Kingdom of Dreams - A photo essay

I visited the culture gully of Kingdom of dreams in Gurgaon. Here is a small photo essay on the same:

 Replication of the Indian Bazaar which is all about food, shopping, song and dance. In the background are Rajasthan, Delhi & Punjab pavilions.

 Replication of the Ajanta paintings on the roof of Chai shop

Huge Buddha painting, look at the size of people to imagine its actual size

 These adorn the outer walls

 Outside the Nautanki Mahal

 Entrance to ShowShaa the, the yet to open open air Auditorium

The huge lotus structure at the entrance of Culture Gully. Do not miss the buds.

 Replica of one of the gates of Sanchi Stupa, outside the MP pavillion

My brief view of the place is that it is worth one visit. You will enjoy the grandeur of India. There is wide variety of food but the quality is ok as most food is served in the fast food format. The shopping is  not exclusive but is still expensive. The cultural program you would have seen at many places in Delhi, specially at Dilli Haat, most performers perform without any facial expressions, as a job and not as something that they are enjoying doing. Children can have good fun with sand and puppets. 

On second thoughts it is an opulent version of Dilli Haat with similar food and shopping, but a grand and colorful setting that comes with price tag. 

I would recommend it to visitors of Gurgaon who want to get a glimpse of India in a nut shell and are only interested in seeing the grandeur in a hygienic way. 

Looking forward to the Zangoora Show that I am told is very good.

Urusvati Museum, Shikhopur – Celebrating Local Folklore

Trying to find cultural places in agriculture dominated Haryana is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But then you can always expect life to throw some surprises up sometime. While doing an article on unusual museums in and around Delhi, I came across Urusvati museum, which is just on the outskirts of Gurgaon, less than 20 kms from IFFCO chowk towards Jaipur and only about a km off the national highway. This small hidden gem takes you through the romantic journey of many lovers through paintings and folk tales and acquaints you with the local culture away from the city chaos.

Housed in double storey building within a sprawling green patch of land, almost like an oasis in a desert , this farm house turned museum takes you far away from the city life and takes you through the folk life some real and some mythical. This museum was established in 2002 and is regularly used by schools to introduce children to various art forms and to provide a platform where artists can get together. Spread over 8000 Sq ft there is an ample space available for such activities.

As you enter the museum, you would see the traditional stories carved in Terracotta tablets which are put on the pillars of the front courtyard. Amongst others there are stories of Maharana Pratap, Mira Bai and her beloved Krishna. On some of the tablets, the potter has proudly put his signatures while others chose to be anonymous. There are paintings on some of the pillars depicting the love stories of the yesteryears. There is ample seating arrangement for you to sit and admire the lush green surroundings, which has a swimming pool, a well and an Ayurvedic garden. There are two walking paths, a walkway called Thandi Sadak and another called Gul Gulfam walk where you can walk surrounded by the tall silver oak trees, with a distant feeling of being in Kashmir.

On the wall of the front courtyard is Sanjhi, a folk art form, rooted in the local beliefs and culture. This is something that took me to my childhood, when my grandmother used to put Sanjhi on the walls of our ancestral home in Punjab, before Dussehra. Sanjhi is a form of Goddess which according to some literature is worshipped by unmarried girls. As far as I remember, my grandmother used to do this because she wished for something and said if her wish is fulfilled she would put Sanjhi on the walls of her house every year till she is alive. This is how we got to learn about and celebrate Sanjhi with her. All the neighborhood kids use to join for the Pooja, sing songs and wait eagerly for the Prasad that followed. Some people also say that it is to attract wealth and prosperity that you put Sanjhi on the walls of your house. Now what is interesting about this 9 day long ritual is that you create the Goddess out of clay and cow dung yourself. There are some basic things that you make like her face, moon, sun, stars, birds, animals and her body, but then you are free to decorate it any which way. You use match sticks with molded clay to make the sun rays. You can paint these pieces any which way and paint the Goddess in the colors of your choice, with base color being the color of the clay. Cow dung is used as an adhesive to paste all the clay pieces together so that the image of Goddess is created on the wall. Sometimes a cloth is put on top of the Goddess, but it is optional. After this every evening, there is Pooja, followed by distribution of Prasad. Ninth day the Goddess is taken off the wall and taken to nearby water body, usually the village pond and immersed in it, and begins the wait for the Goddess to return the next year. This was my most treasured discovery in this museum, which connected me with a part of my past that I had almost forgotten and would have never recalled it if I had not seen a very familiar Sanjhi on the wall.

On the first and second floor is the main museum, where there are various displays like paintings, fabrics, embroidery forms, jewellery, garments, dresses, utensils, dance costumes, head gears, cow bells, musical instruments and perfume boxes from almost all north Indian states. There are items that used at specific occasions like the one in Kullu Dussehra. There is an attempt to describe the fairs and festivals of the region through the typical rituals and associated things like music and dance. The range of items captures the nuances of the region and goes beyond what is obviously known about this region. There are a lot of items that you would typically see at the village fairs. There are artifacts of everyday use which are no longer a part of our daily lives like the ones used to make lassi.

Love stories and folklore are the main theme of this museum. Now there are some famous love stories that we know of like Laila Majnu, Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal, Shiri Farhad, Sassi Punnu and Rustam Sohrab, most of which are based in erstwhile Punjab. But have you heard of stories of Usha and Anirudha of Himachal, Habba Khatun of Kashmir, Roopmati Baaz bahadur of MP, Momal and Bhupinder of Rajasthan, or the stories from Haryana like Nihal de-Nar sultan, Heeramal-Jamaal and Chap Singh-Somvati. Then there are stories from literature like Nal Damyanti and Shakuntala Dushyant which have been depicted via miniature paintings bringing alive the erstwhile literature and evoking curiosity to read them. Beyond love stories, there were also other folk stories of the region about the fakirs and saints and famous people, parables like Akeh Nandan which take you back into the past where messages passed through generations through these oral stories. What I found extremely interesting is that all the stories are handwritten in the museum, calligraphically. On the face of it, it may look like a random observation, but a handwritten word is far more personal and real than a printed page. It almost feels as if the writer is personally telling you the story.

To wrap up your visit, there is a souvenir shop in the museum, where you can buy items crafted by various craftsmen. I wish there were more items to pick and choose from, specially the one with absolute local flavor. There is an entry fee of Rs 50/- which I think is steep compared to most museums in the country where it hardly exceeds Rs 10/-, but then this is a private museum and funds need to flow in for running and maintenance. Do pickup the booklet on love legends of Haryana published by the museum which has folk stories from Haryana along with beautiful illustrations.

For those living in Gurgaon and around, this is a good place to spend a lazy day not too far from the city.

Gourmet Gurgaon - I

Food is a basic necessity as well as a motivation for most of us. Gurgaon like most cosmopolitan places offers variety of food for its residents and visitors. These are some of the places that I have visited and enjoyed and sometimes not:

1. Rajdhani, MGF Metropolitan Mall: Best Gujarati thali in town. Best way to enjoy this thali is: Get up late on a weekend, have some light breakfast if you must and then be there by 12, eat slowly and enjoy the spectrum of dishes, come back and sleep like a baby. Tell me could you try everything that they had to offer.

2. Rodeos, MGF Metropolitan Mall: Avoidable Mexican food. Ambience is decent but food is pathetic.

3. Bernardos Goan Cuisine, Galleria Market: Probably the only restaurant that serves Goan fish curry. I had a nice eggplant curry with rice. Okish food, no ambience.

4. Coco-Palm, Galleria Market: Authentic south Indian food. I like the appams and vegetable stew a lot.

5. Naivedhyam, Vipul Plaza, Sushant Lok –I: Good South Indian food. Any time you want standard south Indian food, you can walk there for an authentic experience. Basic ambience, standard Udupi restaurant format.

6. Bikanerwala, Sec: 29: The whole gambit for Indian fast food from Chats to Chhole Bhature to South Indian Snacks to Ice Creams along with carries with you Sweets and savories. I wish they could serve things without Paneer or cheese too. You get all the street food here but no matter what you do food can never be as tasty as the one on the street. The over sensitivity to hygiene takes away the essence of the food sometimes. Now what fun it is to make Gol gappas for yourself, they have to come customized into your plate by someone standing there and making it just for you.

7. Park Plaza, Sushant Lok – I: A decent Buffet, but quality of food leaves much to be desired.

8. Nirula's Potpourri, DT Mall: Decent Continental food. To old Delhiwallahs, Nirula’s stands for its Manhattan Mania and for our first taste of burgers and pizzas. This new avatar is making its way but will have to compete with itself.

9. Dineesty, Sushant Lok-I: Good far eastern food, can not say how authentic, but it is different enough to be thought as authentic. I liked the food that I ordered. The quantities they serve are huge, so be careful if you are in a group.

10. Monk, Galaxy Towers, Sec: 15: Eastern cuisine, Love the food and the ambience. An enclosure within an open space gives it a different ambience. For those of you who take beer, the freshly brewed beer should be a good attraction to visit this place.

11. Bistrot at Sarovar Premium, Sec: 29: One of the best buffets in town. The place is still new so you would not find too much crowd here. They have a wide variety of Indian and continental food and the array of desserts is just mouth watering and eye catching. The huge hall gives you a feeling of space and allows you to have your own space. The staff is courteous and professional.

12. Swagath Restaurant, Sec: 29: Go here if you like coastal cuisines of the west coast of India. The ambience is decent, food is ok.

13. Mojos, DT City Center: Gives you the best value for money buffet on weekends. The menu is limited but well balanced and the taste compensates for the lack of choice in items.

14. Fresco, Ambience Mall: For treating yourself to continental food with arrays of choice, go here for a lazy weekend lunch and eat to your heart’s content. I like the casual and colorful ambience of this place along with the choice of food.

15. Aromas of China, Ambience Mall: For a cuisine that is somewhere between the authentic Chinese food and Indian Chinese food, visit this place. The dusky environment takes you away from the noisy environment of the mall.

16. Kobe Sizzlers, Ambience Mall: Bombay’s famous sizzlers in Gurgaon. I like the basic veg sizzler here, and I usually ignore everything else on the menu. Try the pepper sauce with your sizzler.

17. Barbeque Nation, Sushant Lok-I: A perfect place to go during Dilli ki Sardi. Sit next to the in-table barbeque, eat right out of it. There are a wide variety of appetizers or pre-meal snacks. This is the USP of this restaurant followed by a simple buffet meal. Enjoy this place during the winter months when you can eat a lot and can enjoy the warmth of the barbeque.

18. Toninos, M G Road: For the authentic Italian food around Gurgaon. The variety is almost endless, if you are able to taste even half the delicacies, you should feel great. Live music adds zing to the otherwise serene ambience. You can also pick up various food items from the shop outside specially the breads.

19. Drift at Epicenter, Sec: 44: Open ambience, an option to sit in the open and decent food makes this an inviting place. You can catch up the happenings at epicenter and wind it up with a good meal at Drift. Look out for special food festivals they sometimes host.

20. Pind Baluchi, Sec: 29: If someone says I want to have local good in a good restaurant, this is where you need to take them. You can also go there when you are not in a mood to experiment with food and would like to stick to ‘ghar jaisa khana’. Typical Punjabi food, served in traditional wares by staff dressed traditionally.

Of course, there are various Haldiram’s around the city that you can not miss, but I am giving them a miss in this list.

Disclaimer: My experience is limited to the vegetarian food.

 

Weekend Gateway : Sultanpur Bird Sactuary

Since my childhood I have always heard that in Haryana in the name of culture there is only Agriculture. From whatever I have seen around the state, the adage does not seem to be untrue. Besides being the place of historical / mythological battlefield of Mahabharata, the state does not have much to offer in terms of travel and tourism. Add to it the rude language and the hostile people who are definitely not known for their hospitality. Incidentally, this is the state where I have lived the longest, though always at the periphery, sometime in suburbs of Chandigarh and sometimes of Delhi.

Looking for the gateways to spent weekends in an interesting way, I came across Sultanpur Bird Santuary which is actually a stone’s throw away distance from Gurgaon, but not many people seemed keen to visit it. I waited for December to come, which I read was the best time to visit the sanctuary as this is the time when most migratory birds come here. So this weekend, we headed towards Sultanpur, 17 kms from Gurgaon, on Gurgaon Farukhnagar Raod. I got 2-3 different driving directions and I chose one randomly, only to discover that it was a nightmare to cross Gurgaon from this route and on my return figured out that the other routes were equally bad. The failure of any signboards indicating anything like a national park, made us miss the crucial turn and we realized we are too far from Gurgaon, so have probably left the sanctuary behind somewhere. We traced our way back by an adventurous drive through various villages, kuchha roads and lots of mustard fields. Somewhere on the way we saw a small garden with a huge statue of Maharana Pratap. On close examination this was a place donated by Sisodia brothers to erect the statue and it was inaugurated by a descendent of the Maharana. What is funny is that all around the monument are engraved the names of the hundreds of people who donated anything for this monument. There are a few rooms at the back of the garden and the board there says that it is a Vridhh Ashram (an old age home), but on enquiring from the women who were using the garden to get some Vitamin D, I was told that there is a Baba who comes there once a week and operates from these rooms. He treats people through tantra and obviously he is the only person to use the premises. Do I not keep telling you that at times your lost ways too take you somewhere and leave you with some insights about the place?

Finally after two hours on road, we did reach the National park. It is a marshland, around a Lake, which allows the birds to come here and live in natural surroundings. The whole park has an area of about 360 acres which makes it a large park. There is an island kind of formation in the park and this where most of the birds come and stay, and it is also separated by distance from the circumference of the park. There is a paved path that would take you around the lake and in between there are jetty like pavements that would take you closer to the water and give you a better view of the birds on the central island, which does not seem accessible by foot. There are 2 machhans that we could see, where you can climb and be at a height of few feet to have bird’s eye view of the birds. We climbed on one, which was quite high. It was basic but with all safety features built in. The view from the top as one would expect was good, though beyond the periphery of national park you could feel the flat plain land, some fields and some high rise buildings coming up. My fear is that Gurgaon may expand in that direction and eventually lead to the non-migration of birds. At places you can see thousand of birds sitting in rows with perfect discipline, almost giving an impression of a school classroom.

There is an education and interpretation center which probably has a library and an audio video center with features on birds and their species. But being a weekend it was closed and we could not look at it. I am not too conversant with the variety of birds but this is what the text on the website says:

Approx 250 species of Birds are found at Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary. Some of them are resident, while others come from distant regions like Siberia, Europe and Afghanistan.

Name of some of the resident birds: Common Hoopoe, Paddyfield Pipit, Purple Sunbird, Little Cormorant, Eurasian Thick-knee, Gray Francolin, Black Francolin, Indian Roller, White-throated Kingfisher, Spot billed Duck, Painted Stork, White Ibis, Black headed Ibis, Little Egret, Great Egret, Cattle Egret, India Crested Lark, Red vented Bulbul, Rose ringed Parakeet, Red wattled Lapwing, Shikra, Eurasian collared Dove, Red collared Dove, Laughing Dove, Spotted Owlet, Rock Pigeon, Magpie Robin, Greater Coucal, Weaver Bird, Bank Mynah, Common Mynah and Green Bee Eater.

Every year more than 100 migratory bird species arrive at Sultanpur in search of feeding grounds and to pass the winter. In winter Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary provides a picturesque panorama of migratory birds such as Siberian Cranes, Greater Flamingo, Ruff, Black winged Stilt, Common Teal, Common Greenshank, Northern Pintail, Yellow Wagtail, White Wagtail, Northern Shoveler, Rosy Pelican, Gadwall, Wood Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Eurasian Wigeon, Black tailed Godwit, Spotted Redshank, Starling, Bluethroat and Long billed Pipit. Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary has birds in summer too, About 11 species of migratory birds such as Asian Koel, Black crowned Night Heron, Eurasian Golden Oriole, Comb duck, Blue cheeked Bee Eater, Blue-tailed Bee-Eater and Cuckoos come here.

It takes 1.5 hrs to take a full round of Sulanpur Bird Sanctuary on foot. Tourist can have a glance of Neelgai (Blue Bull) and Black Buck too.



There is a hotel / resort Rosy Pelican on the side of the national park, where you can stay if you want to catch the birds early morning. There is a restaurant operated by Haryana tourism. Since you are not allowed to carry your own food, and there is nothing else in the vicinity, you would be forced to eat there, but if possible this may be avoided. The food is bad, the toilets were pathetic, service poor and the basic hygiene missing. If someone from Haryana tourism is reading this, please do something about it.

I would recommend a visit to the Sanctuary but am not sure if you should do it this year as all the roads leading to and from this place are under construction, making it a nightmarish experience to go there. But if happen to be a bird watcher, it is a must visit for you, and do carry a powerful camera with you.

Jeffrey Archer in Gurgaon

I happened to attend a book promotion event at Landmark this Saturday, and the book being promoted was ‘Paths of Glory’ and the author was Jeffrey Archer. Now I must admit that I have not read any book by the author, but I know almost everyone I know has read some works of Lord Archer. Going by what I heard about him, I expected him to be a master storyteller and that is what he exactly turned out to be. I enjoyed myself completely at the event and for the first time saw a book shop full to the brim and people queuing up for taking his autographs.

Post the event I was thinking about what made him such a great storyteller. Like a typical VIP in India, he turned up late for the event, and then started by blaming the traffic for his delay. He started by talking about the book that he was promoting, stating carefully the parts that would excite the audience and make them get up and pick the book from the next aisle and read it as soon as possible. He spoke about himself, about his book, his struggle to get his first novel published, interesting anecdotes and everything sprinkled with a bit of humor. In future tense, he connected with the local audience and said he wanted to be transport minister in India, is writing a story based in India and spoke about R K Narayan and how he became a fan of his after reading his books. He took questions from audience, most of which were well anticipated questions. He answered every question with humor and honesty, when he had to say No, he said No. He took stock of the audience by asking them how many have read what kind of books, by asking how many write already and how many want to write in the future. Perfect communication, know who you are talking to, talk about them and their environment, talk about yourself in a way that they will buy you and your product. All this without being philosophical, without preaching and keeping the audience entertained. He managed to sell not only the book he just released but also the book that would come six months from now.

A master storyteller indeed…

Why Gurgaon Gyan

Once upon a time I used to work and live in Gurgaon and I am back here after a gap of good seven years. In these seven years I developed a friendly relationship with the world wide web. For anything that I do not know and for any answers that I seek, I hit the search and more often than not I get the answers. So instinctively when I came to Gurgaon about three months back, I would look for answers and I did get them. One fine day I thought of connecting with the bloggers from Gurgaon, but could not locate them, probably they are lost in the jungle of NCR. The only blogs about Gurgaon are from the real estate companies and dealers for promoting their properties, but what about the people who are going to buy and live in those properties.

Gurgaon as a city has its unique identity, though most of the time it mingles with the big brother New Delhi and an umbrella city called NCR. It is still a small city in itself. If you live and work in Gurgaon and treat it as one complete city, it is a pretty comfortable place to stay in its present state. It is reasonably green except for the patches where there are high rise complexes in clusters. Yes, it has its own problems, biggest being no public transport, next being the power situation, with power available for only few hours in a day, but then these are the problems which we know. I am sure there are problems which I am yet to encounter just like there must be pleasant surprises waiting to crossed paths with.

As I live in this city, I would like to explore it, discover it and through this blog share it with other residents of Gurgaon. I would like this blog to be interactive, so please feel free to share any information, photographs, concerns, solutions, stories that you may have. If you do something interesting that you would like to share with fellow residents, please let me know, we can interview you and feature you.

Hoping to contribute a bit to the city I live in...:-)