. We went by rickshaw to the movie, I liked traveling on the rickshaw was fun. We crossed through Moti zheel, Lala Lajpat Rai statue, then Rajeev Udyan, etc.

The next day we had to go shopping to Gumti. We left in the afternoon at around 4pm. The Gumti market was like all other markets, filled with people for shopping. In Kanpur the market areas are mostly owned the Sikhs and Punjabi’s. I bought chappals, sandal, then a purse and a dress material. I liked the shopping there, the rates also were quite reasonable. The stuff I bought was very much Kanpur style, except for my purse. I wanted to buy a lot many things but then, I had just one bag to stuff all the things. After the shopping we went to JK temple, it is a huge temple filled with marble carving. I could not take any snaps there was not allowed, we sat there for sometime and camelback my rickshaw. The weather was very chilly and was enjoying the ride.

Then the third and last day, we had our breakfast and morning itself went out to see some market places. We went to Lalit market, this place was good to shop for leather, then electronic stuff, as I was not interested in any of this we had some snacks at Treat and left to go to Govind nagar. This was another market place there; we took the 6 seater rickshaw to get there. The govind nagar market was again having a lot of Sikhs. I shopped for a sari for my mom there and I liked the market there. I think Kanpur is good to shop; I would surely like to go there some other time. Then we came back and had lunch, slept for sometime. Then in the evening I had to leave, so started preparing for that. I finished all my packing and feeling bad to go, but I had to, the days went very fast. My friend’s mom gave me some dahi vadas and kachori to eat during my travel. On the way back the journey was very boring coz now I wanted to reach back to Mumbai. I reached home late at night with a good memory of my trip to Kanpur.