Trek to ahupe ghat part 2

Everyone nearly whooped with joy after reaching the top. The feeling in our legs had started to cease and the break was welcome. There was a big shady tree where all of us sat down for some time.....enjoying the light breeze and the sweet silence. The top of ahupe ghat is a plateau where you get a great view of the steep valleys and long stretch of plains below. Ahupe is nearly at a height of 3500 feet. We had our little photo sessions on the plateau, near the edges and under the huge shady tree. After this came the most important session…….the food session!!! Climbing makes me hungry (well, ok even sitting in one place and working makes me hungry but still…..!!!) The menu was a mixture……I had brought my tiffin which had baingan ka bharta and chapatti (normally, baingan ka bharta is a no no for me, but this time I was eating it like it was some kind of delicacy…..as they say…..hunger is the best sauce…..ill rephrase that…….hunger is the best baingan ka bharta!!!). There were a lot of things to eat…..one of my friends had brought a full ½ Kg tub of shrikhand, some people had brought khakra, some had brought sandwiches and some had brought……….cigarettes!! Normally I don’t have cigarettes for lunch, but then I didn’t have it even then!!! After this came the best part of the entire trip, I think, ……..We slept for under the shady tree……we caught our 40 winks in only 45 minutes …..but man!!! The way we all slept……like logs..... One of our friends woke us all up at 1530 hrs….we picked up all the litter we had made and put them in plastic bags to carry them with us……conservation of nature!! We started the descent and found out that, descending was much easier than climbing (obviously!!) However there was just one catch, people were falling on loose stones and dirt……..satish was behind me and I was afraid that he would slip and slide down the slope and either take me down along with him or squash me like a lemon!!! Anyway we all kept our footings firm and descended in less than half the time we had taken to climb up.... the total number of official and non-official breaks were only two!! So, at 1730 hrs we were again at the village where we had started…….I was just going to sit in the return taxi…..when I decided to just look back. So I looked back, and looked up, at the ahupe ghat peak, at a height of around 3500 feet from where I was standing. Standing there I wondered once again…….Did we really climb up till there?

Trek to ahupe ghat part 1

I had wanted to go on a trek / hike for a long time……since I had my last trek……so I was pretty enthusiastic about it when one of my office friends, omkar, organized a trek to a place called ahupe ghat. At least one, out of those ten ‘holiday plans’ made, seemed to be working. We decided to have the trek on a weekend. There were seven people from my office including me….. Omkar, rohan, sachin, tushar, satish and prashant. There were also two other fellows, amit and another satish (who were satish’s friends!!!).
I started from my house along with prashant and sachin and reached rohan’s house. Thankfully no one was sleeping when I called them up…..people were punctual for once (Omkar warned us that there was no flexi time for starting the trek!!!). The four of us traveled upto Kalyan by rohan’s car and parked it at a friend’s place. Target Kalyan station was achieved by 0730 hours. (please excuse the military language.) There we met the other guys. Tushar was hungry, as he always is, but no food was available so early in Kalyan , so we caught the state transport bus to Murbad. Once we reached Murbad, we had a traditional breakfast of ‘misal pav’ and ‘cutting’ chai. We hired a taxi to go to Khopivali village, the starting point of the climb. The taxi driver would drop us at khopivali village and would pick us up in the evening at 1730 hrs……that was the deal……do not ask me the commercial implications of this deal. We reached Khopivali at 1000 hrs and started the climb. The trail is through a forest which thickens as you climb up. The ascend was easy initially…..However very soon it became steeper. The weather was quite humid. After sometime, due to the difference in everyone’s climbing pace, three groups were formed…….one group which was ahead……..another which was behind…….and a third one who’s members were telling people of the first group to wait for people of the second group and at the same time encouraging the members of the second group to climb faster!!! If you have understood the above sentence…..I am happy to tell you that I was a part of the third group!!! On the way there were two natural water reservoirs at different places where we took our first and second ‘official’ breaks (We took many ‘unofficial’ breaks!!!). We reached the top at around 1300 hrs. It was sheer sense of achievement for everyone……we had reached the top of ahupe ghat!!!!

Traffic nonsense.

I had once asked my uncle, who was an army officer, about the war with pakistan in 1971 and how he felt when he had fought among the brave soldiers. He had said that war is total chaos.
Today when i drive my bike or my car on the indian roads...........i feel that i dont have to be an army man to experience war. I get a feel of it on our roads!!! People here dont have traffic sense, they are possessed by traffic nonsense. Even if you drive in a disciplined manner, other drivers will not. When you try to maintain lane discipline, people will either force you out of your lane or will honk like crazy. Breaking traffic signals is a common feature and with the new signal 'counters', people will count the time and when counter is at around 20 seconds to green (vehicles assume green signal when counter is 10 seconds to the actual green) , everyone turn their engine ignition on and start revving like race drivers on the start line....when the counter comes to 10 seconds....vehicles will be seen zooming off. Roads being dug up are not an uncommon sight. Diversions are created so as to smoothen the flow of traffic in such cases. On many roads, there will be potholes on only one side of the road......so in order to avoid potholes .....vehicles will suddenly swerve to the right or left.....or will suddenly go from the wrong side of the road. When roads are not a problem pedestrains are. Even if footpaths are made.....peds will still walk on the road. (so why make the footpath? For hawkers and signboards of no hawkers).......People crossing the roads seemingly 'attack' oncoming traffic....that is they walk as if they are going to cross the road......and so the oncoming vehicle driver has to think twice whether to let them pass or make them stop.....in any case they will come very close to the vehicle......so that most drivers are forced to stop. Most people dont look while crossing the road.....they will talk on their mobile phone, look in the opposite direction and walk slowly, as if they have not noticed you....when you try to bring about their attention by honking.....they will look in your direction at last and instead of getting out of the way....they turn into traffic policeman and show you the hand as if to say 'stop' and throw you a very dirty look. I could go on this topic forever.....but then no sense in discussing about traffic nonsense!!!!

Every day is the baby's day.....

I was hanging around with my friends the other day. Happened to notice a small baby in his fathers arm. The baby was positively cute. It had huge and chubby cheeks which were a nice rosy colour. Its arms were small (obviously) and were plump. His eyes were big and displayed warmth. It had a very innocent but sort of mature expression on its face. I couldnt help but 'coochie coochie' him. When i did that he smiled a mischievous smile and quickly turned away as if daring me to do it again from the direction he had turned his face too. Sometimes I feel that that age is the best. No worries, no tensions or pressures of work or studies or maybe even........ girlfriends (How do i know? I dont have a girlfriend!!! but still i have heard it from my friends who have one!!) Babies just need to eat sleep and shit.......No one minds about the facts that
1) they will have only milk
2) they can sleep all day
3) they can shit and piss anyplace they like
My mom would probably thrash me, if i tell her that i will have only my favourite food everyday, or if i sleep all day......ill pass the third point.
So the baby stage of life is the best. Apart from the above facts you also get a hell lot of publicity, people fuss over you and whenever someone annoys you, you just bawl and have someone come over and fuss over you even more.........Why the hell did i grow up?

The palm beach road

I thought of writing about the palm beach road today. The palm beach road is one of the best roads of navi mumbai.....or probably one of the best roads of mumbai and navi mumbai combined......ok, accidents on these roads have claimed a lot of lives but then a lot of these were due to people driving fast and that sort of stuff. I travel by this road everday to office and back. It is a 12 Km stretch which connects vashi, sanpada, nerul and CBD. It starts off with a flyover over the vashi railway line. Next comes the sanpada circle wherein vehicles have a tendency of appearing from nowhere.......As you near the nerul junction you will see a lot of tall buildings which look like matchboxes from a distance. The nerul junction has a signal which is usually not followed....If you get a red you cross, if you get a green u still cross, no matter whether any other vehicles are crossing or not. The policemen are out there at times. There are also a lot of hitchhikers at this signal asking for lifts till cbd.......give them lifts at ur own risk.....hopefully they wont lift ur wallets!!! Next comes a sort of pond.....at least we call it a pond......They are trying to make a jogging track next to it......but people still prefer to jog on the roads.....The pond is a favourite place for smoochers. Next comes a gaon type area where i see people cross the roads everyday in the morning.....they carry this custom made bucket which consists of a used 'dalda' container. They drill holes to the side of dalda container and tie strings to it and their bucket is ready.....The children do it on the left.....(the small yellow lines are visible from a distance) and the elders and adults do it on the right near the mangroves....best place to empty ur stomach in the mornings...open spaces as per the gaonwallas. Next we have the NRI seawoods complex to the right. The palm beach road ends at the JNPT / Nerul / CBD junction. The palm beach road has a different beauty of its own in the night times.....street lights shine like the queens necklace and a breeze blows from the creek side.

A perfectly normal and perfect sunday

Yesterday was a sunday. Most people love sundays and the reason is pretty obvious.....its a holiday for all offices at least in mumbai. Ok there may be a few exceptions......some nutters who love to work on sundays...but for others its a 'chillax' day. My sunday typically starts up with me getting up late.....My sunday morning alarm is my moms voice which sounds like the 'bhonga' which goes off at 0900 hrs in mumbai. Next comes the sunday cleanliness drive..........Both my dad and i used to think that company bosses are horrible......now we think better, when it comes to home matters mom is the 'horriblest' boss. On the sunnier side......lunch is always special on sundays at my place.....something different to eat.....courtesy mom who is a fantastic cook.....and she does like to reward our 'hard work' on sundays......After lunch a nice nap......after a bit of novel reading.........In the evenings i hang around with my friends.......maybe play a LAN game in the nearby gaming centre..........After that come home and snoooze some more till black monday arrives.......stupid of me that i posted the above crap on my blog but then i didnt know where to start.....

Why do i Blog?

A friend of mine recently told me that he has started blogging.......he invited me to view his blog. I kind of liked it. The idea of writing a blog is quite good actually...you get to sort of pour out your heart.....remove frustrations of the day. The observations made during the day, when written down, are quite interesting when you read them later sometime!!!! So i decided to start writing.......But the thing with the events that i write down, is that ill try to present them from a humorous point of view.........As they say....laughter is the best medicine.