PD n his life

Kgaswane Nature reserve

2008-09-28T20:30:00.008+05:30

Till the midweek, one thing was in my mind, and that was to go camping on the weekend. But a few enquiries had resulted in a negative response. So I had almost given up on finding a good campsite close by. It was Thursday when I stumbled across this place called Kgaswane Nature reserve while looking for alternatives. Luckily the place still had a few stands available.
So on Saturday morning, after having our breakfast, and preparing our "take away" lunch, we started for Kgaswane Nature reserve located in Rustenburg around 130 kms from Joberg. On the way, we picked up Prashant, as he had said he would be interested in coming along. It took us around 2 hours to reach the reserves gate, and the first impression was such that we felt of converting our camping trip into a day visit. But having made all the preparations for camping we decided otherwise. This incident though made me believe in what people say "Do not judge a book by its cover". The only reason why we has such a terrible feeling at the entrance was the reserve's gates were like two minutes walking distance from the town!!!! Felt like we were coming in some Zoo or a park in some city.
After we had finally made up our mind of camping, paid our entrance fees, and drove around to find Camp Site No - 6 which had been allocated to us. The drive from the gate to the campsite was around 10 mins, and the landscape changed dramatically within that time span. No one camping here would ever imagine in his wildest dreams that they were just a stones throw from a city. Once at the camp site, time was spent debating on the best place to pitch the tents.
Our site was perhaps not the best site in the reserve, but it provided us with a nice view of the surrounding area. Having set our tents in a jiffy, we turned our attention to our growling stomach :).Lunch consisted of Veg fried rice which we had prepared early in morning. After satisfying our hunger pangs, we took a leisurely stroll around the area. During this, we noticed two things. Huge Boulders could be seen on a mountain @ some distance from the campsite. And a hut like structure (Later we came to know it’s a hide), close by. We decided to explore these two places in evening.
In afternoon, Prashant made an unsuccessful attempt to sleep in the tent, and I spent quite sometime playing around with my camera, and trying to run after an insect which looked like a big green grass hopper but with beautiful colored wings. I tried to capture the beauty of those yellow and orange wings on my camera, but the creatures were a bit too fast for me.

After I had given up chasing them, we took a small hiking trail which took us to the "hut". From inside the hide, we could see a huge dried up waterhole, with some green grass around. We could see lots of animals grazing, but because of the distance we couldn’t identify them. Then we came back, and drove through the "Sable loop". Did see quite a few animals like the waterbuck, Zebra and kudu. The highlight of the drive though was seeing some beautiful rock pools. We saw a few people coming from these pools, so just stopped, and started making our way to these pools. All of a sudden a ranger came and asked us to return back. She informed us that those pools could only be enjoyed by people taking the two day hiking trail in the reserve. I really felt bad, that we couldn’t even go near to those pools, but we didn’t have a choice.

After driving back, we refreshed ourselves, filled our bag pack with lots of water and started off on the second hiking trail which would take us near to the mountain with those large rocks. The hike was pretty simple, but when the ascent started we were huffing and puffing in no time. Once we reached the "summit", we realized that the rocks were much bigger than we had anticipated. Many rocks had got the mushroom effect, in which the base of the rock is eroded such that the rock looks like a mushroom. Erosion was also responsible for sculpting many of these rocks. One rock looked like a horse with his head turned around, while another looked like a duck. It was all left to ones imagination. Spent some time looking around, and enjoying the view of the reserve. After sometime, went back to the campsite and just sat chatting, and preparing for the night ahead.
As the night fell, we could see the stars making an appearance. This is the first time I saw the Milky Way so clearly. Dinner was a grand affair this time. We started off with Chicken soup, followed by roasted veggies like Corn, tomatoes and sweet potatoes. The main course of course consisted of Grilled chicken and bread. Prashant did the wonderful job of being the braai master, and we ate to our hearts content. After the dinner, we did a small photo shoot of our tents and then decided to hit the sleeping bag.

We were put to sleep by the sound of crickets, and woken up by the melodiously songs of birds. Coming out of the tent, we were a bit saddened to see clouds all around. A decision was taken to have an early breakfast, and leave. Had Maggi for breakfast, packed everything, cleared the campsite and left this beautiful place. I really envy the people from Rustenburg, who stay so close to a wonderful heavenly weekend getaway. The memories of this place would continue to linger in my mind for years to come.

Cultural day @ MultiChoice

2008-09-27T00:43:00.006+05:30

Heritage day, 24 Sept, is a public holiday in South Africa on which South Africans celebrate their cultural heritage and diversity of their beliefs and traditions. We in MultiChoice celebrated it a bit later, but it was a wonderful experience. It was good to see the diversity of traditions and culture in the place where we work. It was a nice way of learning about their culture, their way of living, food habits and also explain to them the Indian culture

Camping @ Suikerboosrand

2008-09-15T21:53:00.001+05:30

The hike in Magaliesburg was all that was needed to get me out of my normal routine. A day after the hike, i was all pepped up, went to Makro and bought all stuff which would allow me to start camping on weekends. This included a two sleeper tent, sleeping bags & a portable gas cooker.

Having bought all the equipment, we looked for places close to Johannesburg where i could use it for the first time. Mountian Sanctuary seemed like a nice place, but Shalaka disagreed as we had been there on a hike just a week back. So while searching, we came across this place called Suikerboosrand. It was just 60 kms from Joberg, and the photos of this site looked promising. We called up the place, secured a booking, and left for our first camping experience by 9 AM on a saturday morning. Thanks to GPS, navigating to this place did not involve studing maps or asking for directions. All i did was follow the voice prompts, and reached Suikerboosrand in an hour. The camp site in Suikerboosrand is managed / owned by the protea resorts, and its well maintained with nice facilities. We drove around till we found what we thought was a perfect place to set our tent. This wasnt the first time i was setting up a tent, my earlier in Nylsfly reserve helped me a lot. In just 15 mins our tent was up without any hassles. Soon after that we settled ourselves in the camping chairs. There was a cold wind blowing so within minutes, we shifted our chairs in such a way that we could bask ourselves in the sunrays which were being filtered by the tree leaves.
Kept talking for a long time, and it was only when we felt a bit hungry did we have a look @ the watch. To our surprise it was almost 1 PM. Our lunch consisted of Prawns Pulao, which we had prepeared early in the morning. Soon after the lunch, we thought of going around the suikerboosrand reserve. The reserve has a road of around 60 kms which was in an excellent shape. We drove around the reserve, and realised our mistake of taking the road @ such odd time. We hardly saw any animals, and completed a drive which normally would have taken 3 hours in just an hour and half.

Evening was spent idling on the chairs, and waiting for the sun to set. Once the sun had set, we lit our new gas lamp, which did an amazing job of illuminating the camp site. The dinner consisted of grilled chicken, prawns and a few veggies like the sweet potato. During the braai we realised that there was one thing which we had missed in our shopping list, which was a grill plate which could be used over a braai, and this mistake would definaltey make the dinner a memorable one, abeit for all the wrong reasons. Because we didnt have a grill plate, we wrapped all the stuff in aluminum foils. The chicken came out overdone, and so did most of the prawns. the only saving grace was the sweet potatoes. Definaltey a learning expreince.

Soon after we decided to call it a day and after extinguishing the fire, entered in our tent. It was nearing a full moon night, and the moon lit our tent so well that we didnt have to use the camping lantern. Dont even recollect when we slept, but early morning we were woken up by strong winds, which looked like they could have taken our tent along. It had become very cold due to the winds, and we kept waiitng for the sun to rise. It was after an hour or two that the sun rose, and the winds reduced, but there was a chill in the air. For breakfast we had maggi, and then just spent time walking around the camp.

It was around 11 that we bid a goodbye to this wonderful place called Suikerboosrand. The exprience was really amazing. Away from the city, spending two days close to nature, with nothing to do but sit and relax.

Mountain Sanctuary park

2008-09-08T06:48:00.000+05:30

The year went without a single post.. There were so many things I could have written about. I could say I was busy, but a fact is I was just plain lazy. Just kept procrastinating for some reason or the other. Finally a hike in the mountains of Magaliesburg made me come out of my hibernation. First of September marks the beginning of Spring here in South Africa. There were signs of spring all around. Denuded trees getting fresh leaves, the cherry tree in our garden in full blossom and of course the change in day and night temperatures. A thought of going on a trek just came to my mind, and surprisingly everyone whom I spoke to agreed to come along.
It was a group of 19 people who joined the Saturday hike to Mountain Sanctuary park in Magaliesburg.. The Magaliesberg is a mountain range extending from Pretoria in the north of the Gauteng Province to a point south of Pilanesberg, in the North West Province, South Africa. Our plan to start early didn’t materialise, but that’s expected when it’s a big group assembling at a central place. We left @ 7.30 just an hour off our target.. Not a bad start I should say.
Within 2 hours, we reached the place, but had to wait for almost an hour for Deep & gang to come. They said they didn’t knew the road, but I am sure they stopped @ some nice place to have a heavy breakfast and of course booze . While we waited for these guys to arrive, Abhijit did a wonderful job of marinating chicken for our afternoon lunch.
It was only around 11 that we started our hike. The hike was supposed to be a short one. It would take us to a waterfall, and on the way back, visit some natural rock pools. On our way to the waterfall, we came across these huge rocks, which seemed to have been formed either due to volcanic eruptions or by erosion by water. Later on I came to know that they were indeed formed by a process of sedimentation and volcanic eruptions around 3 billion years ago.
By the time we reached the waterfall, it sun was almost overhead, and it was getting really hot. Summer hadn’t set in (In south Africa it rains in summer), and the waterfall was reduced to a mere trickle, but the place was really cool, and everyone enjoyed a small break here. The rest of the guys tried to climb up an almost vertical rock face being only supported by tree roots. I am sure that was exciting, but as Shalaka was with me, I couldn’t take part in this activity. So Shalaka n I decided to separate from the group and rejoin them somewhere else. The rendezvous was to happen at the rock pools. An hour later, I gave up searching for the pools, and decided to make my way back to the camping site. Thanks to the 2 way radio set we had, communicating the other group of my decision was not a task.
It was almost 2 hours after which the other group came back after enjoying themselves thoroughly in the rock pool. After that we had a braai, and left back for Johannesburg.
This was my first hiking experience in South Africa, and was indeed fun. Looking forward for more adventures this summer.

The Nanhau Temple

2007-08-02T07:06:00.000+05:30

It had been quite a while since we found time to get out of the daily routine and see places around Johannesburg. This Sunday was one such day. We had heard about this Buddhist temple called the Nanhua temple near Bronkhorstspruit. The place is just 40 kms from where we stay so we decided to pay a visit to this temple.

We started @ around 9.00 in morning. By our calculations it shouldn’t have taken us more than one hour, but not knowing the exact way, we choose a route which passed through a lot of residential areas slowing our pace considerably. It took us almost a hour and half to reach this place.

By any standards this temple is grand. Infact it is the largest Buddhist temple and seminary in Africa. It is spread over an area of six hectares and constructed at the cost of sixty million South African Rand. The temple has been painted in amazing colours of red, gold, white and other typical Chinese colors. The best part of the temple is the Repentance Hall. It has 3 huge idols of the Buddha. These are the Sakyamuni Buddha, the Amitabha Buddha and the Medicine Buddha. The physical features of the three Buddha’s are the same, and are distinguished only by the posture of their hands. We spent quite some time in this repentance hall, and there was this amazing feeling of peace and tranquillity in the shrine.

We spent some time exploring the temple, and then to fill our growling stomach decided to have some authentic Chinese food. I don’t know what we ordered, but its then that I decided I would rather stick to the Indianized version of Chinese food. Reached home in afternoon, this time taking a better road and thus saving at least 30 minutes in slow moving traffic.

Renault’s F1 Road Show

2007-07-30T19:02:00.000+05:30

We had been waiting for this day for quite some time, and it was definitely worth the wait. On the 29’th of July, West Street and Fredman avenue were out of bounds for the general public. The roads had been cordoned off for the special event everyone was waiting for – The Renault’s F1 Road Show in Sandton.

Crowds had started gathering since early morning so that they could get that perfect spot to view these mean machines. An estimated 80,000 people were witness to this spectacular event. The entire day was filled with activities which included track parade’s, drumming, dancing and acrobatics, Cycle races, launch of Renaults Megane Sport and daredevil antics by stunt driver Terry Grant.

But the icing on the cake was definitely seeing the F1 cars zooming past, and listening to the roar of those F1 engines. The event was being advertised as an opportunity of a lifetime, and I can vouch for that statement.

It’s a pity that the cars ran on the streets only for an hour, and in a matter of about an hour it was all over and it was time to return to the real world.

Waiting for the Renault F1 Road

2007-07-23T21:12:00.000+05:30

This year, the Gauteng provincial government forged a long-term partnership with the ING Renault Formula One team under which an ING Renault F1 Road show will be hosted every July in Sandton. This news came in as a big surprise for us.

I had never been a big F1 fan, but I always had a feeling of awe for these mean machines. Formula One cars are capable of speeds well over the 300 km/h mark, while the G-force in corners can reach as high four Gs. Acceleration is astounding, with 100 km/h being reached in a fraction in over two seconds.
Deceleration, thanks to brakes that have to deal with temperatures of up to 1 000 degrees Celsius, is unbelievable - like hitting a brick wall - with the car able to go from 300 km/h to standstill in about four seconds!
It takes less than five seconds to go from zero to 160 km/h and back to standstill.

So seeing these mean machines race on the streets of Sandton was definitely going to be a memorable experience. I am really waiting for 29’th July, when I would be able to see the F1 car’s in action.

Pilanesberg Game Reserve

2007-06-25T20:59:00.000+05:30

Its been just a week that Shalaka came to SA, and what better way to start exploring South Africa than taking her on a game drive ?.

So on an early Saturday morning, we set off for Pilanesberg. Pilanesberg Game Reserve is in the Bojanala Region of the North West Province, adjacent to Sun City. Set in the crater of a long extinct volcano, the Park ranks among the largest of the parks in South Africa (it is in fact the fourth largest park) and covers an area of 55 000 hectare. The reserve boasts of a huge list of mammals from a kudu to the African elephant. Infact it is one of the game reserves where people can watch the big 5. The phrase Big Five game was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. These animals are Lion, African Elephant, African Buffalo, black Rhinoceros and the Leopard.

The game reserve is around 130 kms from where we stay, so we started around 5.00 in morning. Of the big 5, we were lucky enough to see the African Elephant, The Buffalo and the Rhinoceros. Apart from these we also saw lots of Kudu’s, a giraffe, Hippos, a pair of hyenas.
All in all, was a good start for the South African exploration!!!

Everything happens for the best !!

2007-06-04T20:54:00.000+05:30

The day i landed in Johannesburg, i came to know that the emigration officers were on an indefinite strike to press for their demands. Due to some weird conditions on my visa, it meant i could only stay in Johannesburg for 15 more days, and if the strike continued, i couldn't apply for an extension, and would have to fly out of the country to the country of origin and come back !!! Shalaka's visa has already processed, and her tickets had been confirmed too, but it wouldn't make any sense for her to fly here if i was unsure about my term here. So i had to postpone her tickets till a time i got a confirmation on my status.
The confirmation came in a couple of days, and i was asked to go back to India and come again in a few days !!! Wow... this meant i could go home, and come back with Shalaka..
isn't that really great news ???

Back to Joberg - and alone :(

2007-05-21T17:19:00.000+05:30

All i had was 14 days of leave, and the days just flew. It was time to leave back to Joberg and the worst part was i had to fly alone. Shalaka couldn't accompany me as her visa was still being processed. There was hardly anything that could be done, but the visa process had already been initiated so it was just a matter of a few days when she could join me back to SA.
It was time to bid goodbye to my family once again, this time with a real heavy heart. I knew i would see them only after a year now.

Marital Status = Married

2007-05-12T17:05:00.000+05:30

Last few days were real hectic. All the rituals went on smoothly. I owe a big thanks to my dad and brother who managed all of it so wonderfully. I was more like a guest at my wedding, coming a few days before the actual function. Thanks to Nikhil and dad everything went on without a glitch. Right from booking the hall, to catering, to the decoration, they kept a birds eye on everything. I officially tied knot to my better half Shalaka on 9’th May 2007.

(That’s the sun setting on my bachelorhood)

And that’s a perfect family portrait !!!
Dad, Mom, I, Shalaka, Sheetal (my bhabhi), little Krish, and Nikhil (my elder brother)

Celebrations….

2007-05-07T23:32:00.000+05:30

Marriage is a big event in any Indian household and it was not different @ my place. The preparations start almost 4 months before and continue till the D-Day. I did miss all the fun in the earlier months, but the next few days would be something to cherish for rest of my life.
Celebrations started 3 days before the marriage. Lots of ceremonies like haldi, munj etc have been planned for the next 2 days. I would be pampered a lot, and considering that i was the youngest of all my cousins, this would be the last wedding in my family for at least 15 years !! So everyone wants to have a ball in this wedding. Our home is overflowing with guests, my cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends.. they are all there..
I am afraid, i would not be in a position to write much in coming weeks.

Home Sweet home

2007-05-05T15:21:00.000+05:30

Mom n dad were really shocked to see me standing in front of the door. That was the last thing they had expected..It was real fun seeing their reactions..Their faces were a mixture of emotions, shock, disbelief, happiness, excited !! Wow it was a perfect Kodak moment... Wish i had a handycam to record those moments..

Night in Abu-Dhabi

2007-05-04T14:54:00.000+05:30

En route to India, i had a 14 hours halt @ Abu Dhabi. When i saw my itinerary these 14 hours felt like 14 days, but to tell the truth, i didnt knew how i passed these 14 hours.
My flight landed on time, and within half an hour i got my transit visa and was transferred in a mini bus to be taken to a hotel. The hotel was a good half an hours drive from the airport, but that meant i could atleast have a glimpse of Abu Dhabi. After spending months in Johannesburg, this place reminded me a lot of Bombay. Wide roads, huge buildings, small shops, people walking on streets. WOW !!! People walking on streets.. Thats like a luxury in joberg. Yeh but considering that Joberg is the crime capital of the world, its but natural for anyone to avoid walking.
I don't recollect when i reached the airport, checked in, had my dinner, and slept. Next day i woke up a bit early and was surprised to see the view from my hotel. It looked like i was staying pretty close to a harbor.Quickly got ready, had my breakfast, and then took a stroll around the hotel. Soon it was time to checkout and reach the airport.
On my way back to the airport, i got to see some part of Abu Dhabi. It looked like a well planned city. Saw a few beautiful mosques on the way back, and seeing the development all around, i just kept thinking all this had only been possible because of the abundant oil reserves this Gulf nations have.
Now it was just a matter of few hours and i would be in Bombay very soon !!!

Confirmed my tickets !!

2007-04-25T23:52:00.000+05:30

Finally confirmed my tickets... am reaching India on the 4'th of May. No one apart from my brother knows about this.. For the rest, i would be in India only on the 7'th. I am damn sure everyone is going to be surprised.. Thankfully no one back home is that net savvy, so i am very sure no one is going to read this post. Am really excited to go back now. I have never been away from my family for so long. And now that i have confirmed my tickets, i am just waiting for the day when i can be back to where i actually belong..

Hectic days are here to stay !!!

2007-04-18T22:35:00.000+05:30

Lots of work now a days… reach home only by 9.00 PM. Have been working on weekends as well… Deadlines are a real bad thing… Add to it fact that I need to go back home for my wedding. So lots of work to complete and handover the work to someone who can manage it till a time I come back.. Not many days left to go back home now !!!!

And fifty days to go!!!

2007-03-19T19:41:00.000+05:30

That’s what the gist of the message I received today early morning. Yes my wedding day is just 50 days away !! Am i excited ?? Of course i am !! Am i nervous !! Yeh a bit!! these are the kind of questions i am facing almost daily. So to put it on record, i just scribbled my answers here. I am sure everyone who has gone through this phase, or going through it currently will agree with me.

Marriage is a big commitment. It’s a commitment for life. Infact the biggest decision that I have taken to date. So yes, I am definitely nervous, but in my heart I know everything is going to work out fine. We (Shalaka n I) together are sure that we would make it work out well.. And yeh, many also ask me, are you counting the days !! Would anyone in such a situation not be counting ????

Parties Galore !!

2007-02-10T23:38:00.000+05:30

Last few months have been really difficult. Working on weekends has become a norm than an exception and so is putting in a couple of extra hours @ work daily. One thing that keeps me going in this frenzy is meeting up with Deep,Glenn n Amit on Friday nights. That's what i always look forward to. I normally spend my weekend with them, and Friday night is the time, when we catch up on the week that went by. Deep n I infact chat into the wee hours of Saturday !!!

Another thing that I have started enjoying is parties.. Nope not the dance kinds.. Here we just need a reason to celebrate, it can be someone’s birthday or even something like someone's parents birthday / anniversary!!! Parties normally mean some booze, lots of food, and lots of fun. This apart from the fact that you meet up with friends and just have a great time. Staying away from family and friends would be really difficult had it not been for such times. These guys are a lifeline for me, I shudder to think how i would have spent my time in SA had they not been here. Life would have been so much of a drag.

Yan Can Kook !!!

2007-02-10T18:37:00.000+05:30

Living in South Africa bought its own kinds of problems. The biggest being that of food. Thankfully my office canteen does have some Indian stuff on its daily menu. So lunch is not that a big problem. But now, I am having non-veg almost daily for my lunch. I wouldn’t like to get into an argument of whether it’s a good thing to do or not, but given the vegetarian options I get, I would prefer the former.

So its only dinner and weekends that is actually a problem. Many times I remember the days back home in Pune, when I used to be pampered with all the food I liked. How I just used to ask mom to make something for me and I always used to get to eat that for dinner !! And the taste just delicious. There can never be a substitute for mom’s food. Slowly I have started making “Edible” food J. So what can I cook ?? Well almost everything. Right from Roti’s to Dosa’s to Chicken. Now a days I have actually started enjoying cooking. It soothes me after the entire day in office. And a little praise from my room mates (read as “guinea pigs”) just makes my day !!

Long distance relationships !!

2007-01-22T22:36:00.000+05:30

Yes !! They are really difficult.. That’s what my opinion is, from my experience so far !! and I am sure not may would disagree. They say the world is now a global village, the distances are shrinking, the technology is brining people closer. I dare to disagree. There is nothing as comforting as meeting someone in person, talking to him face to face. Infact at times technology plays a devils advocate. Though technological advancements can make us travel faster, communicate with much ease, but distance is such a barrier which is impossible to break unless scientists don’t come up with something like a teleport machine in which a person would just say " beam me up, Scotty !!"

Happy New Year !!!!

2007-01-01T06:29:00.000+05:30

Its not that I am a party animal, but there are a few days in a year when you have to do something. New years eve is one of them. If I look back, there is only one new year celebration which I would never forget. That was when I was on a trek to Rajmachi, my favorite place. I still vividly remember sitting on top of the manaoranjan fort, watching the stars in the sky above, listening to the occasional railway horn, and all of sudden in fornt of my eyes towards the horizon, see the firecrackers going off !! It struck me then, that the clock had struck 12. We were almost 25kms from Lonavala, a popular hill station which is abuzz on weekends and such days with revelers from Pune and Mumbai.

Thanks to this distance, we couldn’t hear the sound of the fire crackers, but just see the beautiful sight of hundreds of crackers lighting up the night sky !!

Anyways, back to the present, we didn’t have an idea of what we should be doing on the 31'st night. The Christmas party was still fresh in our minds, and no one was actually interested in throwing another one just couple of days after that. So we thought of visiting Monty Casino. We had heard that there are live bands playing on the 31'st eve, and it just might be another experience for us. Sadly the live bands just turned out to be rumors, but we had a nice time, just roaming around, and trying our hands on the slot machines again. Lady luck was not on my side this time, so i quit early!!

Spent couple of hours in the casino and returned back home after the clock had struck 12

Christmas Celebrations !!!

2006-12-27T23:02:00.000+05:30

Since childhood i always wanted to celebrate Christmas. Earlier it was a fascination for Santa and his gifts, later on it was more like i never want to miss an opportunity to celebrate :) This year it was just the perfect time. Away from home, into a country with sizable christan population, and Glenn for company. On 24'th evening we went to a church on Rivonia road, for a mass. The church was small but beautiful, with stain glasses all around. Lots of people had turned up despite the evening thunderstorm. We went back after the mass, and decided against visiting the church for mid night mass cause of security concerns.

Glenn said it was the first time that he was missing the midnight mass, but we didn’t have a choice. Instead we decided to go to another church for a early morning Christmas mass. Next day we reached the church at the junction of Sandton Drive and William Nicole. We arrived 15 minutes early, but even then the church was full of people in their Sunday best. The mass was really lovely. Especially the carol "O come emanuel" I wish i could have recorded it !! It was so melodious that i could hear it long after the mass was over.

Earlier night we thought of inviting people for dinner on the 25'th.But 25'th being a public holiday buying all the stuff for the celebrations was a big affair. What ensued on the 25'th morning was a mad rush for groceries n stuff. Went to Sandton mall, and it looked all deserted, as if the place had been emptied by a bomb scare !! We just couldn’t understand how would manage to get our hands on all the stuff we needed. Thankfully after lots of enquiries and roaming around, we found a Woolworth store open at a gas station. Bought everything we had to, and cooked up an elaborate dinner. The celebrations started around 8 with a pop of the champagne bottle cork :). Everyone had a great time playing Antakshari and Dumb charades. The party continued late in the night. I don’t remember when everyone left and when we slept, but the entire day was fun indeed !!

Castle Series - Day 4 - @ Wanderers

2006-12-20T22:45:00.000+05:30

I remember having visited the Nehru stadium to watch India battle the Kiwi's when i was a school kid. That was the only match i had seen live from a stadium. with the current performance of the Indian team, i have actually given up watching or for that matter following cricket. But i had the entire weekend for myself, and didn’t have a car yet. So I just thought of going to watch India play the South Africans @ the Wanderers. Another reason for this strong desire to visit the Wanderers was also the fact that the stadium was at a stones throw distance from where i was currently put up. A couple of friends had already planned to go for the match and i happily joined them. That was one decision that i dint regret.

Everything was so different. Just imagine, getting the tickets for the match @ the venue in 10 minutes in India !!! for the match i had seen @ Nehru stadium, i had the tickets 3 days before the scheduled day, and that too after waiting in a queue for 8 hours. Stalls on the way were selling the Indian tricolor and i could not resist the temptation of buying one. Also bought a hat to protect myself from the harsh South African sun, and then stepped into the wanderers.

The day was fun.. India was bowling, and wickets were falling at a regular interval, giving us ample opportunity to shout and cheer our team. It seemed to be a perfect day for cricket. The sun was hiding behind the clouds for most part of the day, there was a gentle breeze blowing, and after a long time India looked to be in a position of winning. Infact this would have been India’s first test win on the South African soil. At a point it looked like we would have wrapped the match on day 4 itself, but a spirited fight by Prince made sure, India had to play on the final day.

Back to Joberg

2006-12-11T21:20:00.000+05:30

Flew in to Joberg on the 9'th of Dec. This is the same place city i had come a couple of months back, and i had really liked it.. But this time, it seemed so different. One reason might be due to so many events happening on the personal front. It was only last week that i had got engaged. I wished i had more time to spend with my fiancée. Another reason is, it’s supposed to be a long term assignment. The duration might be anywhere between 3 months extending to a year. I am bound to miss so much of fun. Infact if the assignment exceeds beyond 3 months, i might just get a 2 weeks leave for my marriage !! I would be more like a guest at my own marriage. I have no idea if i have taken a right decision by accepting this assignment. May be only time will tell...

I am engaged !!!

2006-12-03T18:17:00.000+05:30

This was a news that took many people by surprise. For me marriage or commitment was never on the horizon for atlest an year. I had been lucky in most aspects, but with "girls" it was an altogether different story. So it was not a surprise when parents started hunting for a suitable life partner for me. I was very sure that the entire process would take an year or more, and so was pretty relaxed about the entire episode. But the almighty had some other plans for me.

Arranged marriages are a very typical affair. The girl or the boy is normally known to someone within the family. (This person may be as close as your elder brother or as far as a maternal uncle's paternal nephew's wife's sister). The important factor here is that lot of things about the family and the girl / boy are already known. It was no different with my case. I was shown a snap of Shalaka, now my fiancée, and asked if they should proceed ahead. With my go-ahead, the horoscopes were matched. when the match turned out to be a positive one, we had to initiate the next step, of actually seeing her in person.

I met Shalaka for the first time on 5'th Nov, a day after my birthday. It was a typical arranged marriage meeting, the only difference being they (Shalaka, her parents and 2 of her relatives) came to our house, instead of we visiting them. I just might post another entry in the blog about this entire episode. The first thing that struck me about her was her simplicity. We had an opportunity to talk in peace away from the prying eyes of our parents. Of course the topics which can be discussed on such meetings are pretty standard. Questions on education, likes and dislikes, career goals, etc etc. At the end of it, i felt like something clicked.

2 weeks and a few meetings later, we conveyed our decision to Shalaka's parents. The next step in the process is a meeting between the two families wherein they discuss about how everything should proceed ahead. Normally in this meeting, the families discuss the tentative dates of the engagement and the wedding and of course other formalities like where would the wedding be n stuff. In our case, as both of the families are from Pune, this wasnt much of issue. After the meeting, a tentative date of 14'th Dec was decided for the engagement. The date of course needs to be confirmed with the astrologer before it can be formalized. Couple of days later, the astrologer confirmed that the date was suitable for the engagement and that we could proceed ahead with other formalities.

The first thing that needs to be done is book a hall for the engagement and to get an engagement ring. One fine day we decide to meet at a jewelers shop to have a look at the engagement ring. We had decided to meet at 7.00 @ a jewelers shop. Around 4.00 PM my boss informs me that i would need to travel to South Africa immediately on a long term assignment !!!! For a couple of minutes i was speechless, completely numb, thinking what options did i have. I explained my situation to my boss, who till then was completely unaware of things happening on my personal front. I was asked if i could prepone the engagement. I couldn’t take such a decision in a jiffy so i asked for some time so that i could break the news to my family, to my fiancée, and then to think of a way out. It was almost 6 PM and i was still in office sitting dumb folded. Then i called my dad and told him of the situation. Mom, dad and Shalaka were already in the jeweler’s shop, and dad broke the news to the rest. Thankfully everyone was really supportive, and it was decided that we would try to get another date for the engagement. Quick calls to our astrologer and we had a new set of dates. The new date which was suitable for us was 2'nd Dec. In the mean time, we also ordered a custom made engagement ring.

The entire week was chaotic. The new date was just a week away, and finding a hall for the engagement turned out into a nightmare. We had lots of things to do, like get new clothes, book the hall, invite relatives and friends and what not. Thankfully i got a week off from my office so that i could run around arranging for the engagement. Finally the D-Day came. On Saturday the 2'nd Dec 2006, at around 8.00 PM, Shalaka and I exchanged rings, and from that moment, the status of my orkut profile changed to "committed".

Home sweet home !!

2006-09-03T13:25:00.000+05:30

Finally back home !! feels so good !! Something that you can only experience, some feeling which cant be expressed in words. How much I missed my home !!

Time to say good bye

2006-08-31T17:25:00.000+05:30

Our tickets are confirmed, and its for sure we will bid a goodbye to everyone here. But now there another kind of excitement, the thoughts of going back home, meeting family after a month, having mom's food which I missed for so long and of course taking my bike to office everyday [;)], and meeting all my dear friends back home!! Longing for the weekend now !!!

Drive to Sun City

2006-08-28T22:25:00.000+05:30

Have heard a lot about this place, and seen it many times in many bollywood flicks. So a visit to SA would never be complete without a visit to the Sin city.. oops.. Sun City. The place is a bit far, almost 3 hrs drive from Sandton. One nice thing is, we were to go in our Tazz !! Started around 8.00 in morning. The first stop was a place called heartbeesport dam. This is a place that I will dream of even when I am back to India. Saw almost a 100 super bikes here !!!! I went crazy seeing so many bikes, and my camera went into a overdrive, clicking every possible bike it could. Thought like I could spend an entire day marveling those mean machines. But we have to continue ahead, so left with a heavy heart. Reached the sun city around 12. If you consider that the city was built in a middle of nowhere, then may be you appreciate it a little more..The place has well maintained gardens, hiking trails, casinos, 4 star rating hotels and a huge wave pool, complete with an artificial beach. The place is very beautifully done, and spending anything less than a day is like doing injustice to this place. We had a nice time roaming all around. Just didn’t notice how time went by and had to leave the place by 5.
The highlight of the day was of course the top speed of 165 KMPH which we clocked in our tazz !!

Drive to Pretoria !!

2006-08-26T17:24:00.000+05:30

This Saturday, Amit has a cricket match, so the plan to visit Sun City has been postponed by a day.. We have just got our car, and thought of doing something advenerous. How about going to Pretoria !! We were just 3 of us, Glenn, Sachin and I. We knew the way to the state highway, and from there we knew we had to take a right to go to Pretoria. With just this knowledge, and no maps, we left for the adventure which we will remember for long [:)]. Along the way, called up Fritz, a new gora friend, who told us about the exit we should be taking to go to Pretoria. We reached central Pretoria, and just ahead were very happy to see the board giving directions to the Pretoria Zoo. Pretty pleased with ourselves, we took the directions, but don’t know where we got lost, and reached an area, which we were instructed not to enter.. Shit scared, kept on driving, trying to backtrack, but we were out of luck. We kept driving around the place for almost 2 hours and then decided it was high time for us, to make our way back to Joberg!! Started looking for the highway, and with some help from a few locals and 10's of calls to Fritz we finally made it to the highway. Around 10 kms ahead, Fritz told us of this mall near Pretoria which was worth the visit called "Menlyn".
Luckily we found this place immediately, and drove in. This mall was hugeeeeee !! The biggest I ever saw till date. It had everything from a Imax theater to a Hartley Davidson showroom !!! Driving into a parking lot took us 10 mins, and shopping another 6 hours !!! It was only around 7.00 that we turned back. Reached back Sandton 9.00, dropped Glenn, and then reached home. Just had soup for dinner and hit the beds !!

Tazz the Jazz!!

2006-08-23T19:23:00.000+05:30

Finally got my own car !! Had to go to our Nihilent office to get it. Just out from the office, halted on the stop street, and continued further.. All of sudden I hear the sirens blowing, and see a police van in my rear view mirror. I cant express how I felt that time !!. I slow the car down, the van notices, and stop the siren and turn on the indicators to turn right !!!
Ohh what a relief, they were on their way somewhere else, and I thought they were following me for some reason. These are the times when one ponders how your own mind can weave stories @ the drop of the hat.. I don’t know what made me think, the police were following me !! Anyways, after the incident, I was a bit more careful @ the traffic lights [ppl here call them robot’s] and specially @ stop streets. The car is just like the Zen I drive back home, except for its more spacious and its from Toyota. But adjusting to the car wasn’t much of an effort. Just a few kms drive and I was completely @ home.

Passed the driving test !!

2006-08-22T21:23:00.000+05:30

Our company provides us with a car provided we clear a driving test which is conducted by a driving school. The guy who conducts the test, named martin, has a reputation of being real harsh. My experience was entirely different. He didn’t shout even once, nor did he swear, nor gave me those ugly looks !! Its routine that you flunk the first test, as he says we need to be more aware of the way the South African's drive. So the result of the first test on Monday was but expected. Tuesday morning, it just took him 10 minutes to realize that I could drive well. Even I don’t know how overnight I had adapted myself to the SA driving conditions [:)]. But who cares !!!, I can have my own car in a couple of days !!!

Gold Reef City

2006-08-20T20:22:00.000+05:30

This is an entertainment park almost an hours drive from our place. I am really crazy when it comes to all these rides in Entertainment Park so when the idea was floated around I was all game. This time it was big group of 8 ppl. A few of them, who wouldn’t like their names to be here, were really scared on seeing all the rides, but we had made a rule, that either everyone takes the ride, or everyone skips it. At the end of it I was really happy that we took all the rides !!.
Amit had been to the city before, and he did an excellent planning of the sequence in which the rides should be taken. Started from the simple to some more interesting and ending with one that appeared to be the most horrifying one !! Full credits to Amit for all that!! I had a great time, and was lucky that there was Krish along, as apart from me, he was the only one who seemed interested in taking the first seat on every ride [:)].

Settling down

2006-08-17T23:52:00.000+05:30

Been around 2 weeks and I have settled down.. A routine has been set. Get up around 5.30, get ready, call up back home, prepare some breakfast and by 7.30 go to the ground floor and wait for Amit to arrive. Till the time he comes, we spend time watching all the cars zoom past. There is a school near our place and every morning parents come to drop off their wards, so its a nice way to pass the time..
I haven’t got a car till now, and Amit has been driving us to the office and back for past 2 weeks. Life would have had been really hard if Amit was not around, going to office, coming back, shopping for groceries, roaming around on weekends, he is always around. We have known each other for some time, thanks to our bike rides so we didn’t need the initial time to adjust.. And how can I forget Glenn..
Life is being so much fun with these two guys around. Once back from office, we cook together and its only around 9.00 that these guys leave for their places. Everyday is a Sunday [:)]. Poor souls, many times they have had to had food which is either too hot, or may be too salty but never once have they complained [;)]
Our place has a nice terrace on the top and we make the most use of it. Friday evenings is time for braai. Rush to the mall, get lots of chicken and booze, and enjoy the braai @ night. We plan to do so for the remaining two weekends too. One day of the weekend, we plan to visit some place in SA, and the second is spent resting. As per our plans Sundays would mean going to fordsburg [that’s the spelling I guess]. That’s the place where you get amazing Indian food.. Two places worth the name, Al- Meheran and Bismillha.
I am enjoying it over here !! Missing family and friends back home, but adjusting. Well as they say.. You gain some you loose some.

Lion's and Rhino park

2006-08-13T20:21:00.000+05:30

The first weekend in SA, and what else could you possibly think than a safari ??. Amit suggested that we visit the Lion's and Rhino park on the weekend. It was about an hours drive from Sandton. Started from our place around 9 in morning. Lost our way and reached the park only by 1.00 !! When we were entering the park, we saw a feeding van enter the park. The feeding van has a carcass of a horse which is fed to all the animals in the park. Amit had a brilliant idea of following this van so that we could see all the animals. This plan worked, and we saw wild dogs, cheetah’s, and of course lions. I still remember, how a cheetah came out of nowhere, picked up a huge chunk of the meat, and disappeared into thin air, all within a flick of an eyelid. I will also never forget seeing lions @ a close proximity of a feet or two, and the only thing that separated us was our car (the windows were wide open). After the feeding, we thought of exploring the park a bit more, and we went to an animal orphanage, which has been opened up in the middle of the park. It houses lion cubs, with which we played for a couple minutes.

Back in our car after some time, the next destination was a cave which had seen a lot of mining activity. We were 100 meters below the ground, and saw the beauty of nature which I had just read in geography books. Saw the stalactites and stalagmites formed due to the limestone and the rain water seeping through the ground. It was like revisiting the geography lectures of mrs. hegypt, telling us how they are formed, and how they grow @ the rate of 1 cm per year. It was pitch dark inside, and pretty cold. I felt really sad for the miners who had to work here in such conditions. At a point of time, the guide lit up the entire place, and every stalactite and stalagmite looked like it had some shape. Like elephants, or deers..You just had to let your imagination run wild, and perhaps you could make out hundreds of such shapes. Just kept marveling at them for sometime, and then turned back. I was very relieved to come out of the cave, as I do have fear of caves. Well, people say I have the fear of closed spaces, but its not that, I just fear caves and tunnels :).
It was almost 5 by the time we came out, thought it was a better idea to head back home in sunlight. Reached home without loosing our way !! [:)]. The day was really fantastic, all thanks to Amit !!

We won !!

2006-08-12T22:04:00.000+05:30

The Weekend started early. We had been to Hyde park, where Amit stays, and didn’t knew what to do. Tabish suggested we go and catch up some movie. The idea sounded ok so we went ahead and drove to the Monty Casino !! (Don’t be surprised, the casino also has a multiplex) Oh my god !! It was biiig by any standards... This was my first visit to a Casino.. None of us could make out much from all those slot machines.. First half an hour we kept loosing our cash.. Amit suggested looking for another machine.. That's when we came across this machine aptly named "Indian Dreams". We 4 Indian's started pushing the buttons and turning the lever, no one knew what we were doing, but and all of a sudden we heard the jingle of the coins ... We thought, it would stop in seconds, but it continued for a minute, and we collected almost 250 rands in the process. That was the much needed moral booster, and we played more and more and kept winning. We don’t know how much we won that day, but all our expenses aside like the dinner, the booze, the movie (we watched the Sentinal), the parking n stuff we had a surplus of almost 750 rands !!! Now that’s what I would say is quick money [:)]

First Impressions

2006-08-11T21:45:00.000+05:30

Immigration and Customs was a breeze. The difference was very much noticeable. Could see the smile on their faces all the time. Came out and found Philip. He comes to the airport to pick all our company employees. Drove out of the airport, and was surprised to see wide roads, huge malls, cars of all different models and makes zipping by.. That's not the impression of SA I had in mind.. The first thing that comes to ones mind when one thinks of South Africa is the jungles and the wild life and the Zulu ppl. But this was nothing like it..

Reached my apartment in half an hour. The apartment was a splendid 1 bhk.Fully furnished, well equipped kitchen, with all the necessary amenities (and may be more :)) Had just began to settle down, when Philip reminded us to be ready in an hour and he would take us to our office.

Up.. Up.. and Away

2006-08-10T23:18:00.000+05:30

With the tickets in hand, and the apartment booked, the day finally dawned. I was as excited as a kid getting his first bicycle. The incidents that happened in the beginning of the week, made me feel a bit skeptical and every ring of my cell phone, increased my BP, thinking its another call from my office, asking me to postpone the travel still further. Well thankfully nothing of that sort happened. Since morning, there were reports of heavy rains lashing Bombay and I though leaving for Bombay early would be a good option. Added to all these news report was a call from my cousin asking me to travel early, as it had been raining very heavily for past few hours. This led to change in the plan, and we (my family was coming along to see me off) left for Bombay almost 2 hours ahead of schedule. We had just reached the expressway, when I got a call from Deep saying, there had been reports in a section of media that there had been landslides in the Lonavala region and the traffic on expressway had come to a grinding halt. This made me all the more nervous, but even after crossing Lonavala we did not see any signs of landslides. Leave alone landslides, no where did we see vehicles piling up on either side, there we no traffic jam's, everything was absolutely fine. I have seriously started doubting the sources from which these news channels get their news from. We reached Bombay in 3 hours, halted for sometime @ my uncles place, and then made our way to the airport.

Reached airport around 8, almost 3 hours before the scheduled check-in!!!! After bidding good bye to our family members, we went in the airport. Just occupied a few seats and spent the next 2 hours talking in general. Well, I forgot to mention it till now, but another colleuge, Sachin, was traveling with me. Started the check-in process around 11.30. Everything went on smoothly, but @ the last minute we were informed that the flight had been delayed by an hour.

It was almost 3 AM when I boarded the plane. It was a Boeing 747, and by any standards it was huge. I had asked for a window seat, though I was not sure what I might see in the night. All set, we had a smooth take off.. Seeing from the window, I could see Bombay all lit up. Worth mentioning is the Marine Drive. It looks really superb. From the top, it looked as if it was a tiny world down below.

I tried to sleep, but just couldn’t. Some crappy Hindi movie just added to my agony. Switched channels and finally got a channel playing some soothing music. Dozed off for sometime, only to be woken up by some turbulence. Peeped out of the window and saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life. The dawn was breaking, and the Indian Ocean all seemed blue. The horizon appeared red, and when I saw towards the skies, could see pitch black sky with stars twinkling!!!. I would never ever forget this sight.

Rest of the journey was pretty uneventful, and reached Joberg around 9.00, almost 2 hours behind schedule. Was just happy to hear the immigration officer say "Welcome to South Africa" :)

Finally in Joberg

2006-08-07T17:17:00.000+05:30

Have reached Joberg safe n sound. Was picked up from the airport, taken to my apartment. Had to get ready in a jiffy and rush to the office. All of a sudden, things look so different, a new office, new faces, new city, So much to write about, but short of time. There might be a flurry of activity on this blog soon.. So do keep watching.. :)

Travel date postponed!!!!

2006-08-01T20:17:00.000+05:30

Well, this post is from India, not from SA !!!! My travel dates have been postponed to the weekend. Its 1'st August. The date I am supposed to travel. Came to office, and while bidding people goodbye, I was suddenly informed I would only travel on 6'th as the client might not be in Joberg when I travel. Some last minute rush, and my ticket dates are changed to 6'th. Now that’s what I would call so near... yet so far.... Hopefully my next post is from SA (fingers crossed)

Joberg here I come!!!

2006-07-31T21:13:00.000+05:30

This thing was in air for quite some time. Finally everything has been finalized. I would be traveling to Johannesburg, South Africa. Would be there for a month before I return back to the base. I was always eager to visit SA, as I had heard a lot about this place from all people who had been here (and almost everyone from our office has been here @least once).The date of travel has been fixed to 1'st August. My next post might very well be from SA. Am damn excited about this!!!!

Trek - Purandar & Malhargad

2006-07-14T10:43:00.000+05:30

Looking back, I realized I had done lots of treks mostly in Lonavala region, but had completely neglected the Pune region. So, of late, I have made a conscious effort to cover these forts in my backyard too. Sighgad, Rajgad and Torna were done in recent past. This time set my eyes on Purandar and a lesser known fort called Malhargad.

The date : 10'th June.
Participants: Archis, Deep, Vinyl, Abhilasha n myself.

Started at 8 from my place. Took the Katraj Ghat (which as always was in a horrible shape). Plan was to do Purandar and then continue to Malhargad. The first pit stop was the reliance petrol pump. I always make it a point to get the bikes tank filled, as I have noticed I get a better mileage when I fill fuel @ this petrol pump. Continued further and then took the turn for Saswad. Halted @ a road side eatery to have "Misal-Pav", a hot, spicy, mouth watering maharashtrian delicacy. Spend a lot of time there, and by the time we kicked our bikes it was almost 10 AM. Halted for some time @ the Balaji temple (though no one visited the temple), and then continued further. Reached the base of Purandar very soon.

We decided to take the easy way to conquer Purandar. Instead of walking our way up, we took our bikes. Purandar is under the control of the army, and they have made a pretty decent road which takes us to the top. It's a perfect "kachha" road, as one would call it. No tar, no concrete, just a dirt track carved out of the mountain. It hadn't rained in the week before... had it, we would have been unable to proceed using our bikes. Made our way up thru the winding road, halting @ places to take some snaps or small videos. Reached the top in half an hour. Spent some time looking around, saw a beautiful man made lake. We were also surprised to see 2 churches on the fort. One of it has been completely damaged by miscreants. Its really sad to see how almost all our historical places have become a message board for all the lovers to profess their undying love towards their beloved.

Soon we reached a place from where we could take our bikes no further. So parked the bikes near a hotel, had refreshing lemon juice, ordered for the lunch which normally takes an hour to be served and thought of checking out the fort. Climbed the remaining part as fast as we could taking snaps all the way. Some distance away, we could see a temple, and everyone except Abhilasha were in a mood to check it out. Convincing her didn't need much efforts. A long walk of 30 minutes took us to the temple. Took rest for sometime and then returned back. Lunch consisted of "Jhunka-Bhakari", which has become a kind of standard lunch / dinner on any trek. Soon after, we decided to move on, as we had another fort in our iternity.

The next fort on our plan was Malhargad, popularly known as Sonori cha killa. Its around 20 kms from Dive ghat, the ghat linking Pune to Saswad.Here is some history of the fort (Thanks Archis for the details)" The fort of Malhargad, popularly known as Sonori cha Killa was built by Bhivrao Panse from Sonori in 1764-67. He was the head of the Maratha Artillery and was responsible for the Maratha victory at Wadgaon against the British. It was his canon that killed Captain Stewart " The fort is very small, but most of the fortifications are in good condition. It has number of lakes and two temples, which lie in a state of neglect. We saw the entire fort in half an hour. It was evening, and a nice wind was blowing. Sat for some time, and then made our way to the bikes. Soon, we were on our way back to Pune. Took the Dive-Ghat, Kondwa bypass road to reach back home.

Day 3 - The journey back home

2006-07-06T20:06:00.000+05:30

My day started quite early. Got up @ 6.00. No one was awake, and didn’t want to disturb them either, so quietly slid out of the hotel and took a walk along the beach. It was a rather long walk...was walking continuously for a hour and half. Back in the hotel, people had started to slowly get to their senses. After our breakfast, we got ready and decided to leave for Bombay.

Daman is a four hours drive from Bombay, but we needed enough time buffer incase we got stuck in the Bombay traffic. Left our hotel by noon, we went to Udwada, where Ruzan visited the fire temple, and then continued ahead. for lunch, we halted @ the same hotel, where we had our lunch while on our way to Daman. Reached Bombay around 4.00 PM, the airport by 5.00
PM. Bid good bye to Mohit and Neha and soon left for our journey to Pune. Reached home @ 10.00 PM, with everlasting memories of the 3 lovely days I spent with a few of my dearest friends

Daman - Day 2

2006-07-06T20:05:00.000+05:30

Day started @ 8.00 (or was it 9.00 ??) in morning. All the fatigue of the drive was gone with the sleep, and we were all fresh to start off the day. Started with a heavy breakfast, got ready and checked out of the hotel @ 11.00. Reached Daman and after much deliberations, finalized a hotel. It then realized on us that for almost a day and half, we were near a coast line, and hadn’t had fish even once !!!!. So we decided to have fish, and left the hotel, looking for a nice place by the sea to enjoy our lunch !! Found a place very near to the hotel, a found a table with just the perfect view. It's another story that we didn’t get the perfect service.. But considering that the hotel was swamped with at least 200 hungry souls that was the last thing anyone would have expected !! Took almost an hour n half to get the food served, and half an hour to get the bill.

After having our lunch (which ended around 4.00 PM), we thought of checking out the place a bit. We already had seen one of the beaches, the Devka beach. The beach is nothing worth writing about... the water was muddy and the beach filthy. One could have very well mistaken it to a beach in Bombay !! We had heard that Daman has 2 forts and thought of checking them out. The forts are separated by what appears to be a creek. The bridge across the creek was either under construction or under maintenance. So we parked our vehicle on one side of the creek, took a ferry and went over to the other side. Once on the other side, an autorikshaw driver approached us and asked if we would like to visit the Jampore beach. Now, suddenly it struck me that this is another beach in Daman.. I was skeptical considering the shape of the Devki beach, but we had nothing to loose, so went ahead. Well this beach was a in stark contrast to the beach we had seen on the other side of the creek. The beach had silvery golden sand, was very clean, and lined with Casurina plantations on the shore. Saw a lovely sunset and then decided against taking a auto to reach the jetty. We walked by the shore, reached the lighthouse, thru the fort and came to the jetty.

While on our way back to hotel, Ruzan told us about this place called Udwada, which is a pilgrimage place for the Zoroastrians. He also told us about a hotel which he said serves divine Parsi food. We had no second thoughts about where to head for the dinner. Ruzan had called up the manager, informing them of our intentions to have dinner. So when we reached the hotel, it was within few minutes that the choicest delicacies were spread on our table. The food consisted of Chicken, Mutton, Fish, 3 different vegetables, Dhansak, Roti's and rice. It was one of the most tasty, lip smacking, finger licking food i had ever had...This all was to end with home made Mango ice-cream !!!!!

Dont know how we drove on our way back. I think we used toothpicks to support our drooping eyes.. [:)]. Once back in hotel, we spent an hour or two, just talking and discussing of the year gone by. Hit our sacks by midnight and once again, within seconds everyone was in the dreamland.

Daman – The land of Booze, Booze n more booze

2006-07-06T20:03:00.000+05:30

Well that's what my impression about Daman was!!! You enter into Daman and every other shop you see around is a liquor shop!!

Around 2 weeks back, we four friends from college decided to take a break from the daily routine and just go out somewhere n relax. Things were planned in a jiffy, and everything fell in place.

Early morning @ 5.00 AM On 27'th May, Ruzan and me left for Bombay. Mohit n Neha were going to fly down to Bombay and then we 4 were to proceed to Daman. Around Lonavala, we got a call from Mohit stating their flight was delayed, and they would be landing in Mumbai only by 11.00 AM.. That meant we had a lot of time to kill.. The best thing to do was drive slowly...[:)]..
From Lonavala to the exit of expressway I drove the car @ a speed of 60KMPH or may be lesser!!!! I felt ashamed seeing the trucks zoom past, and @ times could also see the glee on the faces of the truck drivers/ cleaners. Anyways we reached the expressway exit @ 8.00 AM.. Ohh my god!!!! 3 hours to reach the expressway exit, a distance of just 120 kms ???

Anyways, we reached Bandra by 10.00 AM. Visited the Mount Mary's church. Then went to the airport. Had to wait for almost 2 hours for these guys to come. Killed time sipping coke and general talks. Suddenly Mohit and Neha emerged out of thin air, and we were on our way to Daman.

Driving through the Bombay traffic to reach the Ahmedabad highway was a pain. But once we were on the highway, the drive was superb. The entire highway is a 4 laned one. No bad patches, nicely marked roads, dividers all along the way, just almost what a highway should be like. Driving was not at all an effort, but for a seldom ill-behaved truck driver. Took a break @ a nice hotel to have lunch, and continued soon after.

As per our plans, we had decided to explore Silvasa before proceeding to Daman. But Silvasa turned out to be a major disappointment. One thing worth mentioning about Silvassa was the tourist information center in the heart of the city. It did provide us with accurate information and equipped us with brochures, maps and of course a list of hotels. It’s simply surprising to imagine about such centers existing in this part of the world [:)].

After our disappointing detour to Silvassa, we continued on our way to Daman. Reached Daman in half an hour and there was another disaster waiting to happen. We had reached Daman on Saturday evening, when every hotel worth its name was booked to the hilt!!. That was really disappointing.... Searched a lot, went around the town in circles, but didn’t get a single room!!!!. The only option left was to go back to Vapi, a business town, around 30 kms from Daman, and come over the next day.

With a heavy heart we made our way to Vapi. Found a good hotel and checked in. It was almost 8.00 PM when we checked in, so after freshening up a bit, went to have a dinner. The 4 friends had a nice, quite, candle light dinner, ending it with a Gujju Chaas [buttermilk]. Back in our rooms, chatted for some time and hit the beds @ 11.00. Within seconds everyone was in the dreamland.

Into the Devil's Canyon

2006-06-05T21:46:00.000+05:30

There is this place around 50 kms from Pune near Tahamini ghat we were eying for a long time. Its known as either the cross valley (this is more popular name) or also referred to as the Devil's Canyon. The plan was finalized and the date decided was 4'th June. Instead of going on a Saturday, we decided to peek into the valley on Sunday. People met up @ 8.00 @ the Chandani Chowk. This time it was big group, almost 18 if I correctly remember.

In an hour and half we reached the valley. There was no way we could have parked our bikes on road, so had to go almost 4 kms ahead to park the bikes in a village, and had to come back to the spot walking. It was just the beginning of June and the black clouds had started to make an appearance. There was a slight drizzle every now and then, but rains truly add the magical touch to the treks. Took a few snaps @ the start and made our way down the valley. The first break was almost an hour later, when we came across the first rock patch we had to climb down.
Negotiating the patch was a pain for a few, as many were first timers. Thankfully, everyone was down without any casualties.

Half an hour later, we reached the base of the valley. We roamed around for sometime, reached a point where further ahead was a straight 100 meters fall ( Well I may be wrong with the height here, but I was too terrified to go a step more to have a better look ). The view was really fantastic from where I was. After a while turned back, had a dip in the cool waters, and went back to the place where a few of the friends were waiting for us. We had settled down on the huge boulders when it started to drizzle. All of sudden it became dark, and the drizzle gave way to a heavy downpour from the heavens. It rained for almost half hour, and the almost dry riverbed we were walking on took the form of an angry river.. It would be inappropriate to call it a river, but with the amount of water that was flowing, it was def, more than what the Mula & Mutha combined carry during summers :)

Thanks to the sudden downpour, we were stuck on one side of the flow, had to reach the other side to go back home. It was a big river crossing exercise, just taking baby steps to feel what lay ahead, and slowly a few of us crossed over. Luckily someone was carrying a rope, and rest of the gang crossed the river using the rope for support. In between all this, we heard a huge splash, and saw that huge boulder and a few uprooted trees falling in the water. This sent a shiver down our spines, as just a few minutes before, a few of us were standing at the very same place where all this debris now lay.

Now we wasted no time, and started to make our way up the valley. Reached almost midway, and the rain's were again reduced to a drizzle. Stopped and had the snacks which everyone was carrying. This was the first time I didn't have anything with me, as I had gone with an assumption that I would pick up some stuff from the village where we were to park our vehicles. But to my dismay, didn't find a single shop. Once done with the snacks, continued further, reached the village, took our bikes and came back..

Thus started the trekking season of 2006. Hope I get to do quite a few exciting treks this season too. I specially have my eyes set on the jinxed Harishchandragad trek.. Hope to do it this season :)

Ride to Vasai

2006-05-12T11:11:00.000+05:30

It's summer time.. The mercury is rising by the day.. No treks, no bike rides as people not willing to get out of the comfort of their homes.. That's how it has been for past 2 months. But for a change, last weekend, a couple of friends decided to visit Vasai, a place near Bombay.

This time, we decided to leave on Friday night so as to save ourselves from the sweltering heat. Started @ 12.00 at night. Thankfully, the drive was uneventful. Were driving @ an average speed of 80 kmph. Halted at a 2-3 places to have tea / Coffey to keep our sleep @ bay :). Overall the ride was nice, the roads are in nice shape expect for the Thane- Mumbra patch which is pathetic. On that patch we drove our bikes @ a speed of 20-30 kmph.. That can perhaps explain how bad the roads would be.. The best part of the drive was on the road connecting Mumbra to the Ahemhdabad highway.. and then the Ahemadabad highway itself.

Reached the resort in Vasai around 5.30 AM. Spent some time talking about the ride.. No one was tired nor feeling sleepy so just loitered around. Early morning around 7.00 a friend showed us the way to a swimming pool in resort. The sparkling blue waters were very inviting, and in no time everyone was in the pool splashing water all around. After 2 hours of masti, we got out and then took our breakfast. After breakfast some ppl decided to catch up on sleep.. I dint feel like sleeping, so I just lazed around on the hammock which was tied to a shack in the resort. The view was fantastic. I almost had a 180 degrees view of the Arabian sea. After sometime, took our bikes and drove them on the beach. Nothing spectacular about the beach.. It’s not a beach with golden or white sand nor with clean blue waters.. Just that its a stretch of at least 3 kms. Nothing absolutely to write back about...But still I fell in love with the place.

Around afternoon visited the local market with Sunit n Joel. I went absolutely crazy with these guys cracking jokes every minute. Spent a lot of time in the market, then came back, had our lunch around 2.00.. Lunch was Chicken Handi with roti n rice.. The chicken handi was mouth watering and everyone was left with licking the fingers. After such a heavy lunch a few turned to their rooms to catch forty winks.

I decided to rest on the hammock. Even @ 2.00 in noon, there was a cool breeze blowing. Every half hour or so, I used to get up from the hammock, take my bike, and just drive on the beach. I was really enjoying the ride, but the scorching heat made me return to the base every now n then.

Evening's again we made our way to the pool, splashed around for sometime n then came back to the shack to see a beautiful sunset. After the sunset, we could see alight house somewhere far away. Enquiring about it, we decided to head towards the lighthouse. What we saw was a major disappointment. The lighthouse wasn’t a normal concrete structure, but a skeleton of metal very much like the numerous cell towers we see all around. Disappointed, we made our way back. Found a nice hotel and had a nice dinner. Came back home spent sometime in the room and I don’t know when I fell asleep. That's mostly as I hadn’t had sleep in past 40 hours.

Next morning, got up around 8.00, got ready and again made my way to the hammock. Slowly, everyone woke up, and by 11.00 we got ready, packed our bags and checked out of the resort. Next destination was to drop in @ Sunit's place, to visit his mom, and then make our way back to Pune. Started from Sunit's place @ 12.00 in noon, reached Pune around 5.30, tired coz of the drive in the heat, but with our minds refreshed. Yet another trip that will be in memory for a long time to come.

Finally after a lull of 2 months..

2006-03-06T15:55:00.000+05:30

Thanks to the soaring temperatures, wasn’t able to go on any trek or bike ride in past 2 months. But things changed this Friday. Pune was covered by cloud cover this Friday. Though it didn’t rain, it helped in bringing down the mercury to a large extent. Saturday morning I woke up and was surprised by the sudden difference in temperature. Thought it would be a great time to go on a ride. Called Chandan, who readily agreed. Decided to go to Mulshi.

Got ready and in an hour were on our way to Mulshi. This time we took his bike, though it was me who was riding. I don’t know why, but I get very conscious when I am driving someone else's bike, and was driving @ a steady speed of 40-50kmph. Reached Mulshi in an hour, halted for soft drinks and then didn’t know what to do. Suddenly it struck me that a few kms before the Thamini ghat, there is a junction on the road, which takes one to lonavala. After a small discussion we decided to take this route.

We went to this junction, took a right turn and saw that the road ahead was in a real bad shape. Can’t even say it was a road. Was a path full of stones n gravel. Stones and barrel's of tar gave a clue that the work on the road should start soon. We decided to go ahead for 5-6 kms, have a look @ the road condition, and then decide if we want to continue or call it quits.

Just a kilometer ahead, we soon entered a jungle, and the road reminded us of Matheran. All of sudden it was much cooler and we started enjoying the ride on the bumpy dirt track. I asked Chandan a couple of times if we should continue or return back. That was more because, we were on his bike :). Anyways we continued further. The route would be truly something to explore in monsoons. Passed a couple of dried waterfalls, weird looking cliffs and a dense forest. It was a road on which we felt we were completely out of touch with the outside world. But this myth was broken when I received a SMS on my cell. Then we realized that almost through the entire route, we were very much connected with the rest of the world. Riding on such a road is a big task, and when Chandan asked me if he could ride, I developed cold feet. Not that he can’t drive well.. He drives fine, but I guess he had never ever driven on such a road before. I will take this opportunity to comment on his driving skills.. He drove with such concentration and confidence that even surprised me.

We reached the Lonavala in an hour and half. The road touches lonavala near the Sahara city. Had a drive till the Sahara city entrance, and then came to lonavala. Had lunch, went to the Karla caves near lonavala and returned to Pune by 5.00

Was an adventurous ride. But lot of fun. Thanked the stars that our bike didn’t get punctured. Had something of this sort happened, it would have been a real pain.. Any way’s all is well that ends well. At the end of it, it was a 220 kms drive.. Very different from what I have done till date.

I sure wanna do it again.. This time on my ZMA.. Deep are u reading this ;)??

New year celebrations

2006-02-08T10:01:00.000+05:30

Well the new year eve is long gone.. and i just forgot to update the blog about my new year party..But its too late to do it now... Just FYI.. this time i had been on a overnight trek to Torna with few of my friends.. Had heard lots of stories about Torna.. that it's haunted ... Decided to spend the 31'st night on the fort.. Well believe me.. We didnt have any supernatural experience.. About the trek.. Its a medium trek.. The climb is very tiring.. Overall a nice trek and a good beginning to a new year.

Dive Agar - Day 2

2005-12-20T23:27:00.000+05:30

The day started early. Everyone got up around 6.00 - 6.30 and got ready. Plan was to visit the Ganpati temple @ Dive-agar. It was hardly 5 minutes walking distance from the place where we were put up. The temple @ Dive-agar has an idol made of pure gold. Actually someone found the idol in a huge copper box buried in his backyard while digging up the place. The idol is now placed in a safe locker and the doors of the locker are opened at 8.00 AM. Coming back from temple, we had our breakfast. Settled the hotel bills and decided to check out of the hotel.

Our next destination was the fort of Jangira. We had missed this fort last time when we had been to Kashid, and were in no mood to skip it this time. The plan of action was to reach a place called Dighi around 15 kms from Dive-Agar, load our bikes into a cruise and reach a village called Rajapur We missed the 10 o'clock cruise by a whisker and had to wait till 11.00 for the next one. Used this time to take snaps of all the bikes on the jetty.. And boy.. Those pics have come out great :).The boat came, and saw that the bikes would be actually hand lifted to be put in the boat. Every person whose bike was being loaded had a lump up his throat till it was safely put down in the boat. As the 10 bikes took most of the space in the boat, we all climbed on the roof of the boat. Took around 15 minutes to reach the other side of the creek. The bikes were soon unloaded and then parked in a makeshift parking lot.

Around the same time, few in the group decided against going to Jangira fort as it would mean reaching Pune late in night. But as we had come all the way, we thought of continuing further. Got the tickets for the boat, and after an hour got into the boat to reach our next destination - The Jangira fort :). The boats used for transportation is something that needs to be commented on. Made of wood which can seat around 35 ppl, have a sail on them. 2 - 3 ppl control the boat's direction by manipulating the direction of the sail. They also use long bamboo sticks when they near the land. Very primitive kind of boats but that’s the only mode of transportation to the fort even now.

Once in the fort, we took a guided tour of the fort. Roamed around the fort for an hour, and decided to head back to the village. Luckily got the boat very soon, and then quickly made our way to the parking lot. Got our vehicles and started for Pune. The route on the way back was a typical Konkan road. Winding up its way through small mountains, crossing numerous rivulets ( Though none had water by now) ,and lots of Coconut and beetle nut trees around. The black tar roads were contrasted by red dust on both sides and green shady trees @ the borders and an occasional village in between. Around 50 kms drive through such picturesque locales finally got us back to the Bombay Goa Highway.

Stopped for a late lunch around 4.00 PM. Archis got good news that he would be an uncle and to celebrate the news he treated us to a lunch. After the lunch, we started yet again. Now that it was getting dark, we decided to stay close while driving. It was Chandan's first long drive, and poor soul had to drive through Thamini ghat @ night. Anyways he drove through the ghat like a pro. I had a great time with Adi as my pillion, telling spooky stories to one another on our way back.

Finally reached Chandani Chowk @ 9.00, without any untoward happenings and ended the trip on a happy note. All rejuvenated for the next few weeks to come ;).

Dive-Agar - Day 1

2005-12-20T23:14:00.000+05:30

It was one the destinations in my "To-Do" list. Finally after a month of planning and lots n lots of hassles, we finally set of to Dive-Agar on 17’Th Dec. We had planned to meet @ Chandani Chowk @ 6.00 and start off around 6.15. I reached the spot on time and wasn’t surprised when I saw there was no one around :). Soon ppl started turning up one after the other. It was 6.20 and still 2 guys hadn’t come in. I really got frustrated about it coz these were the guys who were staying closest to the place. I decided I won’t take it anymore and just fired my bike and decided to proceed ahead, albeit with a slow pace so that others would catch up with me.

Reached Paud phata and decided to wait, as this was the second meeting point. Deep n his friends were to join us from this place. Waited for at least 15 mins for the guys from Chandani Chowk to join in. Deep n his gang were no were to be seen. They joined us in another 10 minutes. They were waiting for us at some other place :(. Anyways had tea and decided to continue the drive.

At the time we started off, we were 14 guys on 11 bikes. Yeh many wanted to enjoy the drive and didn’t want a pillion with them. I was one of them :). Drive was an uneventful one till we reached Mulshi. Halted @ the normal places to take snaps on the way. Continuing further, around 20 kms ahead of Mulshi, Suneet met with an accident. Though he wasn’t hurt much his bike bore the brunt of the accident. After a thorough examination by the bike experts it was decided that the bike was unfit to undergo the 400 kms ordeal. So Sunit and a few others turned back to park the bike @ a restaurant near Mulshi. We guys continued further and decided to halt @ a restaurant to have breakfast.

The next halt was just 20 kms ahead. Ordered breakfast which comprised of Omelets, Kanda Bhaji, Poha and of course tea :). The breakaway group joined us back and after everyone had their tummies filled thought of continuing further. At that time, we saw that Archie's bikes tyre was punctured. From the place where we were, the next air station was around 20 kms away. The only option we had was to try to remove the nail which had punctured the tyre, and drive the bike till the shop. Deep drove the punctured bike thru the thamini ghat and soon we reached the shop and got the bike ready.

It was already 12.00 and had everything gone by our plan we would have reached Dive-Agar by now. We continued further, reached Mandgaon. Decided to take lunch @ some restaurant on the highway once we took a turn for Dive-agar. This turn was around 8kms from where we had last halted.

But a few "riders" from the group just continued further without turning!!. It was left to me to catch up with them and get the back on the track. We stopped @ a hotel for lunch and to our horror we realized Amit was not with us. Tried going back to look for him but in vain. Luckily there was some network coverage and we SMS'ed him to meet us in Dive-Agar.
After having lunch, we noticed yet another bike was punctured and this added to some more delay. Finally we left for DiveAgar at 4.00 PM and after a near-nonstop ride reached Dive-agar @ 5.30PM.

The entire town was zapped seeing an entourage of around 10 bikes making their way to the beach. I guess that would be the talk of the town for a few days to come. Believe me, seeing 10 bikes in a line, with all the riders wearing jackets and helmets, does make all heads turn.

Reached the beach, but didn’t see a sign of Amit or his bike. After about half an hour saw Amit making his way to the beach. That came in as a big relief for everyone. Those guys had reached the place 3 hours earlier and also made their way to Srivardhan. After enjoying on the beach and seeing a beautiful sunset the next task that lie ahead of us was finding accommodation for the night.

Looked around the place and found a good hotel to stay. Clean huge rooms, having a generator backup, a Television Set, all this for 500 bucks a night!! What more could one ask for !!
Checked in the rooms, and rested our tired backs. Ordered the dinner which took around 2 hours to be served. After dinner, most ppl decided to call it a day. A few of us decided to have a stroll by the beach. It was a near full moon night. Every one of us was mermized by the beauty of the moonlit beach and the soft sound which the waves made when they kissed the shore. Spent an hour taking a walk and then went back to our rooms and slept the moment we fell on the beds.

Craziest ride of my life

2005-12-18T22:02:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, we do things on the spur of the moment, and then looking back when we think about it, we feel it was a crazy thing to do. That’s what happened on 17’Th Dec. Deep had decided to go to Ahamadnagar at night for reasons that cannot be disclosed here :). On the dame day he had to attend a party in the evening. Knowing him well, I knew him driving alone, and that too after attending a party would not be a nice thing :). So I decided to accompany him.
We met in our company's parking lot @ 1.00 AM. So technically speaking, I had the craziest ride on 18’Th Dec. We had to reach Nagar by 3.00. So didn’t waste time and started right away. Nagar is 140 kms from Pune, and we were comfortably placed. Even if we drove @ 60 KMPH with a few bursts of 80 - 100 KMPH we could make it to the place on time. Soon we reached the outskirts of Pune, and touched the Nagar highway. I had been to Nagar almost 2 years back, and the highway was a two laned one. But to my surprise, the highway was now transformed into a 4 laned highway with a median in between. And the ride was smooth!!!.
The first 70 odd kms, the drive was a smooth one. No bumps, straight roads, not much traffic.. Wow!!! I was so enjoying the ride. The only problem was the cold. I guess the temperature was around 7-8 degrees, and with farmlands on either side of roads, it was a lot cooler than in the city. Guess we were cruising at a speed of 100 KMPH for the first 70 kms coz of the four laning. The 4 laning ended soon and we had to reduce our speeds to 70 - 80 kmph. Stopped twice for having tea. Though I don’t have tea, just holding the cup of steaming hot tea in my hand was an experience in itself. The warmth it gave to my nearly frozen hands is something I can never forget :).

Anyways we reached Nagar @ 3.00 AM. Around 3.30 we decided to head back to Pune. But instead of taking the normal route we decided to take a detour. We decided to go to Daund and then take the Solapur highway to reach Pune :). We were not sure of the road condition, but still decided to continue with the plan. So left for Daund @ 3.30 AM. Much to my surprise, the road was in almost perfect condition. Hardly a pothole here or there, some bad patches in between, and that's about it. The road going to Daund is a lonely one though. Almost no habitation.. Initially I was a bit scared.. But later on, got used to it..Driving on a lonely highway in a starlit sky is an experience in itself. Only if u have experienced it can you relate to what I am saying. Took us about an hour to reach Daund. Halted twice once for tea and once @ a railway crossing for a train to pass by.

Took a halt @ Daund for around 20 mins and then decided to leave for Pune. While coming back we took the Solapur highway. Guess Deep was a bit tired and asked me to drive. The road again was in a near perfect condition. No potholes, 4 laned and a median in between. So driving was not a big task. I was driving @ a constant speed of 110 KMPH and had a feeling that Deep had fallen asleep. He had locked his hands in my bag straps and guess he was dozing off in between. We were around 20 kms from Pune when he asked me to stop at a tea shop. It was a welcome break. It was so cold that my hands had frozen completely and I could actually touch the silencer of the ZMA with my bare hands without feeling a thing. The temperature in early morning must have been somewhere around 6-7 degrees :). Anyways after this break, we reached Hadapasar soon, and the lovely ride came to an end.

Looking back, the drive was absolutely a crazy one. Driving on a lonely highway, in middle of the night, for no specific reason whatsoever. It surely was one crazy thing I ever did till date..(Well my parents will differ. They think I keep doing crazy things all the time.. Sometimes its bungee jumping, sometimes parasailing, valley crossing.. etc etc.)

Falling Leaves - Nice Poem

2005-12-18T00:11:00.000+05:30

Normally i desist from adding stuff from the net to my blog. But this forward is so lovely i couldnt control myslef from copy pasting it here. Abhishek thanks for the lovely poem..

I was thinking of old friends today

and how many of them have slipped away.

Moved, got married, or stopped calling so much,

Found new friends, got busy,

and just lost touch.

It reminded me of falling leaves .

Every autumn the leaves fall from the trees.

Some stay longer than others,

but eventually - Each leaf must fall, I'm told,

leaving the tree alone to face the cold.

Why is it that in the time of utmost need

the leaves would seek to leave the tree?

And when we need our friends around

we look and they cannot be found?

Of course these friendships come and go

and in the spring new leaves will grow.

But I prefer autumn friends of old

with crackling laughter and colors bold.

And then I thought of you.

That one stubborn leaf that won't let go.

That clings despite the winds that blow.

Fighting ice, and snow, and winter's stings

Hanging on right through till spring.

So I guess that's what you are to me -

The very last leaf to leave the tree.

I know it seems silly, but it's true.

When I see that last leaf...I think of you.

To Do List.....

2005-11-04T02:43:00.000+05:30

Yesterday evening was just thinking about how many things I had planned to do.. but couldn't complete them for some reason or the other.. Finally thought of making a list of them..Note that they are in no particular order

1) Visiting Ashtavinayak on bike (800+ kms)
2) Visiting Karla caves near lonavala to visit the temple of our family deity
3) Katraj - Sighgad trek (25 kms)
4) Vishalgad - Panhalgad trek (60 kms)
5) Bombay - Esselworld / water kingdom (With my sis n nephew)
6) Bike ride to Daman (700 kms to n fro)
7) Bike ride to Dive-Agar ( 350 kms to n fro).
8) Trek to Harishchandragad.

I definitely need to do something....If things continue at current pace, this list would be too big to manage..
Even now I think these plans may take 3-4 months to complete.. given that I am free only on weekends. Add another constraint that I cant go out on every weekend. Every alternate weekend I need to be home, else I would incur the wrath of my parents :)

Ashtavinayak plan postponed

2005-10-28T00:23:00.000+05:30

Sad but true.. Deep is down with Measles. So we have decided to postpone the drive by a week or two. One thing that is certain is we wont be going this weekend. He might also have problems for getting leaves now as he is on leave for past 7 days :(. So we may have to postpone this thing till a time when he might be able to take a day off..And I think that's going to be a long long wait.. Well mom summarized it all by saying.. "It's all destiny. The almighty doesn't want you to make this journey now".

Thoseghar - My first long drive

2005-10-16T20:12:00.000+05:30

Sometimes you keep planning a trip for days and weeks but things donot work out at the last moment.But sometimes you just plan a day in advance and everything works out fine. Thoseghar was such a trip.

Thursday night, Deep n me decided that this weekend we need to go somewhere on a bike ride. Amit had already expressed his willingness to go anywhere. So Friday morning we floated the idea of going to Thoseghar.Thoseghar is a about 25 kms from Satara and is known for its waterfall. Deep had been there 3 weeks back and he was completely mesmerized by its beauty and the beautiful road leading to it.In the end it was 5 of us who confirmed for the Thoseghar ride : Abhijeet, Amit,Archis, Deep n me.

We met @ 7.00 at entrance of Bharati Vidyapeeth's subway. Started for Thoseghar around 7.30.After a drive of 15 minutes saw that the Katraj Ghat was jammed and the vehicles had queued for about 3-4 kms on either side. The traffic jams didn't matter to us, we just zipped our way through the ghat though we couldn't speed much, we at least didn't have to wait for hours for the roads to clear. The first 25 -30 kms of the road is horrible. Lots of potholes with some good stretches in between.

But after that the roads are worth a long, fast drive :). Our first halt was about 30 kms from Pune where we stopped just to see the beauty of the surroundings. Then halted @ the Reliance Petrol Pump to get our bikes filled. As the roads were really good, we were cruising @ an average speed of 100 - 110 KMPH. Soon reached the Khambatki ghat. Boy.. the ghat is a real beauty, pothole free roads, sharp turns, and as an icing on the cake..Its a one way..So no worries of incoming traffic :).Driving through the ghat was real fun, though it started raining soon and we had to slow down our bikes to prevent skidding.

Ahead of Khambatki we stopped at some restaurant to have our morning breakfast, and continued ahead for Satara. Reached Satara, got directions for Thoseghar and continued. The internal city roads of Satara were in a bad shape, though better than Pune roads :). Once we reached the outskirts, again the roads got better and so did our bike speeds. Halted @ few more places, one time to see a major landslide, other times just to appreciate the beauty all around and to digitally capture it for the pour souls who couldn't make it for whatever reasons. The last 4-5 kms of the drive was through the clouds. The visibility was very poor and we couldn't see what lay 15-20 meters ahead of us.

Soon we reached @ a place which had a big board which proclaimed we had reached the Thoseghar falls.There was a small hotel where we parked our bikes. Before going to the falls, Deep n Abhijeet thought of doing some willies on their bikes, and within no time, school going children gathered all around watching these two guys do stunts. Next few days the only discussions that these school going children will have will definitely be of these two stunters.. The rookie stunter Abhijeet.. and the professional stunter Deep.Stunts done, we went to see the waterfall. The place where we first went wasn't so magnificent, it looked like any other waterfall we would see in Lonavala or Thamini. This did disappoint me a bit.Later on we went to another place and then we saw this huge waterfall... I just have no words to describe it..May be the snaps of it would give you an idea as to how big it is...It might a height of about 120 - 150 feet.. (This is pure judgmental.. Anyone having precise numbers please update me) Spent around an hour roaming around the place and then continued to our next destination.. The windmill farms of Enercon.

The windmill farm lies around 5 kms ahead of Thoseghar. Its got hundreds of windmills spread over acres and acres of land. The farm has a capacity of 4-8 Megawatt. The windmills looked so tiny from Thoseghar, but when we went near them, they were huge..And the entire landscape was totted with them. As far as our eyes could meet, all that was visible were the windmills :). Spent about half an hour at this place and then decided to return back to Pune.

It was about 3 when we started back. The rain drizzle was continuing, and some distance later again we were driving our bikes through the clouds. this time though the visibility was worse than before.. We could hardly see anything beyond 10 meters. So we were driving in a single line formation, @ a speed of 20-30 KMPH... And I don't know what happened... My bike just skid, left the road, and by the time I could react, I lay on the road side and the bike just next to me.. Others came in real fast and helped me on my legs n my bike on the stand :). Just had a quick look @ the damages the bike had suffered. By God's grace, there were no cracks of ferring (though 2 big scratches are visible), the handle was a bit bent, and so was the foot break peddle. After this had a look @ my camera which was in a pouch on my waist..Luckily nothing had happened. About me.. nothing much.. just a bad bruise on my right knee, a torn jeans and that's about it. Cleaned the bruise with antiseptic, applied a bandage, and a polythene to save the bandage from rains ( This was Archie's brilliant idea).

Started back to Pune.. Getting used to the slightly bent handle was a bit of a problem, but 2 kms ahead, it was like my bike always had a bent handle. On the way back stopped at a Ganpati temple. Crossed Satara and once on the highway, halted @ some place to have lunch. (yes.. lunch @ 4.00) Had delicious Chicken Handi..and then again continued our journey back. I touched my personal max of 135 on my ZMA. Reached back home by 7.00. Mom already knew about my little crash..she was cool.. Dad too was very cool about it...just telling me to be more careful next time on :).

So ended a day, where we clocked around 250 kms and I clocked my fastest speed of 135KMPH. Looking back..It was a nice trip. Had it not been for the little crash, I would have said it was one of my best bike trip so far (Only next to Kashid). Next bike ride is an ambitious one.. Planning to do the Ashtavinayak temples. So it would be like 800 kms in 2 / 3 days :).. Looking forward for it, the groundwork for which has already begun

Rajmachi - Keep walking.....

2005-08-30T21:32:00.000+05:30

It has been raining really hard through this month. First half has been really bad.. Rained so heavily that had to sit home on weekends. No treks.. No rides nothing @ all.. Spend the weekends @ home watching Friends :). Its one thing I love watching. But monsoons have now taken a break and we decide to go on a trek to Rajmachi. This is one place I just love to go. Been here so many times, but while leaving always decide that I will come back one more time.

We leave Pune on 27'th by 10.00 o'clock local for Lonavala. The group is usual office friends. Deep, Abhilasha, Kirti, Pallavi, Ram, Joyel, Vinyl n me. Reach Lonavala @ 11.30. Spend an hour stuffing ourselves with Dosa's and Uttapas and whatever. After that spend another hour getting some stuff packed for the night ahead. Yeh Rajmachi is to be an one night affair this time too. Finally leave Lonavala around 1.00 and reach the tungarli dam around 1.30. After a small break @ tungarli we proceed ahead. After a walk of 15 minutes we can see the two forts - Shreevardhan and Manoranjan. At the base of these two forts is the village of Rajmachi. It looks so near.. But from experience I can say very few treks are so deceptive as the Rajmachi one. The road is well marked out. We can see Rajmachi all the way along.. but we keep walking and walking and walking till we are dead tired..still see no sign of the village. Yes that's how Rajmachi is..

Once we hit the trail which joins Rajmachi to Khandala, we take a break. Myself n Deep use this opportunity to take our snaps with the new trekking bags we bought a day earlier. Abhilasha n Pallavi are not to be left behind. Soon after, with the photo shoot done, we start again. One thing about the trek is its too much of a walk, not much to describe. Due to rains the entire route is a beauty. Lush green grass on either sides of the trail, the dense forest of Rajmachi down the valley, big and small waterfalls on the entire way.. That's how the entire route is.

Finally after hours and hours of walking, we reach Rajmachi @ around 6.30. Its getting dark and we have a decision to make. Either we go on the fort Shreevardhan and make ourselves comfortable in the caves there or we take shelter in one of the villagers home. Many of the ppl are dead tired (so am I ) and in end it is decided that instead of climbing the fort now, we will stay put @ with the villagers and get up early next day to explore the forts. So we go ahead in the village, strike a deal with one of the villager and barge into his place. Next hour is spent trying to clean ourselves of all the muck we gathered on the way, having tea and snacks. Around 8.00 everyone is settled in when Joyel and Vinyl decide that they want to stay on the fort. So they pack their dinner, collect some wood for a fire, and convince the person with whom we stayed to guide them to the cave. This left just 5 of us @ this place. Around 9.00 we had dinner of Bhakari and Pithla, and other stuff we had got along. After dinner, we kept chatting, and slowly one after the other, ppl started falling asleep. One can expect that after such a tiring trek. First to hit the bed, or should I say the sleeping bag, was Kirti, followed by Pallavi n the Ram. Deep, Abhilasha and me stayed awake for almost the entire night. Many times, we went out of the house and could see a beautiful star studded sky, and the full moon throwing its light all around. It was a sight which has to be seen and treasured, something that cannot be captured in a camera. We kept wondering how beautiful the sight must have been from the top of the fort.

It was around 4.00 @ night when we just couldn't keep ourselves awake and decided to sleep for 2 hours. I did get up @ 6.00 but getting other ppl to wake up was a pain.. Slowly and surely everyone got up by 6.30 and we left the village to climb the sreevardhan fort. Climbing the fort was not much an effort. In half an hour we were on the top. Spend an hour exploring the fort, taking snaps, and then came back to the village. We didn't have much time @ hands so had to skip the other fort, Manoranjan. Got ourselves ready, had heavy breakfast (at 11.00 haha) and left the village. We were to climb down from the Rajmachi to Karjat, so we took along with us a guide, so that we didn't loose the way and waste our time trying to find our way back. Some ppl may argue that taking a guide is loosing half the fun in a trek.. I do agree with this, but this time, we were in a hurry. Wanted to reach Pune before sunset and so did not want to take any chance.

The route we took was a beauty. It was a small path and many portions had a gradient of around 70 degrees. But the view was awesome. We could see the Ulhas valley below, the river flowing, and we could also see the village where we had to reach to catch a 6 seater to take us to Karjat. While descending, it shouldn't have taken us more than 2 hours, but Kirti's shoes had started hurting her so much that she decided to take them off. For almost 70% of the return journey Kirti walked barefooted. Shoot.. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing. In the end we reached the village around 2, got a six seater, reached Karjat, caught a overcrowded train to Pune and came back around 5.30.

Day 2...Enroute to Bhimashankar

2005-07-18T19:19:00.000+05:30

Woke up early around 6.00. Everyone started packing and cleaning the cave. Once everything was done, we left the fort of Peth around 7.00. Reached the Peth village, refreshed ourselves with Nimbu Pani and chai (some had both... sure a wierd combination ;)), and continued further. Of the 14 who had started the trek 6 decided not to continue with the next leg of the trek. At the Ambivili village the group split up, the 6 ppl leaving back for karjat while remaining 8 deciding to continue.

Our next destination was a village about 3 kms from Ambivili (Donot remember the name of the village now).. Luckily a compassionate truck driver gave us a lift to the village. We had not had any solid food since morning, and we were expecting to find a hotel in this village. But to our dismay this village was still smaller, just 10-15 houses and there were no hotels around. We asked a villager who readily agreed us to help us out. So kind of him!!. We invaded his kitchen, made tea, cooked the noodles and with a full stomach decided to continue ahead. This guy was so down to earth, he didn't accept anything for helping us out, instead told us next time we come on a trek, we should make a point to stay at his place!!!!! The route from this village to the actual Bhinashankar trail is a bit confusing, so he sent his brother along to guide us through. 20 minutes later when we were on a trail, this person turned back to go to his village.

The next 1 hour was a steep climb again. Then we came to another plain and continued our walk. There is one place called Kalawati's Mahal. There is no way to reach the top, but to go bhimashankar, we have to walk around the base of this place. All this route is a straight walk and hence walking was not much of a problem. Once we had walked around this place, we could see the dense jungle of Bhimashankar. Walking... walking ...walking ...we finally came to a place from where we had to start the last climb to reach the Bhimashakar temple. This climb was the most strenuous of all... about 2 hours of climb...

The worst part was, it was 4 when we started from the base, and the last bus from Bhimashankar to Pune was at 6.00. So incase of any delay during the climb, we would miss the bus, and would have to spend a night @ Bhimashankar. This is the last thing I wanted. My folks back home would be very upset incase the 2 day trek was converted into a 3 day trek..Trying hard to walk fast, I finally gave up midway when one of the group member complained of giddiness. We continued at a normal pace, and reached the top around 6.30. When we reached the place, we came to know that the bus had left just 10 mins back!!!! Now there was no option but to stay... but still I decided to ask for help from other private buses / trucks that were plying from bhimashankar. One private bus driver did allow me to get in and dropped me at Manchar. From Manchar I got another taxi, and finally reached home around 11.30. Thus ended yet another lovely trek... This time we clocked around 35 kms. Day one was around 7-8 kms, while day 2 was more strenuous..around 27 kms.. But all in all it was great fun :)

Peth-Bhimashankar...Day 1.... Fort of Peth..

2005-07-17T19:02:00.000+05:30

Yet another trek with the Pune Trekkers!!!! And this time too it was fun. It was an overnight trek on 16'th and 17'th August.

We took the Sighgad express up to Karjat. Reached karjat around 9.00. The next one hour was spent buying stuff like candles, Noodles etc and also filling our tummies. Our first destination was the village Ambivili which was near the Peth fort. Option 1 was talking a six seater, option 2 was waiting for the state transport bus. We decided to take option 1. Our experience with the six seaters was a real bad one. Seeing that we were fully dependant on them ( We did not see a single State transport bus on the entire route), they demanded an unreasonable amount from us. After lots of bargaining, we finally started for the village of Ambivili.

The village of Ambivili is a small village with around 25 houses and huge land under cultivation. The climb from this village to the Peth fort was to be around 3 hours. So we thought of checking out the caves at the Ambivili villages before we could start the trek. The place was close by, around half an hour walk, and really beautiful. Situated on the banks of the river, the entire area was quite serene..The caves had small idols of a few gods and goddesses and the entire thing resembled a place where monks would have prayed and meditated for days. The river water was very tempting, and as the sun god was making his presence felt, many of us decided to take a quick dip in the river. This "quick" dip lasted for about an hour :).Then we returned back to the Ambivili village, and soon started our trek to the Peth Fort. The route was much like Lohagad Visapur trek, a proper dirt track fit for tractors and like. But the route has a higher gradient, and very soon we felt the need to take a break. This continued for around one hour, we walked, we talked, and we stopped :).

After an hour, we came to the plains and now, we could clearly see our destination, the Peth fort, and also the peth village at the base of the fort. It was around this time that the rain gods blessed us... and it rained heavily for half an hour. It sure was a much needed relief from the heat we had encountered since morning. Continuing our trek we reached the Peth village in half an hour. Halted there at one locals house, had food and refreshed ourselves. An hour later, we started our ascent on the Peth fort. The climb was easy but very steep. It took us half an hour to reach the top. We dropped our bags in the cave, which was to be our home for the next 12 hours, and decided to explore the fort. There was a group of around 10-15 females who had already settled in the cave, but the cave is really huge, it can accommodate around 30 ppl with ease.

The fort of Peth is not a fort per se. It must have been used as a place from where one could keep an eye on the enemy movements. The most beautiful thing of this fort is a spiral staircase cut through the rocks using which one can easily reach the top. The view from top is really beautiful. On one side u see the mighty shayadharis and on the other side, the plains. We spent about an hour on the top and when the sun set, came back to the cave. It was getting dark, and we lit candles and then decided to start cooking our dinner :).

Dinner was to be Pulao, and everyone pitched in.. Someone was trying to ignite the stove ( It was a real effort... took half an hour to do it), someone cutting onions, someone washing the rice n dal...All in all... everyone was busy in someway or the other. After we put the Pulao on the stove, there was lots of time, and nothing to do. So we decided to go out of the cave and sit. Some 20 steps from the cave was an open space, with a canon and everyone made themselves comfortable with the canon used to support the backs :)

It was pitch dark, we could see lights far away. Electricity hadn't reached the village of Peth so we could see this tiny hamlet lit up by the kerosene lamps. There were many fire flies flying around, and we felt like we had arrived in a different land all together. Spent a lot of time playing Antakshari and cracking jokes. Then went back to the cave, had the delicious Pulao.

After tidying up things, we decided to go to the same place again, but now started a round of horror stories...The kind of "fatoo" I am, I couldn't listen to the stories and decided to retire to the cave and sleep.

Visapur revisited

2005-07-03T21:44:00.000+05:30

The monsoons had arrived with a bang...so what if they were two weeks late...It was raining continuously for past two weeks and everyday I was reminded of Chandan's comment.. "Looks like after Cherapunji, Pune receives the highest rainfall!!!" Had you experienced the rains for past 2 weeks you would have agreed with the comments too..But it looked like an ideal climate to kickoff the trekking season. So we decided to head for Vispaur on Saturday. Thanks to the many mail forwards of the Visapur snaps, we didn't have to convince many to join us. At the end, we were 9 of us.

Initial plans were to leave Pune by the 6.30 local. As always, we couldn't catch the train though this time it was a genuine problem. On the same day, the Palkhai to Pandharpur was passing by Pune, and many roads were blocked..so reaching Pune station was a bit of problem. It was a blessing in disguise as it gave us an hour and half to have breakfast.We got into the 8.00 o'clock local, some making themselves comfortable on the seats, while some standing / sitting @ the door having a look @ the beauty of nature. The station where we got down is called Malavali..Its one station before Lonavala. After the customary snaps on the expressway overbrigde, we started the trek.

On the way we found a big waterfall climbed it up, and most of us got drenched in the cool waters. Sometime later we started again to Our first destination :the Bhaje caves...These caves a worth a look. Still well maintained, the view from here is really cool.. Down below we see the village and the water logged farms...Its such peaceful out there that we could just sit there all day long. But we had other plans too..To reach Visapur, we have to take a long and winding route which takes a minimum of 3 hours. Instead we decided to take another shortcut, which is more adventurous and reduces the time by half. This route starts from the waterfall at the bhaje caves, and joins the traditional route midway. This route is a bit slippery @ places and have to cross around 10 waterfalls, some small some big...But it was real fun... We didn't even knew when we joined the other route, and within 1.5 hours were @ the base of the Lohagad fort.The entire walk was real fun...It wasn't raining continuously, but when it rained it was actually pouring... All along the way, wherever we found any water puddle, or some stream flowing, we made it a point to splash water on unsuspecting Abhilasha...Reminded me of the school days when we used to make our way home splashing the water all around :)..

After the long walk everyone was really hungry and so we decided to take our lunch before we start to make our way up Vispur. Lunch was Pithla and Bhakari and of course kanda bhaji's. The food tasted divine in the cold weather. Some of us went into the kitchen and made ourselves comfortable next to the choola (A clay oven commonly used in villages for cooking). The time just flew by and when we left the villagers house we saw we had spent around one and hour for lunch.

Our next destination was the fort of Visapur. There is not much left of the fort, but the climb to this fort is too good. We need to make our way via the waterfall. Due to heavy rains, there was a lot of water flowing. The thrill of the climb cannot be expressed in words... Its an experience which one should not miss. In an hour we reached on the top. Many of us were completely exhausted by the steep climb, made more difficult because of the resistance from the flow of the water.We reached the top around 4.00 and just roamed around. At times, the wind was such, that the waterfall kept defying gravity and rose up the sky!!!!...The rain droplets kept hitting us hard and at times we felt like we were being pierced by hundreds of tiny pins....

It was getting late, so we decided to head back. One decision had to be taken: Either we take the same route from where we came, or take a route which is much shorter.. but known only to one of the group members, Deep. We took the second option. Advantage of this route was obvious, we could save around 2 hours of walk.. thus reaching Pune by 8.00. While taking the decision I had reminded Deep of our history of loosing the way while on the way back. Still, the idea of reaching home early appealed to us, and we continued further.Initially we came walked down the stairs of the fort.. May be around 50 stairs down, we came came across a cave and a temple of Hanuman. From there, there are no steps, and again, we had to make our way down through a waterfall. The descent was a bit slow, because of the heavy rains there was a lot of water flowing down the waterfall. It may have been about half an hour, when Shalini, the only first timer on the trek, complained of pain in legs and her inability to continue further. This was something unexpected and we tried to convince her to try it after taking a break. Also gave her some pain killers as she also complained of a backache. From then on, our speed was reduced further, waiting many times to rest.

It was getting dark, so we decided to support her and speed up our descent. It was around 6.00 and we hadn't even covered 1/4 of the route. This time, no one had torches along, and this thought spent shivers down my spine.Continuing our descent, an hour later, Deep confirmed, what I had feared...We had lost our way yet again. By then, we were only midway and the natural light had faded to almost negligible. Pitch darkness was about half an hour away. Down below we could see the lights in the village, and that was the only thing gave us some hope...Trying to make our way down, Deep had a fall on his already injured shoulder, so then I took over the lead to find out the way...Don't know how, but after 2 hours of walking in mud, crawling under cactuses and sliding ourselves over slippery rocks, we made it to the base village at around 9.00. A villager came to ask us why we were so late, and how we could find the way in the darkness. All I could do was smile...Frankly speaking, I donot have the answer. It was a bit of commonsense, a bit of luck, and the team spirit to overcome hurdles that had helped us in making our way back...

A walk of around 15 minutes took us back to the Malavali station, got the train @ 10.00 and reached Pune back @ 11.15 approx. Thus ended yet another adventurous trek..To tell the truth, Deep and myself were also afraid when we lost the way...but we knew one thing... we had to keep moving...Following the water flow once again, had saved our day. Don't know if Shalini would join us for another trek again, though she says she will... About the others.....I am sure they will..as they are pretty experienced with what one expect on a trek..specially with us :)...

Katraj-Sighgad Trek - Sometimes things just don't work out the way we want them...

2005-06-20T21:26:00.000+05:30

This Saturday we had planned to do the Katraj Sighgad trek. I had heard a lot about the
trek, specially from Mihir. I was all excited about it for two reasons, one it was to be a
real tough trek, and two the response was truly amazing. There were 18 people who had turned
out for the trek.

We got the 9.50 PM PMT bus, which dropped us @ the other end of the Katraj tunnel.Here we waited from some other guys who had missed the bus. They came only by 11.00 and we started the trek around 11.15 after a round of introductions. The route was fantastic and so was the weather. Once we had climbed on top of the Katraj tunnel, we could see the Pune city and it was a view not to be missed. Just down below we could see Katraj ghat and see the
vehicles making their way through the ghat.The weather was really pleasant, a cold wind
blowing and we could see the top of the mountain we had to climb was covered by clouds. It
took us an hour to climb and be in the clouds. The climb was very tedious and we decided to
rest a bit to catch our breadth.10 minutes of rest and we decided to continue.

This is when one of us complained of breathlessness. He told he would not be in a
position to continue and wanted to go back. This came in as a major shock for most of us...
But I was sure that something of this sort was bound to happen. This is because I had seen
the guy climbing and he was really exhausted and was stopping after every 5 steps and his breathing was really heavy.We had just covered about 2 kms and had around 12 kms (minimum if we didn't loose the way) to go, and there was no way we could take a risk of making this guy
walk all the way.

In the end it was decided that, four of us would return back, while rest of the group
would continue with the trek. Soon we parted, and we decided to rest more before we made our
way back to Pune. We were still in the clouds, and with the other group gone, it was all
quite and peaceful. We sat and chatted from about half an hour before we decided to make our
way back. We started our descent and within half an hour reached a mud trek which would take
us to the place from where we started the trek. This is when we decided to take another
break. We stopped at a place from where, just down below we could see the ghat and the
vehicles. Now started a talk on ghosts and all the spooky stories. Well u can only imagine
my plight. There I was sitting in the middle on nowhere in the dead of night and listening
to one spooky story after the other being dished out by these crazy friends. Much to my
delight and relief the stories came to an abrupt end after an hour when they finally
listened to my pleas of continuing with the last leg of our "trek".

In 15 minutes we reached the temple, which marks the beginning of the trek. Sat there for sometime, took a few snaps and then went @ the end of the tunnel from where we had started
our trek. It was about 4 in the night and the chances of getting any bus, or an auto were
bleak if we reached Pune by 4.30 or so.. And if we did find an auto we would have to pay exhobarant amount to reach our homes. So we rested for some more time and finally called
it quits @ 5.00.

But as luck would have it god had other plans for us.We could see that there was a
major traffic jam right @ the entrance of the tunnel. There was no point waiting for the
traffic to clear and hence we started our walk down the Katraj ghat. The reason for the jam
was a trailer carrying some oversized material had got stuck at the entrance because of the traffic from the other side. Vehicles had piled up on either sides and clearing the traffic
would have taken 2-3 hrs by our estimates. While walking through the ghat, we saw that the
line of vehicles was about 4-5 kms long.

Every 10 steps ahead, we were being asked questions in either Hindi or Marathi "What had happened?? Was it an accident?? Had there been a breakdown???". And we were replying to all the queries with the same answer all the time. We only came to know how much we were repeating when Ram, a person who didn't knew a word of Marathi,started replying to the query in Marathi :).

Once at the end of the ghat, we saw that vehicles has started plying slowly and occasionally some vehicles could be seen going towards Pune. We made umpteen attempts to stop these vehicles, but not one stopped. We kept walking and walking till we were very near
the Katraj PMT bus depot, and then we got lucky in stopping a tempo. In 5 minutes, it
dropped me by the Bharati Vidyapeeth's gate and the rest proceeded to Swargate.

The trek was a mixed bag this time.. I was very disappointed to return back, but in the
end the fun we had just seemed to override that disappointment. Anyways, I am sure, next
time it would be a different story.. "
Hum honge Kamayab...
Hum honge Kamayab...
Hum honge Kamayab ek din"

Kashid Trip - Bikes, Beaches n Bon Apetite

2005-06-05T21:28:00.000+05:30

This is a trip we were planning for a long time. The first time i had floated the idea was about 6 months back. But only now, did it materialize. We were 10 of us.

Started around 7.00 an hour late.. Looks like starting late is becoming a rule more than an exception. While going we had decided to take the scenic Mulshi, Thamini, kolhad road instead of the lonavala pen route. The distance by this route is about 30 kms more than the other, but the drive is truly fantastic. Good roads, hardly any traffic, and greenery around thanks to the Mulshi dam. The weather was kind on us too. With overcast conditions, the sun was playing hide n seek behind the clouds. Many of us were taking this route for the first time and were really amazed by seeing such a beautiful road so near to Pune.

It was about 11 that we reached Kolhad, the place where this alternate route touches the Bombay goa highway. From there we got the first bad news that the route from that place to Alibaug was in a read bad shape, and we were told to take another route. This meant taking a detour of about 30 kms. Hence we had to take a route from IPCL near Rasayani. No
big deal... everyone was fresh, we were taking regular halts, sometimes for snacks, sometimes to pee, and many times, coz of me... Actually Piyush n me were the only 2 guys with 100 CC bikes :(.. So many times the other guys would just zoom past and then they would have to wait for us to catch up with them.. So kind of them :)

It was about 12.00 that we reached Alibaug. Then I got another shock, when we came to know that Kashid was 35 kms from Alibaug. From what I had read on the net, Kashid was about 15 kms..or was it that I had goofed up Kashid and Kihim ??? Well god only knows.It would be better if I don't answer that question. Anyways we decided to go to Kashid.Kashid is a beautiful beach, about 35 kms from Alibaug. Its a beach with white sand, lined with casuarina trees,just a perfect destination to relax. We spent some time on the beach and then decided to look for a place where we could stay put for a day.

About 1 km from the beach we found our "holiday home". Well in places like Kashid, these holiday homes are managed by locals, and the facilities provided are very basic. We booked 2 rooms after a bit of bargaining, dumped our stuff in the room, and ordered food. Everyone was really hungry and we expected that we would get the food within half an hour. But much to our dismay, even after an hour their was no sign of the food. It was after a grueling wait of about 2 and half hours did we get it. We really relished the food, but the speed with which the "bhakaris" were being served was always greater than the speed with which we were consuming. Deep, Glenn and myself were sitting at a real strategic location, exactly @ the entrance, and thus we did have some advantage @ grabbing them before anyone else ;).

After the lunch, we decided to rest a bit. Around 5.30 we decided to go on the beach. We reached the beach, and I don't know why, but the hammocks looked more inviting than the sea water. So I decided against venturing into the sea and made myself comfortable in one of the hammock. It was really relaxing, the sound of the waves, a little breeze on the face
and I could have spent hours together in the same position.

But after sometime Adi comes and tells us (Deep hadn't gone in the sea either), that he had lost his bike keys to the sea. The only option we now had was to search for a key maker. As it is, Deep and myself were just lazing around and so we decided to go in search of a key maker. We went back to the place where we stayed and enquired if there was a key maker in the village. But alas...there was none and we had to go about 10 kms to another village. Reaching that village ( don't remember the name)..we came to know that there is no key maker there and the only place where we could find one was in Murud.

Murud was about 21 kms from where we were staying, we had already covered 10 kms and we had no other option, so we headed for Murud. The road to Murud was real bumpy, and other than 2 picturesque locations, there is nothing to mention about the drive. But the return journey was altogether a different story. It will be one drive I would remember for ages to come. Deep told me about a really funny incident (sorry but it cant be reproduced here ;)) and we both were laughing like crazy on the entire 21 kms drive, with the key maker in tow.

Adi's bike had been parked on the beach, and by the time we reached it was pitch dark. He didn't have the papers too, and to prevent the trouble from cops, this person opened the lock, switched on the vehicle, and told us to drive @ the place where we were staying, where he would prepare the duplicate keys.

Once back @ our place, the lock maker got busy preparing the key and we got busy having ice creams. Within an hour this episode came to a close with Adi having a duplicate key for his bike. We had decided to have the dinner at some other place. So we decided to check out a few places around where we were staying, but we didn't find any decent option, and hence had to take the dinner @ the same place.Few of us went on the terrace, to watch the thousands of stars in sky, and just chat, while the dinner was being prepared. Glenn sang a few songs and he really sung them well.

After dinner, we had a small walk, barely to the beach and back. By now, everyone was feeling sleepy and so we all decided to call it a day. I might have slept in 2 minutes when I fell in my bed!!!

Sunday morning, everyone woke up around 7.00. We decided to check out by 9.00 so most of the time was spent getting ready, packing up things and settling the bills. Initial plans were to visit the sea fort of Jangira. But looking @ the time in hand we decided otherwise. We wanted to reach Pune in broad daylight, as we didn't want to drive @ nights on the Bombay Pune highway, hence had to drop the idea of visiting Jangira. We left Kashid for Alibaug, and reached Alibaug around 10.30. Abhijeet's friend had recommended a place "Patil's Khanawal" and we thought of checking it out. The place looked really dingy from outside, but anyways decided to check it out, coz it was recommended by someone. And I think we took a right decision. I had the best fish curry of my life, at down to earth prices. I just hogged till there was no space left in my stomach for a morsel more.And I guess that was the case with most of us. Chandan,Ashay and Piyush being pure vegetaranins had food @ some other hotel close by.

After the lunch, we went to the alibaug beach, spent about half an hour @ the beach, and then continued our journey back to Pune. On the way back, we took the route of Alibaug - Pen - Khopoli- Lonavala - Pune. The best part while driving back was driving on the expressway!!!! Well don't be surprised, but there is a portion of the expressway that is shared by all. the stretch is about 8-10 kms long and was a real fun to drive. Reached Pune around 5.00 with lots of sweet memories of yet another amazing trip!!!

Dhak Bahiri - Vertical Limits

2005-05-04T14:57:00.000+05:30

We had been planning to go here for a long long time...Deep had shown me the pics of the place and I fell in love the first time I saw it. Queries on google had confirmed one thing...The trek was to be a difficult one.

There were 19 of us. A lot more than expected. 17 from our office and 2 friends of Deep: Joyel and Sunnet. These 3 had done Dhak 3 times already and knew the route we had to take. We left Pune on Saturday afternoon.Unlike other treks, we had a delayed start this time. A delay of about 1 hour. It was around 7.30 and pitch dark when we reached the base village Jambhuli. We parked our vehicles in a villagers courtyard, had some refreshments and then around 8.00 - 8.30 decided to start the trek.

Initial walk for about half an hour was fine.. nothing much to write about. Everyone was full of enthusiasm and the walk was brisk. In the group of 19 there were around 7 who were coming to a trek for the first time in their life. I thought what a place to choose to begin trekking ;). After an hour or so, we came @ a point in jungle from where it would be impossible to proceed ahead as the jungle was getting dense with every passing meter. Then it struck us that we had lost the way. This time though, I was mentally prepared for it... thanks to the Vasota experience :).

We then decided that 3-4 people would move around the place and try to find the way to the Dhak trail. So Joyel,Suneet,Deep and myself started the hunt for this trail. It didn't took us long though..In about 15 minutes we found the way and then guided others to it. The climb was a bit steep and so we decided to have a small break. From this point all we could see were some lights far away mostly from the jambhuli village. The sky was beautifully lit with hundred's of stars. The moon hadn't made his apperance yet. I could have sat there for hours just staring into the sky, but we still had a long long way to go.

Getting up again, we started our walk. After 10 minutes of walk we came across a real beautiful sight. We were on the edge of a mountain and we could see the entire city of Khopoli, all brightly lit. It was a real sight for the eyes. It was getting late now and we decided not to spend much time over here.

Continuing further, we saw that 2 lights were following us for sometime. We did try to make contact, thinking that it might be some other trekking group on its way to Dhak, but we didn't get any response. There we were far away from any inhabitation being followed by 2 lights @ a distance and not getting any response to our attempts to make contact. Thousands of thoughts crossed my mind...but I kept all the thoughts to myself ;) . Some said that the lights were really far away, but I didn't feel that way. N'ways we decided to double up and continued our trek further.

Next 1-2 hours of walk was again uneventful. We kept walking, without taking rest. The walk was a bit tiring as is was walking up and down mountains. After a lot of walking we now entered a jungle. The jungle was dense, and there was no breeze whatsoever. We were all sweating and panting hard. Deep and his friends had been to Dhak many times and so they knew the place well. The were of the opinion that we were lost again. So again, those guys went ahead to check the path. They came back really fast in few minutes and told that they had heard a lot of rustling of dry leaves. The forest is known to be a home to black panthers and this sound was not a good news. So those guys backtracked again, and went to find the route. We all waited for them for few minutes. And to much of our relief they came back with the good news, that they had found the trail again :).

After this there wasn't much of a problem. There were no bifurcations and hence, there was no chance of loosing the way again. But now the climb had become real steep. This was to be the last climb before we could reach the cave so gathering all the energy, we made our way up the mountain. We reached the top but could not see the caves anywhere. It was now that Suneet told us that to reach the cave we had to pass through a narrow ridge, on whose edge we were sitting. It looked really difficult, and climbing down the ridge @ nite seemed a bad idea. But with the thought of finally reaching the caves and taking some much needed rest, we started our descent. It took us about 45 minutes to climb down the ridge, and even then we couldn't see the caves!!!!. Again we came to know that we still had to walk 10-15 mins to reach the caves.. It would have been ok if the walk was on a straight trail or even uphill. But the last part of the walk was the scariest walk I had ever done. To the left was a deep valley, to the right was a cliff and there was hardly a path 2 feet in width to walk on. The every thought of walking such a path @ nite sent shivers down my spine. Gathering all my courage though I went ahead with rest of the gang.

As luck would have it, we didn't find the caves. So we decided to wait for the dawn to break. Dawn wasn't far away. It was already 2 o'clock. We made ourselves comfortable after finding a decent place which could sit 19 people and decided to have the dinner. We had packed veg biriyani and Pulao from a Dhaba on the way for dinner. But due to heat it had gone bad. So we had to settle with some bread and butter. We had been walking for almost 6 hours and everyone was tired by now. So we just sat there talking and discussing our latest adventure :). At dawn a few people from our group decided to go up to the cave of goddess Bahiri. I started with them too, but backed out in a few steps. I was really scared once I saw the way we had to take.The climb was almost vertical and looked really scary.

It might have been an hour after the group had left, that the temple priest came and asked me if I had been to the temple. When I replied negative, he started talking to me and I don't know what happened, it was like he had hypnotized me and when he asked me if I would climb up the way with him, I actually said yes!!!!But seriously, it took me just 15 minutes to reach the top. Once I was back down, I kept thinking what had happened to me that I said yes.. but I don't have the answer to it even now.. After coming down, we didn't waste much time, just packed our bags and started our trek back to the village.

We completed the walk in about two and half hours. Spent about an hour in the village and then left for Pune.

Day 7 - Time to say good bye!!

2005-04-10T16:18:00.000+05:30

Today we have to catch the train back to Mumbai. We get up a bit early, and pack our bags. Spend time at home, chatting with Mohit and his parents. There is also this India - Pak cricket match going on, but we are just not interested. After lunch, we just do a recheck of our bags and belongings, and its time to say goodbye.

With a heavy heart we bid goodbye to everyone @ home. We spent nearly 7 days in Delhi, and Mohit's home has become like a second home for us. On the way, we meet PJ who is coming to the station to see us off. We reach the station on time, and within half an hour its time to say goodbye. Had a real great time in Delhi. Will sure remember this vacation for a long time to come.

With a heavy heart and tears in my eyes, I finally bid goodbye to Delhi.

Day 6 - PJ's day out !!

2005-04-08T01:04:00.000+05:30

With the wedding over, PJ finally has time @ hand to be with us for the entire day. We woke up really late and aftergetting ready we decided to go to Palika bazaar. Actually 4 DVD's of the 10 I had taken were not working so, I got to get them replaced. We reach Palika around 12 and see that there is a raid in progress. Got to know that raid was to get the pirated copies of the newly release film "Lucky - No time for love". Am truly surprised as the movie is bound to be released today, and the pirated copies are already in market!!! That's really bad. What is worse is, I don't get replacements for my DVD's as the shopkeeper of the shop from where I got the DVD's is unwilling to exchange them in such "dangerous circumstances". I am told to come in the evening.

So we reach a place called Delhi hatt. Met PJ there. Mohit tells that this place we get real good Chicken Momo's and fruit beer. I don't know why fruit beer is called so, but it tasted more like coke or Pepsi with some other additives. The momo's were really good.

It was then decided that we go and meet Nitin at his shop. This is a new shop that they have setup and he is really busy with all the work. So he hasn't been able to meet us much. So all of us head for his shop. The shop is really huge and beautiful. After spending a lot of time chatting with Nitin, we decide to head back to Palika to try my luck with the DVD's. Surprisingly most of the shops are now opened, as if nothing had happened. I do get my DVD's exchanged and also buy some other stuff. This time though we check each and every DVD before paying for it. Tomorrow would be our last day in Delhi, and we still had to buy sweets for family and office friends. We head of to some sweetmeat shop and buy the local delicacies. After dinner, we went to PJ's place, spent some time taking to his parents and then having a TP photo session below his house :). Return back home around 12.00

Day 5 - Wah Taj!!!

2005-04-07T23:43:00.000+05:30

Today's day started really early. Got up @ 5.00. Today Mohit has taken a day off to be with us and visit Agra. We had hired a car to take us to Agra, Fatehpur sikri and back.Both the places are a beauty. Words wont be sufficient to describe the beauty of the two places. Its said that a picture speaks a thousand words, so I would let the photographs do the talking. Check out Delhi album over here http://photos.yahoo.com/parag_dere

The day has been really hectic. Am dead tired, just want to sleep...That's another reason why this post is one of the shortest of all other Delhi posts...One thing is for sure, no one would be getting up early tomorrow morning :)

Day 4 - Wedding day 2

2005-04-06T23:47:00.000+05:30

Today had to get up a bit early. Past 4 days I have been getting up around 9 so 8 is of course early. (Hope Mohit is not reading this). We got ready and left for the wedding. Today all the rituals would be in a south Indian style. N yes, this is the first time I would attend a south wedding too :). But alas, we reached a bit late, when most of the rituals were already over :(. One interesting thing was the lunch. It was served on banana leaves. The lunch was a typical south Indian fare and it tasted really good.

We went home in the afternoon, and had another big round of talks with aunty. I guess we kept talking for about an hour or so. Evenings we decided to go and take a look at the Delhi Metro. We had heard a lot about it, and wanted to see it firsthand. And we were not disappointed. The metro was really clean, looked really cool, and was really comfortable to travel in. We kept traveling in the metro for about 2 hours, going from one end to the other and back n forth :).

Back home, Mohit suggested that we should go to the "The Great Kabab Factory" for the dinner. Man... what a name for a kabab outlet.. That's what I had thought when I first heard about the name. But believe me guys, the place is awesome. It serves unlimited kababs. And the taste is just fantastic. I think I may be out of of all the adjectives to describe food in the next few days...so please forgive the repetition..:). Kabab's were followed by biriyani and then followed by sweets. This is the first time I had hot gulabjamoons and they tasted awesome. Though there was no space left in my tummy, I just couldn't say no to the second helping. Out of the "factory" we just strolled around for sometime before leaving for our home :)

Day 3 - Wedding day 1

2005-04-06T02:33:00.000+05:30

It's PJ's sisters wedding today. Well we woke up around 11 today :)... I seriously feel bad for Mohit. This dude is spending late nights with us, he also has to get up early @ 6.00 and leave for office by 6.30. I guess he is just sleeping for 4-5 hrs a day.. Poor soul.. The wedding was in the night, so we decided to go around the connaught place and just roam around. Before leaving we had decided come what may, we would not enter the Palika bazaar. As per plans, we were to go to Palika bazaar on Friday. We reached connaught place and saw Palika bazaar in front of us... Now we couldn't stop ourselves from going in, so we decided that we would just go around the place and have a look but not buy anything :). That was what was decided... but I ended up buying DVD's of all the seasons of Friends :). Ruzan stuck to the promise more than what I did.. He just bought 1 game :).. Roamed quite a lot, had lunch in Delhi Darbar. Well let me tell you, Delhi is blessed by good restaurants. The food is simply delicious. Delhi is actually a treat for food freaks like me. Whatever you have, you are bound to get the best.

Mohit came back a bit early, and we started getting ready to go for the wedding. We called up PJ and asked him as to when would the wedding start. As per Mohit, thought the time is mentioned on the invitation cards, North India weddings never start on time. He says he hasn't attended any wedding which had started before 9.00. It was just 7.00 and I felt were pretty comfortably placed. But I received a shock of my life, when PJ told that the rituals had already started. We lived about 1 hours drive from the wedding hall, and I really felt bad about all this..This was one of the reasons for coming to Delhi, and we had missed out on it... :( All of us really felt bad and decided to just rush to the marriage hall. We reached the place in around 30 minutes, and were really surprised that the rituals hadn't started till then... PJ had pulled a big-time bluff on all of us!!!!

This was the first north Indian wedding I was attending, and I had a great time. We left form the wedding hall around 11.00 and Mohit decided to take us on a drive to Noida. We took the expressway from Delhi to Noida which did remind me of the Pune Mumbai Expressway. In Noida, had a look @ this huge mall (don't remember its name though). It's the biggest mall I have ever seen. After some time we headed back to Delhi and thus ended yet another fulfilled day!!!

Day 2 - Went Sightseeing...

2005-04-04T23:58:00.000+05:30

It's day two. It was decided that today,we would go sightseeing around Delhi. Mohit's dad suggested the best way of sightseeing is to catch a bus of Delhi Tourism or any of the innumerable private operators. Mohit had made the enquiries last night, and gave us the directions to reach the place form where we can catch the bus. We reach the place @ 9.00 sharp, only to know that many of the buses don't run of Monday. Now that is really weird. Mohit had called up and confirmed if there would be a bus today to which he had an affirmative reply. But the operator gave us an option to hire an indica which would cover about 80kms and take us around the city. It sounded like a good option and we jumped in. We saw a lot of places in and around Delhi. Jama Masjid, Red fort ( We couldn't go in as it's closed on Mondays), RajGhat, Lotus Temple (We couldn't go in here too,Monday closed),Qutub Minar, Humayu's tomb, India gate, North and south blocks, parliament, Rashtrapati bhavan,AIIMS, and the Birla temple. The most I liked was the Humayu's tomb. It's a real beauty. Really well maintained, we spent about 45 minutes admiring the beauty of the structure. We had our lunch @ a restaurant called "Pindi". Needless to say, the food was just fantastic...We came back home around 4.00 and had a long chat with aunty. The highlight of the day was, the dinner which we had at home. Aunty had made some delicious food. The paneer was really mind blowing. I overate yet again :), while aunty thought that I was being shy and not having a full meal!!! After the dinner,we went to India gate again. At night it was all a different sight. Many people had come there to take a stroll around. We walked around the place for sometime, has some delicious ice-cream and then came back home late @ nite.

Delhi - Day 1

2005-04-04T02:08:00.000+05:30

We reached Delhi today morning 10.15. Mohit n PJ were on the station to receive us.
About Mohit....he has reduced a lot from what I had seen him 2 months back. And about PJ...
well no change whatsoever. We met nearly after two years, but didn't notice any difference
at all.
It was then decided, that we would visit Gurgaon and then go to Mohit's place in
evening. So we just dumped the bags in his car, and off we went to a long drive to gurgaon.
I am pretty much impressed by the road's in Delhi. The roads are really broad, have
ornamental plants planted along the dividers, and many roads are lined with trees. Pretty
unlike the roads in Pune. N yes... very few potholes :)...
Gurgaon was like a city of malls. There are malls coming up in every nook and corner of
Gurgaon. We checked out the Metropolitan. It's one of the biggest malls in Gurgaon. It was
mid afternoon yet the mall was crowded. The most crowded floor was the floor which had the
food mall :).
Instead of having food in the food mall, we decided to have something which would give
us the real taste of Delhi, and Mohit suggested that we go to Haldiram's restaurant. And we
just hogged, hogged and hogged more. We had RajKachori, Chole Bhature, Tandoori Platter and what not...Not to forget the kulfi and other sweets...I just kept thinking if this is the kind of food we would be having in Delhi, I would actually gain 4-5 kgs in a week!!!
Evening around 4 we decided to head back home, so we dropped PJ to his place on the way back and then reached Mohit's place. Met his parents, freshened up and took some rest.
At night, we were to meet Nitin. He had brought some Badam milk along. I don't drink
milk, but still decided to taste it and it tasted divine...And this was just the beginning.He took us to an awesome place in Rajouri gardens where I had the best Tandoori I had ever eaten. After having many of these gastronomical delights, Nitin dropped us back home, we spent some time chatting and then decided to call it a day.
I think this is a day when I may have hogged the most in my life :).. And had perhaps eaten the most tasty food ever!!!!

Rajdhani- A journey worth mentioning.

2005-04-03T21:43:00.000+05:30

We (Ruz n I) had decided to take the Rajdhani for going to Delhi. This was to be my second long journey by train (earlier I had been to Tirupati). My earlier experience was not something I would have liked to repeat and thus was a bit skeptical about the journey though I never mentioned it to Ruz. But this journey changed my impression about the railways.
The train we were to travel in was colored in bright red and yellow, had huge tinted glass windows, clean carpets, good upholstery and was more clean than what I would have ever thought of. The train departure from Mumbai and its arrival @ Delhi was as scheduled. And I have heard that Rajdhani rarely runs behind schedule. This is an achievement in itself,
considering the train covers a distance of about 1200 kms crisscrossing 7 states before finally reaching Delhi.
It seems they take care of all your needs in the Rajdhani. As soon as we left Mumbai, we were given bottled water,news papers and other stuff like a hand towel (which was spotlessly clean), tissue papers, soap strips and such other items which would be needed during the travel.
The journey was really comfortable. The compartment was nearly soundproof, and we hardly felt like we were traveling in a train. Mohit and PJ had told us that the best thing in Rajdhani is the food that is served... n yes they were not lying. From the time when the train departed from Mumbai to the time the train arrived in Delhi, we were served lots of stuff and there was no room left for complaint. I was really amazed by the quality of service in the train too.. I donot drink tea or Coffey, so the train attendant actually offered me soft drinks...I was really zapped by such hospitality by the train attendants. Now this is the last thing I would have expected from an government enterprise :)
All in all, a good journey which did change my opinion about Indian Railways.

Finally the leave is sanctioned!!!

2005-04-01T09:28:00.000+05:30

Hurray!!!!!
Finally my leave has been sanctioned....Just praying that by 6.00 we dont get any critical issues to handle...so that i may leave @ 6.00 sharp. Lots of things to do...still got to pack my bag, got to do some shopping...n yeh the most important, collect the train ticktes from the agent :)...

Ab Delhi dur nahi....

2005-03-29T10:55:00.000+05:30

Yeh... this weekend Ruzan and I would be on our way to Delhi. The occasion :PJ's sisters
wedding. We plan to leave on 2'nd April (Saturday) afternoon and be back on 10'th April (Sunday). So it gives us cool 7 days to be in Delhi. Am really excited about the trip..It would be great meeting PJ, Mohit and Nitin after a long long time :)....

Hopefully i should get the week off.

Vasota Trek - Part 2

2005-02-21T08:02:00.000+05:30

It was around 3.00 that we decided that we should head back to the pick up point where a boat would be waiting for us. So soon we started our descent. Thanks to gravity, climbing down was not much of an effort and very soon everyone was literally running their way down to the pick up point. And this was the biggest mistake we made. Don't know when, but we soon realized that we were lost in the dense jungle of Vasota. Soon we started looking around to see if we could see our way. We kept roaming around for half an hour, but in vain. While we were roaming, we came across a point from where we could see a dry waterfall. And suddenly someone saw a bear making its way down it. It gave us an idea that we could trace the same route and reach the pickup point.

Now we had two options, either we trek back to the fort and follow the route we used to come up, or we could make our own route through the waterfall. By now it was 4.00 and we just had an hour left for the boat to arrive. So it was decided that we would make our way and we headed for the waterfall. The climb down from the waterfall of around 30 feet was a bit tricky but finally everyone was at the base of the waterfall. From here we would have to again enter the dense forest and we had no route to follow. The only pointer we had was the moon which had risen an hour back. Instead of doing such a thing we decided to follow the waterfall, which we were sure would join the dam backwaters somewhere. Every few feet we could see the bear droppings. The thought of us going through a bear infested jungle suddenly sent a shiver down my spine. But I knew this was the only option we had. The sun was setting down and within an hour we would be in this dangerous jungle with no idea of what we could do or where we could go. We were walking continuously for about one and half an hour without a break.

Soon we came to the plains and what looked like a dry river bed. We continued walking through this river bed, and after some time we saw the first signs of human venturing that far. We saw the polythene bag of Maggi noodles and also saw a place where food had been cooked. Soon everyone's spirits rose, and with added enthusiasm we doubled our pace. Further ahead
we came across a temple which we had crossed when we were trekking our way up!!! Now we were very sure that we were finally on the right track. We knew that the place where the boat would be waiting for us, was around half an hour from this temple. Finally We reached the pickup point at around 5.30. and soon were on our way back to the Bamnoli village. Back in the
Bamnoli village, we had tea, and got into our vehicle for our drive back home.

Vasota Trek - Part 1

2005-02-20T21:42:00.000+05:30

This trek is one which I would remember for years to come.

Vasota is medieval fort surrounded by water on three sides. This makes it almost inaccessible. Vasota comprises of 3 main forts Juna Vasota (old fort), navin Vasota (new fort) and Nageshwar.Old Vasota is nearly inaccessible due to a thick forest infested with wild animals, mostly bears.

As decided, we started from Pune around 2.30 at night. The reason for leaving at such an odd hour was taken due to the fact that we had to reach a village called Bamnoli as early as possible and get the necessary permission from the forest department. The area around Vasota is a protected forest and one cannot enter it without the forest departments clearance.
The road upto Satara is in a good shape. To reach bamnoli village, we have to take a road which passes via the Kas lake. This road is really narrow and of the 35 kms approximately 21 kms is a ghat with lots of twists and turns. We reached Bamnoli around 7.00. We had lots of time at hand as the forest department's office opens at 8.00 in the morning. To while away our time we took a stroll along the banks of the Shivsagar lake.This lake is formed due to the mighty
koyana dam. At around 8.00 we went to the forest dept's office. Getting the necessary permission needed filling many forms and paying the necessary charges. A typical government office it was ;). It took us approximately 45 mins to complete the formalities and get the permission. Another thing we needed to do was book a ferry which would take us from the bamnoli village to the base of vasota fort.

Around 9.00 we sat in the boat and were on our way to Vasota. The boat takes around hour and half to reach the base. All the way along we saw many scenic spots which would be any photographers delight. Finally around 10.30 we reached the base of the Vasota fort.From the place where we got down we could see the majestic Vasota fort and Nageshwar. After getting a few directions from the boatman we finally started our trek.

After around 20 minutes of walking we entered the dense jungle of Vasota. The climb of Vasota fort is steep and definitely tiring. But due the dense jungle, we atleast were saved of the scorching heat. It took us around 3 hours to reach the top. The view from the top is just magnificent. On one side we could see the vast expanse of the Shivsagar lake and on
the other side was Konkan. We could also see the wind farm of Suzlon from the top of the fort. We spent around half an hour looking around the fort.While looking around, Deep met with a small accident. He hit his head against a stone, and in few seconds his face and hand was filled with blood. This is the first time in my treks that I had to open the first aid kit. Well thankfully the blood flow stopped in sometime and Deep was back to his normal jovial mood. By now everyone was really hungry. Lunch was, rotis, egg burji and Mutton Kheema, which we had got packed from a hotel @ 4.00 in the morning. The food really tasted divine. After this quick lunch, we decided to take small power nap, and in no time most of us were in deep sleep.

Matheran : Day 2

2005-01-19T16:49:00.000+05:30

I got up @ 5.30, but saw it was pitch dark outside. Thought it wont make any sense of waking everyone up, so just kept waiting for the dawn to break. Don't know when I fell asleep, but when I woke up it was around 7.00 and I could see the tree tops already basking in the morning sun. We had missed the sunrise :(.
Soon everyone woke up and after having a breakfast, we went for sight seeing and horse riding. With the amount of time we had @ hand it was not possible for us to see all the points, so we decided to see only a few of them riding on the horses. The first few minutes on the horse were tough...especially maintaining the balance ;)...But soon we got used to it. After 1 and half hours on horse and 4-5 points we say we were back to Rugby.
Soon after we checked out and came to the Railway station. We didn't want to miss the train journey this time. At around 1, the train started its journey downhill. The distance is just around 14 kms but it takes around 2 hours to cover the distance. Some may say its a waste of time, but the breathtaking views which one gets while traveling in the train are too good to be missed. Many people trek this route during monsoons and I can imagine what fun it would be trekking on such a route. Ruz has promised that this monsoons Matheran would be one of the "must go" treks. Lets see though ;). We reached Neral around 3.00 and then went to Karjat. Here we bid goodbye to Ankur. Ankur would be leaving back to the US in two days and we don't know when we would meet again.On the way back to Pune we got the Sighgad express and reached Pune @ 6.30.

Matheran : Day 1

2005-01-18T22:04:00.000+05:30

We were to travel by the Sighgad express up to Karjat and the catch a local to go to Neral. Sighgad leaves @ 6.00 in morning and we had decided to meet near the booking office @ 5.30 sharp. As I had expected, Ruzan n Mohit were nowhere to be seen. Ruz came 15 mins late :) (as ever ;)). This time though even Avi was late. He came just 5 mins before the train left. Getting seats in this train is always a fight, a fight we won this time ;). We were to meet Ankur @ Neral and then had plans to catch the toy train to Matheran. We would have reached Neral @ exactly 8.30 and could have got on the Matheran toy train.It was a touch and go situation, but I am sure we could have made it. But thanks to the great Indian railways...our train was late by almost 45 mins and so the plans of going by the toy train went for a toss. We reached Neral @ 9.30 and Ankur was already there, waiting for us for about 1 hr or may be more.The next train was in around 2 hours time so we took a decision of taking a cab.
The cab was an old Premier Padmani..I might have sat in a padmini after nearly 10 years:). In just 20 odd mins we left Neral far behind and reach the Dasturi point. Vehicles are not allowed inside Matheran so we have to alight here and have an option of either walking or taking a horse. We decided on the former. Soon we were swamped by agents of various hotels, all of them trying hard to attract us to their respective hotels. We left Ankur to tackle them, and after around 1 hr of walking reached @ the Hotel Rugby. We all really liked this hotel a lot and decided to make it our home for the next 36 hours :). The hotel is a real beauty and has a charm of its own. I would recommend it to anyone going to Matheran.
After freshening up we had our lunch and decided to take a power nap after which we had plans to go sight seeing. When we got up...we saw the watch and realized we had slept for around 3 hours..:)...It was 5.30 in evening. After a quick tea we made a dash to the sunset point (I think the name of the point is Porcupine point). We reached the place on time... in around 15 mins we saw a real beautiful sunset. After watching the sunset we went back to the hotel, got our jackets (yes it was getting really cold) and went to the main market of Matheran. There we found this place called "Hooka's n Tikka's". This is another place I would recommend to anyone. Try the
double flavored apple hooka. We sat there for about an hour or may be more, talking and listening to some great music being played. We went back to the hotel and had a dinner.
Then we sat outside our cottage talking.Talking about our past, the present and the future. Normally when we talk so late into the night the discussions generally end up with some spooky stories. But to my surprise and much to my relief this time no one talked about it.
Around 1.00 @ nite we decided to sleep and get up early the next morning so that we may go sightseeing. Avi and Ankur slept the moment they fell in their beds while Ruz, Mohit n me kept joking and laughing for a while. Suddenly Ruz n Mohit took out the snow spray cans and in a moment they were used on the poor sleeping souls ;). After a bit of fun, we all retired into our beds with a decision to get up @ 6.00 in the morning the next day.

Promises kept.... Promises fulfilled.....

2005-01-14T18:48:00.000+05:30

It was year and half before on the beaches of Goa we had decided that we will meet again. And yes....true to our word we all will be meeting again.Though this time the place would be different.This time it's Matheran. The next post would definitely be of my Matheran trip. :)

Ankur in Pune

2004-12-20T20:28:00.000+05:30

The last 2 days were real bliss.

Ankur had come to Pune to spend the weekend with us. We all had a great time. It felt only like
y'day that Ankur had left the shores to pursue further education. There were lots of things to talk about and we didn't even realize when the weekend was actually over :(.

We kept talking of our days in college, the fun we had during our Engineering days, the tension during PL's, the frustration of the assignments and submissions, the fun we had @ the picnics, the pranks we played on each other, the long nights spent discussing and preparing for the orals, the many funny incidents and ofcourse about the amazing professors we had :)

The 2 days were like a flashback into our engineering days.:). Monday we were back to office and Ankur back to Bombay. But very soon Mohit would be coming to Pune and then we have plans of going to Matehran for 2 days. It will be the first get together after the Goa trip and everyone is really looking forward to it.

PJ sure everyone would miss you @ Matheran.

My Bro's Wedding!!!!

2004-11-27T14:57:00.000+05:30

I know this may come as a surprise to many of you but now its official.. My bro got married on 21'st November.And yes, the marriage was full of thrills and spills. It's a story of a typical bollywood flick :).Boy meets girl, love blossoms, they get married without the girls parents knowing anything about it, the information leaks, girl run's away with the boy, enter the villains (Girl's Uncle's) who are against the marriage, in come the police, things begin to settle down.... Well that's how I can summarize the chain of events over the week.

It was a tough time for everyone. Many of our relatives came down to Pune last Thursday hearing the news, and we have spent the entire week together with numerous trips to Lonavala, Bombay and not to forget the innumerable visits to the police station. So many incidents took place in the week that if I keep writing it may end up becoming a big fat novel ;)...

But all is well that ends well.. and it seems like this episode may come to a happy end very soon. One suggestion I would definitely like to give to my bro and bhabhi is staring consultancy services for run away marriages.. Am sure it would be a great business opportunity...And with the first hand experience that they have got...I am sure that the business would bloom :)

Life @ 100 KMPH

2004-11-08T09:29:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night a few of my friends met and we went to Banjara Hills for dinner. It's been real long time since I last met them (6 months or may be more). Time just passed by with talks about our college days and it was around 1 that we decided we better head for our homes.

The fastest way I can reach my place is using the Bombay Pune Katraj bypass. The road is really great with no potholes and the vehicular traffic is very less during the night. Slowly and surely I started to speed...40..50...60....All of sudden my bike started to wobble and it was then I noticed I had touched 100. This time I wasn't on my Shogun but on my dad's Splendor. Splendor is a good bike..but its good for city driving..driving at around 50 -60 KMPH. The decision to go to Banjara was taken impromptu so this time I hadn't taken my car nor was I wearing a helmet which I always do. Those 2 - 3 seconds were one of the scariest moments in my life. My mind went absolutely blank.It was all over in 3 seconds. I gradually reduced the speed and the bike was very much in my control again. I think I was just saved from what could have been a real bad crash..

It's said man learns through his mistakes. And yes I learnt an important lesson. I remember Avi always tells me to drive a bit more slowly. And I always reply by saying that I am very much in control of the bike at all the times and that he shouldn't worry. Now I know why he tells me to drive slowly. Life doesn't come cheap to be wasted in such a way......

Its another working Saturday for me. :(

2004-11-06T13:27:00.000+05:30

Last weekend had to miss yet another trek cause of work. And those guys had a ball of a time. Shouldn't actually be cribbing about these things. Should get used to this by now..But still... its human nature...just cant help it ;)

This weekend too have got some work. The patch has been delivered and the onsite guys found out some bug at the last moment. Cant blame them for finding the bug at the 11'th hour too..But the thing is we got a UAT on Monday and the bug needs to be fixed before that. The bug has already been fixed and are awaiting confirmation from the onsite team. The wait has turned out to be a long one. We came in the office at 9 AM expecting a lot of time to be spent on the bug resolution. But it turned out to be a real simple one and we have got lots of time at hands as because of a time difference of about 3 n half hours between onsite (South Africa) and offshore. Killing the time by listening to music ( Thanks to my new team mate for getting all the latest songs today), chatting with other friends (Yes many have turned up to work today),reading news,etc..etc...

I personally feel that chat is the best thing that man came up after the telephone.Sitting here I am talking to one friend in Delhi, another one in Hyderabad and yet another in the US. Its nearly instantaneous, is really inexpensive, and it gives a great relief to see others online especially when you are working on weekends. It just gives you a feeling that you are not alone in this world. :) (Today there are more friends online than people who have come to the office).

Korigad

2004-10-16T18:08:00.000+05:30

Last SundayI got an opportunity to go on a trek. Finally I got a weekend off after 3 weeks :). We were around 17 of us and had been to Korigad. This is a small fort approximately 20 kms from Lonavala and good for a small trek. I wouldn't even say it was a trek...it was more of an outing. Climbing korigad would be as simple as climbing the Parvati temple just double the number of steps.. :)..
The climb is not at all tiring as the entire path is covered by huge trees. On the top there are 2 lakes, a temple of the local deity "KoraiDevi" and another temple of god Shankar. There was a cool breeze blowing for most of the time and the sun busy playing hide n seek behind the clouds. The entire area looked lush green thanks to the monsoons. It took us over an hour to see the entire fort.
The fort gives a magnificent view of the beautiful Sahara city. We might have spent over 3 hours on the fort. Also had plans for visiting the bhushi dam but as we neared the dam no one felt like really going there..so back we came to Pune after a small but memorable outing.

Finally some updates!!!

2004-10-06T11:31:00.000+05:30

Its been 2 months since my last post. Just had a look and saw my last post was " I joined a Gym". Many things have changed after that.

Firstly I left the gym within a month of joining. Lots of reasons..right from boredom to time unavailability. Take your pick.

Other than that...work is really taking a heavy toll of my health. Past 3 weeks I have been sleeping just for over four hours spending rest of the time in my 6 ft by 6 ft cubicle.Meeting friends,Family,Weekends,lunch,dinner,movies,treks,everything has actually gone for a toss. And the results are visible on my health. Feeling tired all day long, feverish, cold and cough to accompany all this. Anyways hope things would be fine by this weekend. Such a hectic schedule has more to do with incorrect estimations of the new release more than our teams ability. Delivery had to be done according to the initial estimates so that meant working more n more n more. UAT is scheduled for today and if things go right I can expect a peaceful weekend at home taking rest and getting ready for the next release :).Just pray things work out fine.....

I joined a gym!!!!

2004-08-11T12:55:00.000+05:30

After months of pondering on whether or not to join a gym I finally made up my mind to join one. Its not that I want all those muscles n stuff..All I want is to remain fit. Just imagine sitting in the office for at least 9 hrs a day and no exercise at all.. If this thing continues for a few years I would very soon have a huge pot belly...I was really scared even visualizing myself like that..
Another reason was around 5 friends from office too have joined the same gym. Well I am a real lazy bum... U know I wont go to the gym all alone...but with so many people going I am sure some one will always motivate me to come along... ;)
Yet another reason is the place is really close to my office. So when at times I need to sit up late in office.. I don't have to miss the gym...
y'day was just the second day and the instructor said "No gains without pains"...:D..
He has already warned me that my body will ache a lot for first 10-15 days... n yes he didn't lie on this one... My body really aches...but its ok.. I have decided that I will be a regular to the gym...
It really seems to be too early to say it but yes I am really enjoying working out ;)

Trip to Malshej Ghat

2004-08-01T19:14:00.000+05:30

On Friday a few friends in office decided that we had to go somewhere this weekend.With the revival of monsoons, no one wanted to spend yet another weekend sitting at homes :). It was decided that we would go to the Malshej Ghat. Its about 160 Kms from Pune and its def one of the must visit places in monsoons.
All things fell into place and we were on our way to the Malshej ghat early morning on Saturday (On weekend's 6.00 def is very early :)). Leaving the city behind, we were in an entirely different world. Pretty decent roads (Except for a few bad patches), lush green fields, the cloud kissed mountains, occasional heavy showers...sure a perfect setting for a Saturday trip. Might have reached the Ghat in around 3 hrs.
The ghat was a real beauty. Covered entirely in the clouds, innumerable waterfalls, the trees swaying in the cool breeze, It looked like a green carpet had been spread over the entire mountains. We stopped at many places, sometimes to take a quick dip in the cool water, sometimes just to have a look at the beauty of the fall and sometimes just to enjoy the tranquility of the place.
The best of all the places in the Ghat is the windpoint. It's just at the start of the Ghat and the view from that point is absolutely breathtaking. Standing there we get a real good view of the ghat and the waterfalls. We weren't that
lucky. We were able to see this view only for a few minutes. Soon the entire valley was filled with clouds and the visibility was reduced to about 50 meters..It started raining when we were at the windpoint..The wind was blowing so fast that at one point of time we actually had to squat down to save ourselves from getting blown away by the wind...n yes..don't think I am joking
here. The rain drops were too coming down with such intensity that we felt like we were being pierced by hundreds of needles at the same time. Thankfully this all lasted only for a minute. After that the winds reduced and so did the rains. We kept talking our walks at the windpoint for quite sometime and then finally decided to head back to Pune.
On the way back, most of the time it was raining really heavily outside and so we didn't stop anywhere. We reached Pune by 7.00 and that was the end to yet another memorable monsoon trip.

P.S.:The pics of the trip have been uploaded at http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/parag_dere

A trek to Lohagad & Visapur.

2004-07-11T19:10:00.000+05:30

As planned, the three musketeers, Avinash Chandan n Parag (that's me ;)), left for their first trek of the season to Lohagad and Visapur.
We met at the Pune station at 6.15 AM as planned. Avi had reached the station at 6.00 itself. After having some snacks got into the local and left the Pune station at 6.30 sharp. It took us a little more than an hour to reach the Malavali station. That's the station just before Lonavala station. We got down, took the directions from a few locals and left for the Bhaje caves..our first destination.

Bhaje Caves
Just about 100 meters from the station we came across the Bhaje village expressway overpass. We waited for sometime having a look at the expressway and then continued further. The walk to the Bhaje village was around 3 kms. This village is at the base of the Bhaje caves. There were proper stairs to go up to the caves but it was a very steep climb. Anyway the caves were splendid. A beautiful piece of Buddhist architecture. It houses a stupa and has living quarters for monks. The entire caves are in well maintained state are really worth a visit. Avi did capture the beauty of the caves on his handycam..n I hope I would get to see it real soon ;).

On way to Lohagad village
After spending some time in caves..we decided to leave for our next destination.. The village of Lohagad. This village is situated at the base of the fort we had planned to visit. On the way to the village we came across many small rivulets,lush green fields, we could hear the birds chirping, occasionally could see the cows feasting on the green grass which was aplenty (Green grass after the summers is sure a feast for the cows :)) . There were occasional showers and a cool breeze blowing. Overall a prefect time for a trek .The route was a mud track...walking was not a problem...but if we think of vehicles..fit for tractors n the like ;). All along the way we could see the mighty Visapur on our left and Lohagad on the right.
Finally we reached the Lohagad village.Here we stopped for having some hot tea n onion Bhaji's.....ohh....how tasty the bahji's were..We decided to visit the fort Visapur first. It did turn out to be a wise decision in the end. Kept our bagpacks at the place where we had the snacks and went ahead to conquer the visapur fort.

Vispur Fort
The visapur fort looks real formidable. There is no proper way to reach the top. We had to follow a waterfall upstream to actually reach the top. Reaching the waterfall itself was an adventure. We had to pass through a thick jungle with a small way where we walked in a single stream. In about 10 minutes we reached the waterfall...not much of water was flowing...and we started our climb. Might have taken us an hour to reach the top. The view from the fort was absolutely breathtaking. We walked around the fort for an hour..It's a huge fort...might be around 3 kms in length and 2 kms in breadth. The view from each of the sides was so different. All the time from when we started our climb it wasn't raining. But suddenly...clouds descended on the fort...visibility reduced to about 40 meters and it started raining. It rained for 10 mins and the rains
stopped as mysteriously as the had started. After spending over an hour on the fort we decided to head back to the village. We had to go down the same way we came up...the difference being that the waterfall had springed back to life....there was lots of water flowing now...Slowly we started our descent and reached back the base village.
Had food at the house of the person where we had tea. The food consisted of rice Bhakari's (It's basically chapatti's made from Rice flour...sorry but I couldn't have explained it better), Potato sabzi, dal n rice..It really tasted good and we all relished it. After the lunch we went to our last destination...the Lohagad fort.

Lohagad fort.
The Lohagad fort was a bit of a disappointment. The climb was real easy..It might have taken us about 20 minutes to reach the top. The fort is in a real great shape. Most of the walls stand tall even today...nearly 350 years after it was built. We had plans to explore this fort too but mother nature had other plans in store for us. The cloud cover was so thick that the visibility might have been around 20 meters...So we were just able to see a few places on the fort. We were on the fort for about an hour but the clouds didn't relent. So we decided to call it quits and returned back to the base village. We took our bags and left the village to return back home.
On our way back..we saw the cloud cover disappearing and both the cloud kissed forts were fully visible once again. Wish this had happened a little earlier so that we could have got a chance to explore more of the Lohagad fort.Finally reached the Malavali station...got a local at 6.30 and were back in Pune at 7.30. That was the end to our first trek of the season and seriously it was fun...The total distance that we walked was approximately 26 kms. Today while writing this post I do feel a bit of pain in my legs...but that's ok...nothing compared to the fun I had on the trek.Hope I atleast do 1 trek a month now on.

I'm alive

2004-07-08T14:56:00.000+05:30

Well its been a long time ( I guess more than 15 days) that I last posted on the blog. No its nothing to do with my laziness to write..actually was quite busy. I know many would have been surprised reading this line but yes... I was busy.

Around 20 days back we got a new functional specifications from the onsite team. The new release was to be done within 15 days. It wasn't actually a big one. Had around 6 reports to generate. But the actually processes that need to be followed were a pain in the ass. A fury of activities were planned...estimations , preparing technical specifications, preparing questions for the onsite team, writing test cases.. man...so much documentation....phew...I can safely say that development would take much less time than all this other stuff. Well I know that's equally important. Who will know the importance of a well documented system than a guy working on a maintenance project :).

That's been a lot of work related stuff I wrote.. Other than that.. nothing much really happened. We guys haven't met for past 20 days..Everyone has been busy ..not in office but someone in Goa, someone in Delhi..Anyway this weekend I plan to go on a trek to Lohagad with a few friends. Its near Lonavala and should be fun. Next post definitely would be about my trek.

One year to the Goa trip.

2004-06-18T17:47:00.000+05:30

The date 18'th June will always remain in my memory for years to come.This date last year we set out to Goa which turned out to be the best trip of my life. Our Engineering Exams had finished and many of the friends were to leave Pune forever to pursue jobs in some other cities or for further education. This was to be the last trip of our's. Well this may sound a bit pessimistic to say but with 8 people working / studying at 8 different locations with 2 of them abroad..it would be really very difficult if not impossible to synchronize the leaves of all of us.
The trip really turned out to be a fantastic one. How can I ever forget the beauty of mother nature seen from the train...Roaming around in shorts and t-shirts on the bikes all over Goa....playing in the sea at Calinguit beach .....the flea market at the anjuna beach...... Mihir trying to wily his bike with me sitting pillion :)....the Auguada fort...the sand castles we built there...the lovely drive to Panjim...the beautiful old Goa... the churches.....the lovely weather...the amazing food in infantaria...the company of so many dear friends....the ride back home..
Well these are the moments I will cherish for ever.
It's been a year we separated....but I know its just the distance that's separating us..In hearts, we are as close as we ever were.

Fortnightly pilgrimage to the vegetable market.

2004-06-14T10:15:00.000+05:30

This Sunday I embarked on yet another fortnightly pilgrimage to the vegetable market with my dad. My dad has a strong belief that its the best thing to do on a Sunday morning than lazying around in the bed...:) He believes that's the place where we will get the freshest n best of fruits and vegetables in town. I do agree with this but isn't 8.00 a bit too early on Sunday?. Arguing on the timing is waste of my energy as I will hear the usual talks like..8.00 is not early morning...
It is the time when the sun is not shining his way to glory... n stuff like that...
So there I was in the vegetable market at 8.00 on this Sunday. The market was overflowing with people and vehicles of all shapes n sizes. The sellers shouting at the top of their voices, each claiming his vegetables r the best..ohhh man...they do have a stamina to do this all day long...The best part of going with my dad is I never have to search for anything. All the vendors from whom we get the vegetables are fixed..so all I have to do is follow my dad. No bargaining is needed either as most of them know my dad and thus a major headache of searching, selecting and bargaining is virtually non-existent.
The entire affair takes no more that 45 minutes.
Truly speaking I really enjoy going there too..:)

Ice-cream Treat

2004-06-09T17:51:00.000+05:30

Today my PL treated all of us ( I mean the project group) to ice-cream. The moment we reached Inox it started raining cats and dogs. We were left stranded in the rains for over an hour. For sometime no one seemed to be bothered. We were all busy enjoying the ice-cream and though the skies would clear up very soon. But the rain gods had some other plans. The rains just didn't show any signs of stopping.

To pass our time we went to Pantaloons for sometime. After that we made a few paper boats and kept releasing them in the water (My boat was named "PD version 1.0"). After getting bored with that too..we kept talking about our college times. "College days" the topic itself is such that no one wishes to stop when we start talking about it. Don't know how long we chatted about the good old college days..In between the long discussion we noticed that the heavy rains were reduced to a drizzle and we made a quick dash back to our office. Coming back did we notice that we were out from our seats for more than an hour. Anyway it was a good break from the routine office work.

Things are back to normal... :)

2004-06-07T07:32:00.000+05:30

On the very same day that we fought, did we patch up. You know that's how best friends are..We had a small chat late at night and all things were magically resolved. So all is well amongst us....
Now about the weekends.
Is was Saturday....the day to meet friends. So we met yet again...went for the movie "Runaway Jury" and then had pizzas for dinner. Both were equally good :)
Sunday we had plans for watching Yuva but we didn't get the tickets..so I was back home and watched Perl Harbor and Munnabhai M.B.B.S.
That's how I spent my weekend.. I don't know but this time it was a very ordinary one. Well we did have fun but compared to a few previous weekends it was a subdued one...
Hope that the next weekend is more exciting.....

I fought with one of my closest friend :(

2004-06-04T18:08:00.000+05:30

Today's day has been a real sad day in my life. I never thought that such a day would have ever come in my life. Wish this is a real bad dream and things will be back to normal when I open my eyes. But I know all this is for real. And things wont be the same again. Today I fought with one of my closest friend. The reason for that is quite a big story which can be kept aside. But what he told me will always remain in my memory for ever...."if im sweet and good I can be an animal too"...."if u wanna live it the simulated world of friendship then I can do that too"......Fuck... I considered this guy to be one of my best friends and look what all he has to say to me....
Feeling real down now...feeling really lonely..I always thought that he had always been there for me..
But all the myths were broken. It's truly said..other than your own family no one else really cares for you..
Don't feel like continuing further..........
I think this weekend will be the worst weekend ever :(

Powercuts

2004-06-02T09:49:00.000+05:30

The f**king AC's never seem to work during a power cut. Its getting hot by the minute..
Today I need to guard my fan coz the last time the fan had mysteriously disappeared during the lunch break. Don't know how I will be able to manage it but I think I will have to take a quick lunch and be back on my seat ASAP. This is really ridiculous. People stealing each others fans..He he Have you heard of such a thing from anyone else?

Currently not much work.. The frequency of bugs being reported has decreased..So all the day have to keep studying the system. Learning quite a bit of MSSQL now. Other than that have look at the previous bugs and try to analyze them myself. It's the only way I can keep myself busy.

A few guests may be dropping in this weekend. So yet another fun filled weekend this time. After I started working did I came to know the importance of weekends. Its the only time when I get to spend some time with my family meet friends, watch movies, and unwind myself.
Thank god I don't have to come to the office on weekends. Well sometimes I have to. But that's once in a blue moon...

A long drive to Lonavala

2004-05-30T22:09:00.000+05:30

It was Saturday and as ever we (My friends n myself) were to meet for a quite dinner. But around 6.00 in evening my friend Avinash called up and suggested we go to Lonavala instead. It was a great idea coz the rains had just started and I just couldn't say no. Quick contact with two other friends and we were off to Lonavala at around 8.00 in the evening.
The drive was simply superb, streaks of lightening up in the sky every few minutes, occasional showers, the smell of the scorched land after the first rains...Well just don't have enough words to describe it.Reached Lonavala, had a quick dinner and then went to Rajmachi point and sat there for over an hour.

No rains...cool breeze blowing ...trees glowing coz of fireflies...down below the lights of vehicles plying on the expressway......Occasional train or engine passing through the tracks just below....A little further we could also see the town of Khopoli so well lit...It was definitely fun sitting there, watching all this, and talking...

On our way back to Pune we halted for iced tea and then reached Avi's place by 2.30.
It sure was fun....

Next plans include a trek to Rajmachi and might be a trip to Mahableshwar/Matheran..
Don't know when....but with monsoons casting its magic all over...I know it wont be that far...

Bug Fixing Sucks....

2004-05-28T18:07:00.000+05:30

Well today was in a real jolly mood when i came. Opened my mailbox n found a bug report. Spent the entire day trying to locate the problem but alas... :(...The problem was very trivial.But i couldn't just pinpoint the exact cause... It was due to some wierd security settings with the internet explorer. Another collegue did find the exact line and fixed it in 10 mins flat..(It's another story that she has a 9 months experience on the system and knows the system like the back of her hand)..
I too made the necessary changes in the settings...n pestro... my debugger was poinitng to the exact line...
Anyway it was a great learning experience....Thanks to my PL too...for sitting with me throghout the day and guiding me throughout..
So finally things are sorted and am looking forward for a normal weekend :D.
Tonight am going for the movie "Day after tommorow".. Want to see "The passion of Christ" and " A long came Poly" over the weekend....But i have serious doubts if i would be allowed entry to my place if i go on the planned movie watching spree..
Lets see how many movies i actually am able to see..

I am Back....:D

2004-05-27T15:11:00.000+05:30

After a long gap...I am back...Well anyone would have thought that I wouldn't be writing after my first post...but I have proved you all wrong...Its better to be late than never :D..
Today got some free time...n just couldn't think of anything else..Was on net reading a few blogs when it struck me that I had to update my blog too...
No lights...so the AC's aren't working. Its hot out here and not enough fans...so I am literally sweating...I had a fan before lunch...when I was back from lunch it had mysteriously disappeared.
Any way's about my life.. On the professional front not much has changed from last post. Still in the same maintenance project. But slowly have started getting a feel of the project. My PL's plan seems to be working and I am getting a real good understating of the system.
On personal front..ya...last weekend was real fun..Around 15 friends from engg. college met on Saturday n had a ball of a time...

Saw the movie 50 First dates... n kindda liked it.. :D..That guy had a chance to date the girl 50 times... n just look at me... ohhh..no....need to do something on this front..(LOL)

The only good thing about today is got a ticket to the movie "Day After Tomorrow"..
The teasers have been interesting...lets see how the movie turns out to be..

That's quite a bit I wrote today...

Don't know when I would be writing again. But will try to do so once a week.
Bye for now
Love u all.
God bless us all.

First Post...

2004-05-14T19:20:00.000+05:30

Well this is my first post on my blog... Dont expect much from this blog...Its only when i got lots of time to spare.. (Which i always have) n when i actually feel like writing..(whcih i rarely do)...will i be posting something here... :D..
My inspiration behind starting this blog was one of my frnd from CDAC nick named Chicken..Read his blog once...n thought i should try writing one too... I know this is going to be pathetic...but just decided to give it a shot.. Will try to keep updating as and when i get some more inspiration...