Tribute to the knight....

I thought festivals in India are so frequent, but now it seems the darkness is prevailing over. Since last 6 months there hasn't been a day when there was no news of terror in India. Amidst all this, there was a knight, he was the face of the only force battling against all these dark forces, while our enunch politicians were busy eating hard earned money of the common man. Whenever I saw him on T.V, I saw a conviction, I felt he was the only busy person in this world. His press conferences had become frequent.

Known for his fair investigation and shrewd answering of questions in the press conferences, he stood for the law. 3 bullets in his chest, and he succumbed. Hemant Karkare, a knight who has left an indelible impression for being brave and for being fair.

Child prodigy to insurmountable legend

People said he was just a child, he stepped onto ground looking at heaven and scored runs.
People said he was just a flash in the pan, he stepped onto ground looking at heaven and scored runs.
People said he was a bad captain, he stepped onto ground looking at heaven and scored runs.
People said he was old, he stepped onto ground looking at heaven and scored runs.
He was challenged, every challenge was thwarted.
He was questioned, every question was answered.
He was abused, every abuse was silenced.

Nothing has changed in his 19 years of cricket career, I have grown up watching him but he hasn't , I sometimes feel this is the same 16 year old child just wearing a mask of 35 year old. Animated celebration, swift running between wickets, still chases the ball till boundary, dives to take a catch, scores with a strike rate of more than 80,strong throwing arm, the only thing perhaps that he doesn't do like his other "younger" counterparts is booze and party with skimpy girls.

"People throw stones at you and you convert them into milestones" only Buddha, Jesus or the Mahatma could speak words like these.

But like any other humble gentleman he is cool as a cucumber just waiting to get on to the ground with his sword and conquer the cricket world with his artistic batting. I have been a witness to some of his gritty innings, be it the 92 world cup, or the 96 world cup, or be it the sharjah, or be it the 2003 world cup. The only sport, in the last 4 decades, where India came this close to winning a major title like world cup, two times, is cricket (1996 and 2003), this is because no other sport in India has witnessed a phenomenon called "Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar".

In 2003 world cup, everytime he walked onto the ground, he was like a determined knight with his shining sword, thirsty for the blood of best of the bowlers in the world. He did massacre all the bowlers, he spared none, even the great McGrath, not in the final but in one of the matches in round robin stage, where he was smothered for 14 runs in his one over ( including two majestic boundaries), Tendulkar ended up scoring 36 runs ( India's total was 125). I petty those who want him to score in every match, because they think he is God, but I know that he is not a God and just a Super-Human.

Salvation called mumbai....

Mumbai...Mumbai...Mumbai....finally... after an eternal wait I visited my city of dreams and it gave me warm hug that i cannot forget for rest of my life. It all started when I was a kid and had been to nampally station ( Hyderabad) to see off somebody to mumbai. As the train started moving, a boy (in his teens) was shouting (with a lump) at a man who was in a inebriated state, "bambai ki train jaari bhai.... jana nahin hain bambai ku??" and as the train left the platform he broke down with tears. This indelible scene gave birth to my curiosity towards this city of dreams. Since then, any mention of this city, and I become curious to know the details.

You go to visit a city for the first time in life and yet you know the details of the city, deja-vu, how many times does that happen? Not many, mumbai is one such city, Andheri, Bandra, worli, Malabar hill, chembur, dadar, mahim, juhu,all these names were known to me, sometimes through movies, sometimes through the address provided at the end of the television serial, for suggestions or contests. Even now, I am sure anyone who has not visited mumbai and reading this blog would know these names.

My first day experiences included the thrill of the "locals" of mumbai, I was told mumbai has 3 veins, Western, Central and the harbor line. It was Saturday so I did not get to experience the Super-Dense Crush Load (14 to 16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space). I was standing in the Goods Compartment ( realized only when i got down), a super-duper drunk man was tantalizingly close to falling off from train , all efforts to bring him to conscious turned futile, some were even afraid to talk to him, some were not bothered, a woman boarded the train at kurla, realized that he could fall of the train, dragged him inside the compartment holding his collar. When I looked around, I saw the luggages in the compartment, I was looking at each compartment with doubt ( like madhavan in mumbai meri jaan), but people were hardly bothered, they did not have an alternative.

My second day started with visit to siddhivinayak temple, I walked the same road (Pedal road, now veer savarkar marg ) that Sachin Tendulkar used to walk sometime, I saw the shivaji park, where the greats like sachin, gavaskar, kambli used to practice. We had booked a "Mumbai darshan" tour package. It started from the Gateway of India, where we got to see rahul bose. Then we moved on to rich mumbai part, marine drive, malabar hill, and the bunglows of Shah Rukh khan, Amir khan, Salman doesn't have a bunglow but we got to see his flat. We even saw the edifice of Mr. Mukesh Ambani. I couldn't count the floors, but my head was at just more than 180 degrees with my spine. Next was juhu chaupati, a mouthwatering "pani puri" and "kala khatta" removed all the salt taste we had after being in the sea water. The tour ended with a visit to Hare rama Hare krishna temple, with I thanking God for being there with me all the time.

All the way back to pune, I was feeling bad that i left mumbai. May be I was lucky that i found good company, that I stayed at a location which was like centre to mumbai, that I found no taxi drivers who charged more or fooled with distance, that I travelled in "local" at a time when there is no super-dense -crush-load. Not sure how I would have reacted if I had not had all these. But all i remember now is the hug that this city gave me, it was warm and welcoming.

Raigad sojourn...

"Sojourn" a pretty strange word to use. Though nobody amongst the group stayed there, but somehow felt that i had left my heart there at raigad for the night.

What started as a sultry ride in the heat of 42 degrees, ended in a romantic affair with a beautiful place like raigad. Atleast 4 members in the group felt the "heat", people exchanging their seats, was a warm and a welcome gesture, though some people in the group were meeting others for the first time. As a Organiser-participant-travelmailspammer it makes my job a lot easier and simpler, when I have such people in a team.

As usual, ( it is becoming so cliched that i ain't gonna mention this in my next blog), the first person to suffer was Devendra, waiting for a eternal time for the vehicle to arrive. And just when we were telling kirti and rupali about deva's typical Hirathi ( Hindi (30%) + Marathi (70%) ), deva gets into the vehicle and shoots a sentence in Hirathi and everybody bursts into laughter.

All along the way, everybody was praying "Please God, let it rain". It was the same route, that we took last time when we went to shivthargal, but so hot, that some of the waterfalls that preetam gifted us, during our last trip, had dried up. But it was good for us, because had they been flowing like last time, we could have never made it to rajgad, as it was little farther than estimated. As we reached raigad at around 1:30 PM, it was still hot and humid. Abhijit and Santosh decided to fort through the rope-way. Rest of us ( minus preetam and rupali) had decided to trek it. But we convinced the half hearted girls to come with us.

Contrary to what people had said, raigadh climb ( I wouldn't call it a trek) was one of easiest. But 10 min into trek and rupali realized that rope-way was a better option for her, but I and kirti disagreed and insisted her to come along with us. Another 10 mins we both realized that rupali was right. Renuka, Preetam and Deva continued their trek. While the RPD ( Renuka,Preetam, Deva) gang was far apart from the KPR (Kirti, Pawan, Rupali) gang, we were still communicating, thanks to the natures mobile (echo). Oh I fogot to mention in above 5 lines that there was not a moment in trek where we felt the heat of sun , all our prayers had reached the Almighty and there was a sudden change in the weather. The waterfall on the way provided all the relief and erased all the bad experiences of traveling in the hot sun.

As we reached the entrance of the fort, we were standing amidst the fog. The RPD gang was lost in the fog, KPR gang was busy shooting pictures. We reached at the Statue of " Shivaji Maharaj The Great " and just couldn't believe the weather, there was hardly a visibility of 10 to 20 meters with Abhijit and Santosh walking amidst the fog and we had a unioun. We saw, Jadishwar temple, the ancient market place, the Samadhi of Shivaji The Great, the place where Shivaji The Great was coroneted as King and started moving towards the Rope-way. As we sat in the rope-way to descend from the fort, I felt satisfied and salutations to the great King for his fight against the tyranny, another visit is due.

Spectacular Varandha Ghat

As i was taking pictures, I told one of my friends, if I label these pictures as pictures from kashmir valley people are going to believe me. Fog covered streets, lush green mountains, waterfalls at hiatus of every 500 meters, heavy rainfall, yet people were few and far between, what else do you need to spend a quality time outside the hustle-bustle of the city. Shivthargal, a place 120 kms away from pune, turned out to be the perfect monsoon outing. It all started when I saw some pictures of the Varandha ghat ( considered as the entrance to konkan). Somebody described it as the must-ride monsoon ghat, must-ride indeed. We decided that unlike our earlier outings, which started late in the day, this time we will be out of the city by the time Sun God starts showering his blessings on us. Everybody (a very very very rare situation) got ready by 6:30 AM. Just as I thought my stars were aligned, the tour operator had other plans. At 7 we were supposed to be out of city, instead at 7, I and abhijit were looking for alternative arrangement for travelling, as the tour operator we had decided upon had betrayed us ( quite a heavy word but thats exactly what i was thinking) by switching off his mobile and the vehicle had not arrive yet. "We don't have a good risk mitigation plan" I thought. This tour planning is no less than a project planning, rather difficult.
As we were having tea at a street tea stall, we made contact with the tour operator ( seems he might have awaken late), after lot of justifications, he assured us that the vehicle was on its way and would be arriving at our place in another 15 minutes. 15 minutes, not quite, it took 45 minutes for it to arrive at my place, with santosh and mahesh already aboard. We picked up all the other members, with preetam's brother giving us instructions not to let her drench in rain. Unlike our earlier outings, this time the driver had a good idea about the route to our destination. We reached city outskirts at around 9. As we were traveling, we noticed a lone banyan tree in a lush green field, and thought of giving it a company. This was our first stop, after a brief photo session and hanging on the tree we resumed our journey. The next thing we saw was a waterfall and within 10 minutes I was under the fall, having my hydro-power-body-massage. With wet clothes we continued our journey till we saw a tea-stall, the streets were covered with fog, we spent some time eating hot "kanda bhajiya's" and taking pictures of the fog covered valley. we could hardly see vehicles on street untill they were really close ( a visibility of 5 meters only). Seemed like time was lost somewhere.
We moved towards our next destination, ShivtharGal, a place where Swami Ramadass ( Guru of the Shivaji the Great) had written the famous "Dasbodh". Its a place covered by forests and hair pin turns led us to this place. I was in no mood to repeat my purandar-like adventure, so we were at places where most of the people were. A cave partly covered by a big waterfall, hosts the statues of Swami Ramadass and his shishya kalyan swami. We decided to have our lunch there and move towards the kavlya fort. We were told by the locals that the fort is difficult to trek in this rain as the way is too narrow and there is a fear of slipping and falling of. They guided us to a rather unknown place, after a small trek we reached that place. We discovered a new "Elephants point". After descending from that place we had tea ( Again!!!!) at the stall.
On the way back to the city, we had a rain dance ( first time in natural rain). There were no restrictions, no body watching us, no conscious feelings, everything seemed so under "our" control. These memories are indelible.

Lonavala Trip

"Whats the count?" my friend asked me, when she called me late in the evening. "Well as of now me and abhijit, only two" I answered. " Rupali and I will come" she said, aggravating my worry. I and abhijit had decided that we will go at any cost, we had decided to go on bike. We had two bikes too, so one may ask what was the reason for worry, well for all those who don't know I reveal an embarassing secret, "I don't know how to ride a bike", **correction " I don't know how to ride a bike when i have other vehicles around me", correction " I don't know how to ride a bike" ( this is final). We called up all the 6 to 7 travel agencies that had put up their adds in the news paper. We found one who was offering us a good deal ( real good deal ), and even promised us a good car ( one with good audio system, relatively new car). I called up my friend and informed her about the expenditure, " It could be around 600 bucks per head, is it alright?" " Yeah, kya karte ab" she answered in a true hyderabadi style. So 2 became 4, just the figure needed to fit into an Indica car ( non A/C).

I got up at around 6:30 in the morning, with the alarm in my mobile( which turned out to be nightmare for parents and friends, as it ate away all the charge in my mobile, and I could not switch on my mobile for the rest of the day). To my consternation, i found the car to be really good, good seats, nice music system, the car was shining ( literally). Off we went, to pick up abhijit, and reached his house at about 8:40, picked up some good CD's ( Bryan Adams, Kishore kumar) and started from his home to pick up kirti and rupali, by the time we all finished our breakfast and reached the express highway ( Pune- Mumbai express highway) it was around 10:30, it was a clear whether, and we thought the weather is going to be the spoilsport in our tour.

But as we started going closer to our destination, we could see why this place was so famous. Mountains covered with clouds, drizzling rain, greenary everywhere. Cars tachometer was reading 140 now, the express highway is beyond description.

We reached "tiger valley", our first unintended destination. As i stood there, I realised that this was something i had never seen before, a big waterfall thrusting water with a speed that could crush the stones, lush green mountains, with small waterfalls coming out as tears of the mountain, clouds covering the mountains, and to add to all these the drizzling rain. We had a quick "Photo Session" there and started searching for our next destination, the dukes nose.

After going round about our intended destination, we got to know ( from a well learned man, who also suggested us not to go alone there, which generated a sort of curiousity amongst us) that its known amongst locals as "nagphani" or the snakes fang. Finally we reached our destination, a small village ( hardly 50 homes) covered by lush green hills. "Thats the way you are supposed to walk" a local guided us his finger pointing towards a rather rustic road ( or no road), we started walking and reached at the bottom of the hill. We started climbing and rupali gave up after some walking, after lot of cajoling she agreed on climbing with us. Slowly but steadily we climbed the hill. Climbing through the rocks was tough, but weather God was not maligned and hence it did not seem tough, the greenary around helped us get the oxygen that we lost while climbing ( though it was about a 100th size of the everest). One step mistake and it would have been fatal, nevertheless, it proved worthwhile after we reached the top. After spending some time up there, and finishing our "photo session" we started descending. Just when we reached the bottom, it started raining and in a while we were standing amidst fog. The clouds covered the mountain that we had just descended, "@!$%#" we thought, "Should have waited there for some time" abhijit said and everybody nodded.

A cup of tea in village refreshed us, and we moved on

Purandar Adventure

12 July 2008, time 1:30 PM, I called up my friend and told her "I am safe now". Tarun asked a bidi from "kaka" ( a local shepherd), kaka took out the packet of tobacco, "this is all i have got". Mohit was busy with tommy ( kaka's dog, mohit had rechristened it to tommy). We had just spent an hour in a place where there were, crabs of size of the great khalis palms, water oozing out of mountain rocks, possibly some dangerous reptiles, but we did not come across any ( I again thank God for this), and we were told by locals that there were some wild pigs in there, and that place is used by hunters for hunting these pigs.

It all started with mohits thought of going "out-of-the-way" to climb to the fort, we took a route, which i think was not taken by anybody in the past ( atleast not our kinds, trek loving Software Engineers), we climbed a hill and started following a path, which we thought would lead us to the fort. We could see the fort, covered with clouds now. Everything was fine, and all of us were marching along cheerfully. Untill we suddenly found ourselves amongst bushes. I thought returning from here would be a better idea, but mohit and tarun thought otherwise and started moving forward, I followed them, just when i thought nothing is so dangerous about this place, I slipped and fell on to the rocks, I don't remember how i got hold of some of the bushes and stood back on my legs, I was bleeding at hand now. Nevertheless we continued, thinking we would soon find our way up to the fort, but we could see only bushes around. 20 meters forward and we were again stuck, no way to move forward. Mohit by now was tired and could not move swiftly ( and my shoutings of "Don't stand in bushes" was just exacerbating the situation). We were now moving through bushes like animals, even holding cactus to prevent ourselves from slipping down ( I don't remember when was the last time i was so desperate).

Now, we decided to go back along the way we came. We slipped, we fell, the thorns in bushes were tearing our skin apart, we cared less. We took a halt near a small waterfall ( not exactly a water fall, but water flowing through the rocks of hill). We got a thought that, if we follow this water , we might reach the bottom of the hill. Bingo!!! we thought, the only problem was, water ofcourse, we knew that we would slip, but everybody was fine with that now. One step forward and mohit slipped and landed on his bums, tarun's one step forward and bang he too like mohit landed on his bums, it was my turn and i was not spared by the water either. We decided that this could be the only way we could reach the bottom of the hill and continued our "water rides", till we came across a sharp dip.

We climbed up again with great difficulty, and continued our "voyage" through the bushes. Few steps forward and mohit wanted to have rest. While mohit and tarun were resting, I saw a some long trees. I saw that the distance between those was less and estimated that if we reach somewhere near those trees we would reach the bottom. It took a lot to convince mohit and tarun, but finally we decided to go for it.

As we moved forward, we were cheering. The moos of a cow got relief to us. And we saw a group of people sitting there, kaka was amongst them.