Some photographs from inside the tent we were living in at the festival. Water supply is from a borewell – we were in the tent right next to it – and sometimes it throws up sand, which settles at the bottom quite quickly. Electric power had been out for 4-5 hours in the morning and the water supply had also been out for a bit. The water supply got fixed before most of the people woke up and rushed to the loo thankfully! The festival staff was super prompt that way.
After I was done with the Twitter chat for a client : LG V20 smart phone here, it was time to get out of the tent and check out the Alsisar Mahal. A Jameson Whikey tasting evening had also been planned and everyone was looking forward to that enthusiastically. There were going to be some whiskies that many of us had never tasted from the Jameson portfolio.
Alsisar Mahal was lit up beautifully – and contrasted wonderfully with the blue light of the sky at dusk. The blue hour can throw up some really appealing scenes and always nice to have a camera ready. These were all shot on the Google Pixel.
We walked around, grabbed some food and then headed to the War Room, where the Jameson Whiskey tasting was supposed to take place. I’m not much of a whiskey drinker but I don’t mind going for a tasting – one never knows what one might find AND the stories behind the brand and the bottles and blends are the main draw for me.
I loved the Red Breast Single Pot Still the MOST. Later, I learned it is also one of the hardest bottles of alcohol to find anywhere in the world! It ran out before I could ask for a second helping – but of course. I think most of us were suitably drunk after tasting all seven Jameson Whiskies – and happily so – it was going to get really cold outside and we all wanted to spend sometime shaking a leg to the music.
After whiskey, we still wanted to get some beer! You can carry the alcohol out of the Mahal area but you cannot carry any in to it. Even if you purchased it at the festival. There’s one bar area in the middle of the tents as well but all the others at at the Palace grounds. We hopped from one performance to the next – met a LOT of people – some familiar, some not. I even borrowed someone’s hat – and I only found out the next day that I’d done that. Most people are there to chill and relax, so everyone’s mostly smiling and being polite and as far as I could tell, there was no rowdy behavior or anything on those lines. Which was a surprise because most of the crowd is from North India and everyone was drinking alcohol for the most part!
By the time I got back to my tent, it was probably 3 a.m. if memory serves. I was hugely relived after the client assignment was delivered in the morning despite there being no WiFi, so I took it easy and decided to spent the remaining two days just chilling and relaxing as much as possible. The mobile phone network is also quite terrible, so you can conveniently turn on airplane mode. You still want to photograph of course, otherwise I would’ve recommended that you turn off your phone.
The tents cannot be locked but you don’t need to worry about theft for the most part. We left out electronics locked in one suitcase that had a lock but otherwise all our clothes, toiletries, footwear, chargers etc. were laying around in the tent all day while we partied at the Palace grounds.
Day Two at Magnetic Fields was the BEST. It flew by and I felt like I should’ve stayed longer and the festival should’ve lasted longer.
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