Udaipur: The city where silence is heard.

 

After watching the movie "Yeh Jawani hai Deewani" (YJHD), Udaipur made it to my bucket list. Since then, watching a sunset at a lake in Udaipur had been my top priority. But I had less than 48 hours in the city of lakes or the Venice of East as it is known and so many places to be ticked off from my wishlist. When I reached it was well past sunset and I thought that I missed one out of the two sunset that I could have witnessed. But then after a little bit of rest, one of our enthusiastic cousins pepped us to go for a stroll along the Fateh Sagar Lake, which was just in front of our hotel and then we all wrapped ourselves in sweaters and monkey caps as it was freezing cold outside and headed out.

We were all walking in a straight line one behind the other as one side there was this speedy noisy heavy traffic flow and on the other side was the lake flowing at its own slow pace as if representing the parallel of fast moving time and the slow pace of life. Well I was sad that I missed the sunset but I surely saw the beautiful reflection of the city in the lake which was not on the checklist but was simply worth it! Then we reached a place where there were stalls of fast food one after the other right in front of the lake, they call it Choupati. It is very much like the Girgaon chaupati fast food stalls just with different alignment. We walked until we saw a bonfire and we rushed towards it, as it was 30th December and peak of winter, we stood in front of it and were like statue for some time, then while strolling you can ignore anything but fast food, it is irresistible, especially when it's winter, cold breeze flowing and maggi boiling. So we had the most conventional masala maggi and it tasted just perfect. After that while we were heading back we saw this stall where they sold hot mocha and firni with basundi and it was again impossible to walk past it, so we had that too! 

Next morning the itinerary was the conventional one, where we started off with the City Palace of Udaipur. Also the road that takes us to the Palace is beautiful as a couple of times we cross various lakes or sometimes the parts of the same lake. The Palace is just the visual representation of what is magnificent. I was speechless then. I am speechless even now. The palace is another blog for another day. But the best point was from where the entire Udaipur city was seen, and as it is called the 'White City of Rajasthan', it was all white (almost). That point gives a different perspective to look at Udaipur, it looks absolutely stunning from there. That point taught me something that I took back from Udaipur, it taught me that the vantage point changes the view in a palace or in life.  As I mentioned previously, at the entrance gate of the palace I thought it's magnificent and when I saw the city from the palace it was again magnificent in its own way, thus the vantage point matters!!

The City Palace of Udaipur. (Picture from Museums of India.)

The view of White City from that point.

The next on the must visit list was the 'Saheliyon ki Badi', it's a huge garden with many picturesque spots. It is known as the Garden or Courtyard of Maidens, which came along with the Princess after her marriage. It was built by  king Maharana Sangram Singh in the 18th century for his queen and 48 of her maids. The queen loved the sound of rain and so the king kept that in mind while making the design and beautifully built a fountain such that if we close our eyes and hear, we can actually hear the sound of rain, it's just magical how the silence is heard here. 

Saheliyon Ki Badi: The place where sound of rain is heard.  (Picture from Holidify.)

There were many un-ticked places to visit but then it was almost evening and I did not want to lose the last sunset in the city, so I convinced myself with the famous Naina Talwar dialogue from yet again YJHD, ' Jitna bhi try karo, Life mein kuch na kuch toh chutega hi, toh jahan hain, wahan ka mazaa lete hain na', and now I know why this dialogue is set in Udaipur. So we went to Fateh Sagar lake to catch the sunset and reached there just in time to catch the sun before it sets for the last time in 2021 and comes up tomorrow in 2022 as it was 31st December 2021. It was mesmerizing to see the sun rays dance on the lake water again for the last time in 2021, finally I just stood still and saw it set in the lake for one last time in 2021. 

The sunset at Fateh Sagar Lake.

Now in hindsight I think it's good that I missed some places, because I still have reason to visit Udaipur again or maybe keep visiting it again and again, some cities just keep you hooked and Udaipur is definitely one of them for me!

Happy Reading,

- Siddhi Bhosale

Illustration by : Kashish Singh