Chance meeting with an old friend on train

Regent Suite, Hotel Udaivilas: I arrived in Udaipur early this morning by train from Jaipur.

After getting down at the Jaipur airport yesterday around 5 pm, I went to Marriott Hotel which is about a two-minute drive from the airport and plunged myself into a series of meetings that went on till 9 pm. After that, I went to my address in Jaipur, ITC Rajputana, freshened up and boarded the train to Udaipur.

My last train journey from Jodhpur-Jaipur which I undertook recently after almost 15 years has given me the confidence to start using our good old railways once again.

In the train I met Gulab Chand Kataria the Home Minister of Rajasthan during Vasundhara Raje’s regime. We met by chance and he is personally known to me. Strangely I already had plans to meet him during my overnight Udaipur trip. He informed me he would be in Nathdwara and he right away confirmed a time to meet me in Jaipur.

This Udaivilas property of The Oberoi group is really amazing. Though this was my first visit to this property as a visitor and not as a wedding guest. Udaipur, and Udaivilas in particular, has emerged as a hot wedding destination for Indians over the last decade.

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