Was that just a weekend?

Sometimes you do so many things together that you forget that you did it in small time of two days? That was precisely the case with this weekend.

This weekend went out to a picnic courtesy Veritas. umm.. Where to start? Let's start where we started. It was not so hard to convince Gopal, who was enjoying his well-earned weekend sleep, to drop me at Parihar Chowk for the bus. Left Pune at 8. Things were going on as boring as this post on my blog is right now. Inspite of nice Pune-Mumbai express highway we were travelling on City roads as driver hadn't filled up the fuel tank and worst part of it is Pune Roads. It's talk of the town these days. Potholes everywhere and add to it traffic. and I was like Oh God! Why am I here? It would have been much better if I had been to Ahmedabad to bid adieu to my dear friend Jay, but things changed once we entered the express highway. When you are on way from Mumbai to Pune or the other way, travelling itself is a great pleasure. Throughout the highway, it's like you are in altogether a different world, especially in monsoon, where you are surrounded by green mountains and clouds and add to glory it was raining too when we were on our away and my agony?? just like that.. it's gone, nobody has ever seen since then :-)

We reached Rishi Garden Resort which is around 100 km from Pune. And we were ready to rock!! Swimming Pools, Water resorts have some magical effect on me :-) It was long back at IITK when I used to plunge swimming pool, but adrenaline started pumping when I saw water rides and swimming pool and wasted no time before diving. It was total fun and frolic to enjoy after such a long time, albeit I had one regret that couldn't dance long in rain dancing as had to move for lunch and then to Alibag, a nearby beach. In the afternoon we were ready to move to Alibag.

The best thing about Pune is that there are lots of places to roam around in vicinity. While going to Alibag, we were moving along through different mountains and just after some time we were at beach!! That was pretty cool ;-) Alibag is not glamorous beach as Juhu or Nariman Point is, but that's the good thing actually. Not many people come here and thus no pollution, no crowd. It was wonderful evening. We had a walk, played football. Someone said that A man becomes philosopher when he goes to sea. True! Atleast for me, many-a-times, I just feel like sitting on the beach and keep thinking. I start putting facts in balance sheet of my life. Anyways, it didn't end there, we had been told that the fort of Shivaji (visible at the horizon of the sea in pic) can be reached just on the foot at the time of low tide. It didn't look probable as it was more than a kilometer away from shore, but again god helps those who help themselves :-) so four brave men started their journey and believe me although it looked very far water never raised above our waist. And we celebrated our triumph to the fort. Soon many other followed. We visited canons and temples over there and not to forget all our stupid Mangal Pandey acts over there.

The night and next day morning was all-filled up with games. Housie, Ad Mad Show, Treasure hunts and what not... BTW, no luck for me as I didn't win in any game until next day morning Naval's Ballon blowing, my puzzle solving did the trick and we won the first prize in the team event.. yeah!!! and won a nightlamp enabled clock with alarm ;-)

We had planned a trek in early morning to the fort (visible in the pic) and Karnala bird Sanctuary , but we were advised not to move early because of very dense forest and high probability of snakes. so we moved after lunch, but only 6 of us as rest of us decided to stay and resort only. It was yet another joyful patch of our trip, although we couldn't make it to the top of the mountain due to time constraints, but atleast we moved up quite a lot and guess what!! we also got full mobile coverage over there, which was not at resort ;-) and came back. Yet another daring act by few brave men (and yes a woman :-) ). back to base and a photograph session courtesy our photographer Nitin.

During this trip I had some strokes. Strokes of dance. Unsufficient time for rain dance, DJ arranged by another group during first night, and garba arranged by Gujarati group who arrived there Sunday afternoon, all added to my desire to dance and that was finally fulfilled when we started disc in the bus itself, this time courtesy Girish. Dumb charades and Antakshari followed soon. Speaking in 7th standard student way, masti masti mein Pune kab aa gaya pata hi nahi chala!!! Yeh trip mein zindagi bhar nahi bhuloonga. It was indeed a memorable trip! During trip I couldn't carry camera as I didn't have one. Some memories are best kept in hearts than in photographs (or probably that's other way to say Damn!! I should've taken a cam with me.)

PS:- "someone" might notice that there is no solo photograph of mine this one. Don't ask me who that is. He knows I am pointing at him.

The tech commandments

BTW, 11th one was "Thou Shalt not check your email every 5 minutes" :P

Ganpati Bappa Moriya

The best thing about staying in different part of country is that you gotta see the best of all. Well, Kanpur is an exception, because there is no such thing as "best thing in Kanpur" ;-) Anyway, after coming here I got to see best of two places.

Last month, I had been to Mumbai and luckily landed up there at Janmashtami itself. Who doesn't know about towering matkis at this Govinda festival in Mumbai and I got chance to see that too. On the road just opposite to our house, they had placed a matki and it was so much fun to see they finally broke the matki. They did it in first shot!!! Dadar area is said to have highest matki which takes 7-8 layers of human pyramid to reach, but couldn't be there.

Now this week I am at Pune at the time of Ganesh Chaturthi. It's said that Maharastra has best Ganpati festival in India and Pune has best Ganpati festival in Maharastra. In our gully itself we have 6 ganpatis !!!!! Mind well, it's just a gully with not more than 150-200 metres. Concept of Sarvajanik Ganpati was given by Lokmanya Tilak until then people used to celebrate Ganpati in their household only, which people still do. but Sarvajanik Ganpati has taken a big leap since then. Yesterday we decided to go to have darshan of Dagdu Sheth Ganpati, which is quite famous all over Pune and Maharastra. Due to our foolishness and ignorance about the area, we walked a lot but that was all worth it. Pune indeed is Ganpati Capital of India. :-) I remembered my good old days when I as a child used to go to have darshan of all sorts of Ganpatis at Baroda. A friend with me was getting bored initially and was giving all sort of philosophy (such as ganpati is ganpati, ek ke darshan karo yaa dus ke bas shraddha honi chahiye types), but I was not in mood to listen and thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Ganpati Bappa... Moriya...