An evening in Chandigarh

My American colleague R wanted to accompany me again on my trip to Chandigarh, to see the Rock Gardens, and once again he was more than welcome. I had to withdraw some money though, and since I lost my debit card, I had to do it at the bank. I linked the touristy trip with the bank because the only location of the bank is in Chandigarh (and not in Panchkula, where I live). At the bank, the teller gave me a withdrawal slip to fill out. The form had two areas marked "Signature" and "Amount" which I filled out and gave back to the teller. The teller clicks his tongue, shakes his head at me like I'm at idiot and gives me another form telling me "You need to sign here as well", pointing to the region marked "Amount". I just about lost it there! How the hell am I supposed to know that you moron! I told him politely, "Don't you think you need to tell me that beforehand?" The only justification I can think of is that it's common knowledge. But the attitude, that was uncalled for.

We took a shared auto to the rock garden. It was even better than we expected. To think just one person made all of this is incredible. I really don't know what to write about the sculptures themselves. It's an experience walking in and seeing all of them.

At the gardens, I saw a couple of ladies, a middle-aged lady and her mom, taking pictures of each other (with a film camera!). Then I heard them speak and realized they were speaking Telugu! I thought of going and talking to them but didn't want to intrude. A few mins later as the daughter was taking a picture of her mother, the mother suggested that they ask someone to take a picture of the two of them and the daughter said, "Mom, we can't keep asking everyone, they'll get mad. Let it go." At that point I felt I had to offer my help and said "Are you Telugu?" From their reaction you'd think I said "Can I kill you?" They jumped up with wide eyes and stared at me for a second. Then the daughter burst out laughing in embarrassment because she realized that I could understand everything they were saying. Even as I offered to take a picture of the two of them, she continued giggling and slunk away. The mother though was a little braver, she talked about how they were from Tirupathi and that they were visiting her son here etc. "Don't worry about taking our picture, I'm just happy that as a Telugu person, you introduced yourself." she said, as she walked away. As I explained what happened to R, he was rather amused by it all.

Then we went to the Sukhna Lake which was very pleasant. There was a group putting on a show about getting people to vote. They were wearing t-shirts that said, "If you don't vote, you loose the right to complain." That's right, they spelled it "loose" instead of "lose". I was really tempted to go to them and point it out but I didn't want to be cruel.

After that we had to deal with the wretched auto drivers again but we got a reasonable fare and headed home. (Yeah, auto driver stories coming up soon.)