Lucknow Notes: In and around

For a long time I was fascinated by the words luck and now. Lucknow has the two words luck and now in it. But its is pronounced as luck and no. The two sets of words have diametrically opposite meaning. Which of these constituted Lucknow was the question. Recently, my colleague narrated an incident involving luck and now that is believed to occurred during the 1857 revolt. It is believed that the British officer who recaptured the city wrote "I have luck now". My image of Lucknow was formed from movies like Pakeezah. I thought one would find haveli lined streets with people greeting each other with Adaabs and Khuda hafizs. 

I first visited Lucknow in 2015. I eagerly looked out of the window of my cab as I passed through the roads of Lucknow but to my disappointment did not see a single haveli. It was like any other twenty first century Indian city. Normal people going about their normal lives, which included traffic. It was not the worst I had seen but it was as chaotic as in many other Indian cities. 

In November 2017, we were having a chai at Chai Gali in Besant nagar when our Lucknowi friend suggested we visit his hometown for the upcoming December vacation. A month later we found ourselves in a jammed Gol Chakkar at Lucknow. The gol chakkar or chowk is an intersection with a round about in the center and usually does not have signals. The vehicles criss cross each other to get through the gol chakkar. Often I have found the cab in which I am traveling right by the gol chakkar attempting to go straight while the car of the left is busy trying to go right. So the two cars approach each other steadily. I look from one driver to the other but neither of them seem to be bothered by the converging cars. I continue to look from one driver to another and soon my head swivels back and forth like one of the characters in a cartoon movie. At some point of time, the tension got to me and I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I found that my cab had crossed the gol chakkar without harm. Driving through such conditions is a transforming experience for many. It had transformed my usually calm friend into something else once he found himself behind the wheels of car.

We did not kick start the trip by visiting the known and unknown sights of the city. Instead, we headed to a village near Lucknow; my friend's ancestral village. His father, a wonderful and kind man, accompanied us. Our destination was called Barauli. En route we crossed the Indira dam, which is the Indira canal crossing the Gomti river, which is a tributary of Ganga and cuts through the city of Lucknow. The Indira dam is an interesting structure. I have never seen a canal crossing over a river with vehicles traveling on either side of the canal and over the river.

As we approached the village, mustard fields lined either sides of the road. We stopped and looked at the yellow and green fields for a few minutes. We half expected Shah Rukh Khan to rise from between the plants with his arms spread wide but it did not happen. So we drove on. We stopped at the school where my friend's father had studied fifty years back. Since those days the school had changed beyond recognition. During his school days, it only had a building besides the gate with a few rooms. Now, the rooms were used as storerooms and kitchen.

Our first stop at the village was my friend's ancestral home. It was an old brick house in which a few of his relatives stayed. When I went around the house I realized that the people in the village preferred to stay outside most of the time and the house was usually used for certain necessities. Besides this house was a relatively plush village house with freshly laid mud walls. We were told that the residents of the house only stayed in the house for a few days a year. In many ways, the village had all the elements that I had in my mind with village temples and narrow streets. My friend's father explained that the conditions in the village were comfortable compared to his state in the younger days. In those times, the ground under their feet were not solid and waste water ran everywhere. 

With the trip to the village coming to an end, it was time for us to do some touristy activities. From my earlier visit, I knew that the Bara Imambara is the sight to be seen at Lucknow. It lay some place within the city of Lucknow. The city like most other cities in our ever developing country was swamped with metro and flyover constructions. This meant only half of the road was available for traffic at most places. This further meant that it took an hour to travel from anywhere to anywhere in Lucknow. Around the thirty minute mark of our journey to the Bara Imambara, my friend pointed to the left and said "this is a famous and old school of Lucknow". "Can we go in and see this place?" He did not say anything, instead he swerved the car left into the school campus. The school turned out to  Colvin Taluqdars' College was founded in 1889 and prior to independence was open exclusively for the British administrators and Indian aristocracy (hence the name Taluqdar). The school was closed for vacation and we were able to walk through the heritage buildings in peace.

The Bara Imambara is a large mosque complex built during the final years of the 18th century. The big attraction in this complex is the Bhul-bhulaiya, which is a labyrinth with a terrifying reputation built over a large hall. According to our guide, one could be stuck in the Bhul-bhulaiya for years if one was unfortunate enough to take a wrong turn. The first time, I went through the labyrinth I followed the people ahead of me and reached the terrace of the hall. I did not face any difficulty on the way out either. I came out feeling "that was not very difficult". Only when I heard the guide explain the intent of the labyrinth did I realize earlier naivety. On the one hand, the labyrinth was used as a safe pathway for the ladies to reach the balconies overlooking the hall. Second, it was used as a hiding place when the city was under siege. As I followed the guide through the labyrinth, I understood the menacing side of the Bhul-bhulaiya. If one were to get lost in it, even the pathetic graffiti would be of no help. The large hall below does not have pillars, which meant that the labyrinth's construction had to be light enough for it to not cave in. The guide informed us, the builders achieved this difficult task through the use of a combination of lime, jaggery and other such materials as mortar.

The road from the mosque does through an arch called Rumi Darwaza. Rumi, I understand is Rome is Arabic. It is believed that the arch is modeled on an arch built by the emperor Constantine in Constantinople. The arch was constructed tastefully, almost literally according to our guide. The decorations at the top of the arch resembled cloves. The arch was featured in a number of Bollywood movies. He informed us that in the movie Ghaddar Sunny Deol is shown entering a Pakistani city through this arch. Beyond the arch, stands the tallest clock tower in Asia called Ghanta Ghar.

The surroundings of Lucknow was at the heart of the 1857 uprising. At the heart of today's Lucknow lies the Residency, which housed the British garrison. During the uprising,the Residency was at the centre of the uprising and was nearly razed to ground. Today, the Residency stands frozen in time except for the grass, trees, people and a plastic penguin with its beak open wide. Many of the buildings carry the marks of gunfire and cannonballs. The burnt down fireplace in the hall of a mansion, which stands frozen from that time gave me the spooks.

The big surprise about Lucknow is its parks. The city has a number of large parks. The parks have an interesting political background to it. In the year 2007, the Samajwadi party (SP) opened a 76 acre park called the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Park, which, in my opinion, is the Central Park of Lucknow. SP lost the elections that year and the Bahujan Samaj party (BSP) came to power. In the year 2012, they opened a lavish 106 acre park named the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial park (actually reopened). The memorial park has almost no soil visible and is built using red sandstone brought from Rajasthan. The estimated cost of the memorial is seven billion Rupees. The park has a stupa in memory of Dr.Ambedkar and uncountable elephant statues. Coincidentally, elephant is the election symbol of BSP. Many believe that the money spent on the construction of the park was one of the reason for the BSP loss in the 2012 state elections. The SP came back to power in with the son of the earlier Chief Minister as the Chief Minister. In 2014 he responded to BSP's park with a 376 acre park called the Janeshwar Mishra Park. For me, the highlight of the park is the humongous statue of the late politician Janeshwar Mishra from the Samajwadi Party. It is claimed to be Asia's 10th largest garden. Politics apart, these parks give the people of Lucknow large green expanse to relax. This is something that we miss in most cities and could very well be the reason for the Luck in Lucknow.

During one of my trips, the cab driver took me through a street filled with "gun houses". A street lined with shops with names like kisan gun house and janata gun house that sell and service guns .

We finally come to the highlight of this and almost every trip we make - Food. Lucknow is the land of Kababs and Biriyani. We visited the Tunday Kababi, which is more than 100 years old at two locations - the new one and the original one. Driving to the latter was filled with excitement. My friend took the car into streets where no car had ever ventured. At the end of a trip, we ended at a restaurant with only three dishes. The people at the restaurant tried their best to turn us away saying "Aapko yahan kuch nahin milega" but we persevered. Desserts at Lucknow came in the form of kulfi and the one of the famous kulfi shop at Lucknow had the message "kulfi icecream nahin hothi, kulfi, kulfi hothi hain". I was moved by the message and took an oath to never have a kulfi instead of an icecream.

Lucknow offered us a variety of experiences as far as food is concerned. As we returned from my friend's village, we stopped at a roadside eatery on a highway close to the village to have kastha, which consisted of a poori stuffed with peas curry. Though it tasted good, we were unable to have more than one. We had panipuris at a by-the-road stall somewhere in Lucknow. My friend took me to the most popular tea shop in Lucknow. I did not remember its name and searched the Google yesterday and there it was on the top of the results - Sharma ji ki chai. We put our hands through the milling crowd and managed to get the tea to our lips without spilling it. The tea tasted... Well, I don't remember how it tasted. It definitely tasted like tea. My friend's father owned a restaurant, which serves great food. We also had the privilege of getting food not in the menu. My friend's father being a perfect host ensured we were very well taken care food wise and other wise too.

As we reached the airport to leave Lucknow, I noticed a fascinating golden mural high above the check-in counters that summarizes the story of Lucknow. More than anything, we will remember the parks, food and my friend and his father's kindness. Over the past year, we have talked to the father a few times and every time I hear his response on the phone, I feel I have known him for many years.