Muskuraiye Aap Lucknow Main Hai -Tracking the Lucknow Pulse: Part 1
This blog was long due. Given the way our team was not just winning, but decimating every single opposition that came our way, I thought of writing my experience of the most memorable match that I have ever watched live inside the stadium after the expected triumph on November 19th, on the day when fairytale was supposed to come to life. It would have been the perfect jubilation.
But life isn’t like a fairytale after all. It does have shades that are light and darker. There are no guaranteed happy endings, it is a journey with unpredictable twists and turns, where resilience becomes our greatest magic, adding flavours to our unique story. The nerdy passionate fans like me might still be grieving as grief follows its timetable; it cannot be rushed or ignored, only navigated with patience and understanding. It might take some while for every nerdy passionate Indian cricket fan to digest the defeat of November 19th but as the dust settled in slowly, one thing that can be concluded quite easily is the fact that every passionate Indian cricket fan is mighty proud of this team. This is the first part of the series of Lucknow Pulse.
So at at the dawn of that Saturday morning on the 28th of October when I set forth to possibly tick off a box on my bucket list of watching a Team India Home World Cup game, little did I know then that I was going to witness one of the most hostile, elite and rich fast bowling spells from the entire bowling unit that you can ever see live, that too from close quarters.
“Muskuraiye, aap Lucknow mein hai (Smile, you’re on Lucknow)” is the tagline with which I was greeted in the city. It’s a tagline which you’ll find across the streets of Lucknow. It's a tagline that the locals take a lot of pride in. As soon as you stepped outside the Lucknow airport, there were big billboards of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 with its tagline “It takes ONE DAY to achieve glory”. In hindsight, all it took was one day for the Kangaroos to achieve the ultimate glory and for 1.4 Billion heartbreaks.
Prima facie, Lucknow looked awesome. Whenever you go to any new place, as soon as you land, the vibes of the place somehow reflect whether the air has vibes that smell welcoming. As soon as I stepped into the metro station ( which was well connected to the airport) to board the metro to reach my hotel, I could sense that the city had an unmistakably welcoming vibe. As I spent more and more time in the city, I later realised that the hospitality wasn’t in your face nor shoved into you. The locals still largely let you be and let you soak in everything Lucknow had to offer.
It was lunchtime by the time we had checked in and the hotel and had freshened up. After that, we set out to have a nice lunch to recharge our energy levels to feed our empty bellies. Being a person who loves travelling and enjoys going even on solo trips, one lesson that I have learnt from all my journeys so far is that the best way to explore any place that you visit is by foot. The more you walk on the streets of the city that you are in, the better you get to understand the culture of the city. And for a person who loves walking, Lucknow was a delight, especially the likes of Hajratganj, which felt like a paradise for walking( To be mentioned in detail later).
Life is extremely slow in any place you go apart from Mumbai. As we placed our orders for lunch, we got a huge cultural shock. On a Saturday afternoon, we saw so many empty tables in what was one of the popular restaurants in Lucknow. After seeing those empty tables, two fast-paced Mumbaikars became extremely concerned and wondered “ Dhandha Kaise Hoga? ”. The next big cultural shock was right after the placement of the order. While we were placing our order, we were asked by the waiter what kind of Butter Kulcha would be preferred. We were also given options to pick between Paneer, Potato and Mix Veg. It took some time to sink in but in the end, we wondered which restaurant in Mumbai would offer choices of Kulcha. You go to the finest of restaurants in Mumbai and place an order of a butter Kulcha, you get a triangular potato stuffed roti masquerading as a kulcha. A fortnight later, after having authentic kulchas in the original home of kulchas in Amristar, I came to the simple conclusion that kulchas served in Mumbai are a big scam. It's a gimmick we are being that we have been treated to in Mumbai- since the very time you fell in love with eating “kulchas” in Mumbai.
After feasting on the first wonderful meal of the trip, it was time for me to go back to our long-forgotten geography lessons taught in the schools. A local told me “ Lucknow main aapko do chikan milenge- ek khaneka aur ek pehenneka. Aapko konsa chahiye?”. After hearing this my prima facie reaction was that this guy is drunk. But my friend was quick to remind me of our school geography lessons wherein we were taught about the famous embroideries of India- one of which named Chikankari, was the origination point of the place that we were in.
I had always known that the kurtas/ kurtis of Lucknow were quite famous but wasn't aware that they were known as Chikankaris. People here called it simply Chikan. For those like me who had forgotten their geography lessons, Chikankari is a delicate and artfully done hand embroidery on a variety of textile fabrics like cotton, chanderi, muslin, georgette, viscose, silk, organza, net, etc. Lucknow is the heart of the chikankari industry today and the variety is known as Lucknawi chikan.
So we scanned for a few kurtas and kurtis in the main market of Lucknow called “ Chowk” and ended up buying quite a few as well. In hindsight, I must say that the Chikankari is too skewed in favour of females in terms of choices, variety and price. One of the most intriguing things that caught our eyes were the little 6 seater e- rickshaws that had penetrated deep inside every nook and corner of the city. These e-autos could not go beyond 50 kmph but were an extremely cheap and affordable way of travel to travel within the city. We do find a few such autos in Nagpur but they are missing in other parts of Maharashtra.
The modern Lucknow is just an amazing fusion of high sky-rises, plush malls (some even bigger than those of Mumbai’s which was a pleasant surprise), unabating high-end bars and a historic old-school charm that it’s somehow managed to retain amongst all these. But as you explore the city by taking a deep dive beyond the malls, you also realise that it has the flavours of a classical city, a part of the Awadh region; a region that has witnessed the mighty rise and the dramatic falls of several dominant empires. A deeper dig into the history books will reveal that for every empire that has seen a dramatic fall in Lucknow, another more prosperous one has risen from the debris. And this historic city has managed to build itself back up.
One such place that we passed through was the Rumi Darwaza, a classic example of Awadhi architecture. The gate is situated between Chota Imambara and Bada Imambara, two of the grand historical heritages of Lucknow. The Bada Imambara is also known as Bhool Bhulaiya- a place where you can forget directions and paths and find yourselves lost.
After seeing these marvels, we had our dinners and were all set for the very purpose for which we had arrived in the city of Nawabs, which is also called as. A night’s sleep stood between me and my dream. India was coming off on the back of a relatively tough challenge against the Black Caps. England were damaged, battered and bruised but were ultimately the defending champions, even though they hadn't lived up to the title so far in the tournament yet. The humiliating defeat against Afghanistan in India’s capital a few days ago was too tough a pill to digest for England.
To worsen it, they had lost a crucial must-win game against an underperforming injured Sri Lanka on the 26th, just three days before the game. All this made them a very dangerous side and added fuel to the existing pre-match anxiety. A wounded lion is far more dangerous than a healthy one. It may limp and slow down a lion, but they can't extinguish its fire. England did appear like a wounded lion before the match but turned out to be timid in hindsight. But the consecutive defeats against two relatively weak teams made me further anxious. A big day stood ahead. But for now, it was time to rest after a gruelling first day.
To be Continued…..
