Exploring India At Its Most Joyful: How This Festive Story Came To Life

It's been almost three and half years since I left the craziness that is the national capital of Delhi, and moved to the IT hub of the nation, Bangalore. And since I've moved here, I've settled into the daily life of a Bangaloreon and the crazy lifestyle that makes this Garden City tick.

From pub-hopping to the drag races, I've enjoyed whatever Bangalore has thrown at me and I've also had to endure the crazy traffic and the nutty weather. However, in all my time in the city, I haven't really been able to see the city light up the way Delhi did for a festival, except maybe for Dussehra and Christmas.

Maybe, it's just the fact that I don't really travel that much, that makes me a grumpy old man at the ripe old age of 26. So in a bid to understand the 'sedateness' of Bangalore and the rest of the nation, I decided to take it up with my Managing Editor, Jobo Kuruvilla, a Bangalorean who hasn't let the city life and work come in the way of his sense of adventure.

Now, as I've said before, my boss is a much more travelled man than I am, so it wasn't really a surprise to me that he took my words as a challenge.

His response, he'd show me and the rest of the team, just how brilliant Bangalore and the rest of the nation look during the festive season. He would start off by heading to the City of Joy, Kolkata for the Durga Puja festivities and from then on would hop over to Pune for the light fest that is Diwali.

Jobo would then cool off for a few weeks at our home base, before heading to Kochi for Christmas. He'd return back home to end the year back in the centre of Bangalore, with the rest of the DriveSpark team as we rang in the New Year together.

For the grand finale, the boss decided to ride around the city of Chennai, as the city and its inhabitants celebrated Pongal.

The team decided to make his challenge a bit more interesting. Now, the boss has been an avid biker all his life, so we decided to plop him onto the seat of a scooter instead, as he explored the delights of the five cities during the festive seasons.

We thought we were being clever, when we handed over the keys to a TVS Wego to him, but the smirk on his face, told us the boss had something cooked up for us as well. Sure enough, he decided to take two of us along with him to ensure that we didn't 'miss out on the festive fun.' Fun indeed.

So here #WeGo Kolkata. Here's hoping the City of Joy during Durga Puja, lives up to its name as the team heads out into India's first capital city under the Brits, with the Wego guiding them through the busy streets.

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