By Deeksha Aggarwalla
For somebody who was venturing into the sea of wedding shoppers at Chandni Chowk, I was pretty confident that I would get by okay. Think about it – a tiny little girl with her jhola out with another slightly taller girl, out to shop in Chandni Chowk? When? On a Saturday in the middle of November, the peak shadi shopping season!
Moving on, the auto walla dropped us in front of the town hall. And our first stop was 555 sarees! What would a sane person who has been relying on technology and metro to live their Delhi lives do? Use Google Maps to figure out the way.
Address of 555 Sarees: Shop No. 5725, Main Road, Nai Sarak Katra Rathi.
So, we punched in 555 Sarees in the destination tab on Google maps. The battery was receding fast on the mobile phones and aunties were elbowing us in their quest to find the best lehengas. In all of this, we were also being accosted by Wedding Clothes brokers (Yes, there are those as well!) We were very successful in wielding our way through this, while keeping an eye out for the shop no. and the sign boards and asking random ram laddoos waleh bhaiyya (RWB) where 555 sarees is.
Us: Where is 555 sarees, bhaiyya?
RWB: Chabbra555 toh main road pe hain!
Us: Chabbra nahi, sirf 555!
RWB: *shrugs*
[The blue circles show our path from the Town Hall to 555 Sarees, our destination denoted by red]
When we finally arrived at shop no. 5725, guess what! It was a fancy blouse shop. The upper floor sold normal sarees, not the bridal finery we had heard so much about and the lower ones sold cheap padded, normal blouses.
So, we knew where to go to get last minute blouses, we did not know where to find our lehengas. Nobody knew where 5725 was! So, we finally called up the senior from college (SFC), who had told us about it.
Us: Didi, we can’t find 555 sarees.
SFC: Chabbra is on the main road.
Us: Not Chabbra, only 555 Sarees.
SFC: Oh! Gurudwara ke saamne baba. (In front of the Gurudwara)
*TROLLED*
For perspective, refer to the following Google Maps:
[LHS: Gurudwara to Town Hall; RHS: Gurudwara to shop no. 5725. For better perspective, according to Google Maps, we ventured into the lane where ‘8 min’ is written in the LHS picture. The shop, however, was right opposite the Gurudwara]
There people, you have it – how I lived through an evening using Google Maps in Chandni Chowk.
NOT!
For more about adventure in Delhi, click here.
