The hundred rupee game.

What do you do when you reach Rishikesh early in the evening, luggaged and lunchless?


Check in to a hotel?


Attack a restaurant?


Go GangaKinare?


We played cricket..with slum kids, thanks to Apoorva's whims.


While asking for directions to Laxman Jhoola, we discovered kids playing cricket on something like a playground and so approached the tallest and (apparently) the eldest of them to ask for our inclusion.

I now well understand what 'Street Smart' means, for we ended up challenging the guy a Rs 100 match on his home turf with all the pros in his team and the bacchaparty in ours.
The result was predictable. We fought well but were no match for the crossbatted see and hit batters and round armed bending-back bowlers. Baring me, no one was able to create any sort of impression( this is MY BLOG!).

By the time the promised sum was paid(from apoorva's pocket :) ) and a little photosession with them had ended, the sun was already sinking. I figured we were still somewhere far from Laxman Jhoola, still without a hotel, drained, but with luggage and valuables...and with a day less for for sight seeing.

Just then Apoorva asked, "What do you think? How was the whole experience?"

I did not have to think. Not for a moment. "Its the best 100 rupees you have ever spent."

P.S. I am writing this post only for I told Apoorva I would. Given my severe limitations as a writer and the liveliness of the photographs captured, I think the pics would tell the story better first hand.
Click here to see a few of them, beautifully captured by Ritesh. The rest will be uploaded soon.