going shirotian

what can i say? i love weekends....but that seems to be the motto of all my entries on this blog....what to do though? someone has to have a good time after all, if not you....

so this time around it was a trip. not with 'my gang', but with an almost totally random group of strangers. suchai invited me along. i had asked him to, after the last time he went on a cycling trip. i love doing such things. nevertheless, i was a bit anxious. i didn't know anyone except him at the time, and i felt a bit guilty not hanging out with my group, especially since i expect to be leaving in 1-2 weekends....

anyway, somehow suchai managed to convince me into going...mixing senti and coercion. in my defense i did ask shek n shef, but they declined. dipu, sport that he is, agreed. he also likes meeting people and doing such things.

so saturday, 17 may, he and i were in front of chitra cinema near dadar tt at 3 pm, with him fuming coz a. the minibus we were supposed to go in hadnt even left churchgate and b. he had rushed home from office and packed in 5 minutes.
we saw there a group of 5-7 people also with backpacks....i wasn't sure whether they were part of our group, but dipu was quite certain of that. turns out he was right. i felt a twinge of unease. these were not people i would hang out with, given a choice. i started to wonder whether i would regret my decision.

the bus finally came around 4, along with a qualis. we both got into the bus. the other group in the qualis. suchai started off straight away, waxing eloqent about the fact that he hd 2 bananas on him, and then commencing to eat one.
this one guy (rohan it turns out) asked me/dipu to shift into the qualis for the benefit of logistics. dipu didn't move, so i reluctantly went. big mistake. i was in the back parallel seats, cramped in with 3 others. and there was no window there. and they were not my kind of crowd AT ALL. back office type of people. no offense or discrimination intended. making bad jokes and asking me to join in. we went via chembur, picking up one more guy. lemme recount some of their names. there was umesh (kotak), kavita (kotak, KMIL), nazia, shriram (FMS 03, hsbc strategy) and the one we picked up was mihir (prabhudas liladher).

so via chembur we went to navi mumbai, passed DY Patil stadium, and finally stopped almost 1.5 hours into the drive at a mcd's somewhere near kharghar apparently. had a coke and burger. the coke was to quench my thirst; i hadn't had water since my bottle was in dipu's bag and i didn't wanna ask these guys. i made some small talk. the minibus of ppl arrived, and it was instant nirvana!! straightaway i started talking to a girl (shilpa, scmhrd, mahindra hr) and joking with dipu n suchai. after talking to them about it, i decided i was going from now in the bus come what may. so we filed out in a while, where i bumped into niraj, a silo head in the firm.

we got into the bus, where i flatly told rohan that he could send someone else to take my place in the qualis. which he did. then the fun finally started. over the course of the drive i got to know the others. lemme describe them a bit, coz they were a diverse and interesting group:
me
dipu
suchai
nishit mathur
varun goel
rohan (modern, cbs, iimk, kotak ib)
sanchit (modern, cbs, jll)
rachit (gyan bharti, cbs, jll)
anuradha (film director)
neha (sbi caps)
richa (stephen's, bessemer)
kedar (scientist at barc)
alisha (his gf, at cnn-turner after xim)
pravin (teacher)
himani
ashish
darshil (organizer, class 12)
and some guy whose name i forgot who was in kotak corp banking
and some others whom i wasnt able to get to know

we had a nice bus trip chatting, getting to know each other, taking suchai's case, taking other peoples' case and having some beer. neha was listening to her ipod, a sin in our prestigious company, so we gave suchai bumps. i abused the modernites. finally i think around 8 we reached lonavla, where we stopped at a theka. picked up our alcohol's and got moving again. the beer was opened in the bus itself. aaah foster's!!! i spread the story of suchai's lungi incident in the mess. we sang songs like we were rabid. singing the 10 words of each song we knew and then moving on.

all this happened while the bus had moved off the road onto a dirt track. it continued on the track for about an hour. by this time my bladder was swollen like a water balloon. we finally got off the bus to walk the rest of the way, partly coz we wanted to and partly coz the road was quite bad. while the others moved ahead, i and the corp bank guy relieved ourselves in some bushes. was quite easy as it was pitch dark except for an exceptionally bright moon.
we had quite a pleasant walk, interspersed with some frooti and sandwiches. the moon was shining down to give a very beautiful if somewhat eerie landscape. it was a bit tricky negotiating the path, especially once we reached the decline. and then....the plain. we saw the lake, reflecting the moonlight like a grounded cloud of silver. we walked along the plain, which turned out to be quite huge though it didn't seem so at first sight. and we walked on. finally reached the campsite, by which time it was slightly past 10, and dipu n i claimed one of the tents by dumping our bags in. there were only 7-8 tents, and 30 odd people. the tents turned out to be quite spacious, though they didnt seem so at first sight.

anyway, after exploring around a bit, we sat and had dinner, which was laid down on newspapers and illuminated by a bike's headlight. i had some aloo, roti and dal. we sat around, talked a bit more. then we went to the lakeside, negotiating a slippery stretch of moss or something, and sat down in little groups. then we proceeded to have the red wine, the white wine, the port and the neat rum. kedar nearby was smoking hash with alisha. by the time supplies were exhausted, sanchit was nicely high. at this point we decided to take a little innocuous walk. that walk happened to lead up a slope to a little plateau of sorts, where we clicked some pics. we all thought about climbing further, but in the pitch dark, with no clear cut path in sight, some of us changed our minds. kedar was anyway off lighting up with his gf and ashish. in addition, rohan, shilpa, suchai, richa and i stayed back on the plateau while others climbed on. we just lay around on the ground, listening to old rock such as the doors etc. on rohan' cellphone. it was nice and soothing.

anyway, i think restlessness got to us eventually. suchai and i could make out where the climbers were by periodic shinings of their flashlights and their loud noises. we decided to sneak up on them and scare them. so instead of taking the beaten path, we climbed straight up the hill slope, making a beeline through all obstacles. we sneaked up on them, made a couple of wolf howls. i think that scared them. but then there was too much distance to cover in the open without cover, so we were given away and they saw us. only half the group was here. the other half was further up, and we joined them. we clicked some pics, lay and enjoyed the sky and the breeze, saw the lake spread out below us. saw what looked like an empty grave.

then finally we decided to go down. here it was me, suchai, anu and sanchit. the others wanted to stay the night there and see the sunrise. and sanchit was high enough to by then be fighting over the flashlight and annoying everyone. on the way down, we bumped into darshil, ashish and a couple more people who were on their way up to find us. ashish then came down with us, while the others continued up. we reached the bottom, with sanchit slipping once and choosing to fall on his back.

on reaching camp, we realized that rohan and richa were missing. we thought they might be up to no good....so feeling mischevious, we set about looking for them. first richa looked in the girls' tents...they weren't there. then we started chcking the guys' tents one by one till we came across one where we heard a guy and a girl. we stooped to listen, and in a minute realized it was kedar and alisha. we quickly moved away, all except sanchit, who kept stoopin. he then sauntered over to the back of the tent and started peeing, while shouting out for rohan. irritated voices came back from the tent, and without warning, sanchit was peeing and he and kedar were exchanging abuses without knowing who they were abusing!
anyhoo....we found rohan and richa sitting on a nice outcropping by the lakeside, just chatting. we joined them for 5 minutes, then came away.
soon after, suchai and i went into my tent. we chatted for a while, reliving campus days, talking about the ppl on the trip, about work...and finally, i think around 3....we slept off.

it was a disturbed sleep, with sanchit joining us then going out...ppl shouting outside, sleeping on the floor with no pillow/mattress/quilt.

we were woken, suchai and i, around 6 by rohan and dipu....who opened our tent flap so we froze and threw small stones on us....suchai finally got up, and i followed suit, disgruntled. he changed into his swimming trunks and went to join nishit in the lake. sniffling, i went out, clicking the morning into memory with my cam. i walked up to the lake, clicked some pics there, saw signs of life stir as other people woke, calmly took suchai's shirt and sandals, and walked back to camp. there i found rohan and dipu sleeping in our spot. i, still calmly, walked back to the lake, filled some algea-ridden water in a bottle, and poured a bit on dipu and tossed a pebble on rohan. surprisingly, i got scolded. then we were distracted as suchai emerged, shouting about having to tread barefoot on the stones around the lake. topless, he came to the tent and, using his towel as erotically as possible, started his antics. then he noticed that there was a group of girls behind him, walking back from the bushes, who had taken in his act. so he demurely began changing in the privacy of his towel. it's at this point that sanchit, rachit (who had woken), rohan and i turned into wild animals and tried to strip suchai of his little remaining modesty. it was a funny wake up to the rest of the troop.

once all this was over, we walked around to the other side of the lake, sat on a rock face, clicked pics and passed some time. around 8-8.30, they served breakfast, which consisted of bread-butter and poha. i had a little of both, conscious as i was of my personaly hygiene, utensil hygiene and the lack of bathroom facilities.

then we just loafed, using a stick as a javelin, clicking pics in poses, packing up a bit. sat around as the tents were dismantled, soaking in the vitamin d, all of us in a circle. kedar and alisha had joined us. meanwhile, rachit, suchai and nishit went back on the trail of the previous night to find nishit's watch which had fallen off. no luck there. sanchit wandered off on his own to click photos. all too soon, it was time to go, around 10.30 - 11.

i went to the bushes, then caught up with everyone. talking and clicking, we made our way under the burning sun to the bus, where we sat down and gulped the last of the water. it was then that we found we had to walk more as the bus couldn't drive over the stones bearing our weight. so we walked, another half hour i think. our throats began to parch. we got into the bus again, and drove on. i nodded off for a bit, literally, and banged my head a couple times too.

we reached kamath hotel in khandala, where we picked up lots of water and had lunch. we washed up a bit there, had cold drinks, some decent food (we were starved, so this is not an accurate representation of the food) and moved on again. yet again i slept off for a bit, till we reached navi mumbai. chatted a bit with alisha, and all too soon...it was over. people began getting off, at chembur, at sion, and finally...our turn, at dadar. home again, 4:30 pm. almost exactly 24 hours since we had left. the shortest trip.

but the longest blog.