“You have visited this place when you were young” said my Mom
“Have I??” I replied in confusion
“Yes, don’t you remember when we went to Jhansi, we went ahead to see Betwa river. We even have your photograph sitting near the bank of river” said my mom
So is that all about Orchha??....Betwa river…that’s it? I was not convinced. So I typed Orchha on Google to see the results. And found photographs of Majestic Places and temples, great Mughal architecture (something that I have not seen in real). Raja Mahal, Jahangir Mahal, Ram Raja Temple and Chaturbhuj Temple are the heritage sites of the place.
“But Mom we didn’t visit any of these palaces and temples” I said
“That’s because we didn’t have much time. But you have definitely been to Orchha” she replied
Yeah ofcourse I would have, just like how we visited all other places during my childhood. I still remember visiting Mussoorie without even going to the kempty falls (the one and only tourist spot in that location). But as I knew it’s pointless to debate with elders… so I decided to blame it on the city as Orchha literally means “the hidden place” or “hidden treasure”.
This time my visit to this city was not primarily to discover its beauty but was to do my sisterly duties!! ;)
I mean after long long and very long debates we all finally agreed that my sis would be getting married in Orchha next year in Feb. And the location that we chose was Amar Mahal in Orchha. So when I was dreaming of dancing in a Royal Indian Wedding, and eating royal fruits while sitting on a couch, I was told to manage this wedding for her. Poor me!
But I was not that sad with this idea as I love doing events and managing a royal wedding would be great fun in itself but how!!
Sitting here in Mumbai coordinating with my Mom and Dad who are based in Delhi, and then updating my sis of her wedding on Skype (as she is in the US). Phew!!
I knew it was going to be challenging but I accepted this challenge head-on!!
On 5th Aug (Sunday) I reached Delhi after 16 hours long journey in train from Mumbai. At around 12 noon I finally reached home ate my favourite chole bhature, stretched my arms a bit… and it was already 2:00 pm, time for me and my Dad to leave for Kanpur. [Place where my Nana – Nani (grandparents) stay] My mom was already there in Kanpur waiting for us to arrive.
We stayed in Kanpur for a day and on 7th Aug we all (me, dad n mom) left for Jhansi. We got down at the railway station locked our bags in the clock room and took an Auto rickshaw (much larger than the regular one) to Orchha. It was a 1 hour journey and we paid the auto rickshaw Rs. 200. These are the shared rickshaws but since we preferred not to share ours we paid the rent to book the entire rickshaw.
The road from Jhansi to Orchha is quite beautiful with greenery along the sides. Actually after visiting this dirty city - Kanpur every other city would look like heaven! So I’m not sure if that road was really that good or not. But no doubt it was clean and green.
We reached Amar Mahal and it was beautiful… simple yet so elegant and royal.
We had to meet the decorator and explain him the whole décor of the place for the wedding and the reception function we were planning to organise on 2nd feb 2013. But before that I decided to check out the entire Mahal and see the venue options that were available to us.
Whole day I was breaking my head with the decorator guy who is suppose to do the decoration at the wedding… struggling really hard to explaining him what I want at the venue. May be if I don’t get what I have asked for, then I will literary break his head later!! LOL (hope that guy is not reading this ;-)
After we were done with our discussion we hardly had time left to explore the city, but I was not shattered as I knew I will be back again to discover the rest.
Before leaving my mom and dad did find time to show me Betwa River again, I saw the bridge on the Betwa River and said Déjà vu! ;-)
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