July 09, 2016 – Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India

All right! This trip has been a very special experience for me.

During this trip, I got to meet my then-girlfriend’s parents, who were lovely and gracious to host us during our entire stay. I got to attend her brother’s wedding and we were treated gracious and with Indian mannerism that you see in movies, which made us feel so good and special. Also, I got to tick off one more place in India before continuing on my journey of world exploration.

If you read this post, you would know that after spending a couple days in Bangalore, shopping and prepping for the wedding, she headed to her place to unite with her family and enjoy some family time before welcoming us for the grand event!

This was taken on the day of the wedding with my friends, roommates, and sister. I remember having a great time and found out that they serve non-vegetarian food at weddings. This had been unheard of for me before this wedding, so it was a pleasant surprise for us. I was an ardent lover of the non-vegetarian food, so I made sure I enjoy the food being served.

And here’s me with my roommates. From left to right yours truly, Daya, Akash, Vedant. We all graduated in 2013 from SGGIET, Nanded. Daya and Vedant had been classmates in the Chemical Engineering department. They carry the honor of being the first graduating class from the institute in Chemical Engineering domain. Akash and I graduated shared our classes in the department of Computer Science and Engineering. We had come a long way, everyone joining Cognizant through campus placements and then spread across India for the trainings, finally converging in Bangalore to work on somewhat similar and different technologies. I must say it felt great to be roommates with someone you know and have already shared a few years together.

Unfortunately, I do not have any photos from the wedding, otherwise, I would loved to post those here and, you know, talk about those.
After the wedding, we decided to explore Kolhapur, which was a hometown for one of our friends, Harshal. Having her by our side to explore this beautiful city was really a bliss as we didn’t need to worry about the logistics of the trip. We had fun exploring all the places that we could in a few hours, as we had only one day to make this trip, before heading to our respective destinations.

In the picture below you see the Majaraja’s Palace, which roughly translates to King’s Palace. I found this place quite grand and quickly compared it to the Mysore Palace that I visited during my south India tour with the family. However, I felt like it was being ignored and not used to its full potential given the history that was associated with this palace.

Anyway, I will stop here and continue my homage to the wonderful feeling called Traveling.