I promenanded on Ashoka Road and on Sayaji Rao Road to inhale the faded grandeur of the city (according to my guidebook). I did find the "faded" part, but the "grandeur" must have been hidden very well. This was true at least for Ashoka Road, as Sayaji Rao Road proofed the guidebook true. While exploring the city's streets, an ad caught my eye: A huge picture of a gothic dressed lady with a rifle and to her right the slogan "Fine men surrender to black". Now, that is what I call a nice ad for Cognac!
The former road is also the main entry point to Devaraja Market, where I bought fragranced smoking sticks, one of them being sandalwood (just for the sake of having a bit of sandalwood from the world's capital of sandalwood Mysore). What caught my eye was the German imprint of the sticks' packages. But the marketeer assured me this is just because of the sticks' export quality. What the hell, they only cost 0.40 Euro per 20 pieces anyway.
Later, I took the bus to Chamundi hill, one of the 8 most sacred hills of India (Shatrunjaya in Palitana is another one; refer to 24 Feb). I had some sort of deja vu, but couldn't be bothered by entering into the temple (as they all look the same and it deemed me that this was the reason for my deja vu). Instead, I went to the Godly Museum, where I learned that the world drama repeats itself identically every 5000 years. Aha, the reason for my deja vu was that I've been on the hill already 5000 years ago. But I somehow doubt that I came up by bus...
Back in the city, I visited the contemporary art galery of Jaganmohan Palace. Most of the exhibits date back to the 1930s. On the third floor, which is dedicated to music, they even had sheet music of Richard Wagner.
When I went to the cinema at 6:30pm to buy my ticket for the 7:30pm show, the queue at the ticket counter was massive. However, it only took me 10min to get my ticket. Security controlled that nobody pushes to the front of the line. But the queuing people would have killed that person anyway. By 7pm the cinema was sold out.
The film was a musical-esque drama with lots of colourful pictures, beautiful women and a narrow plotline. Daughter lives with her parents in Montreal; pregnant sister, who is married to a rich Indian businessman comes to Canada to deliver her twins; sister dies during delivery; daughter has to marry her brother-in-law and to give up her secret boyfriend, who is a rock star; couple goes back to Delhi; years later, rock star comes to Delhi to give a concert; secret relationship starts again; everything comes up; husband let's his wife decide; wife decides to stay with husband for the sake of the kids. Well, I guess, that is what the Indians call a happy end.
The audience was screaming, whisteling, clapping hands, smoking, talking, calling friends on the phone. It was an exciting experience!