Writing can be such a pain in the backside at times. Sometimes it flows just like that and at times it makes you beg to the knees. After writing a couple of poems which finally saw trash box, i figured that poems are not going to work anymore. And if you think its just about thrashing few poems its not. Its actually the process that is making me go mad. I tried to patau few poems for the whole weekend and i just got cold stares ( a special mention for the word "patau". I like it the most and all the treasures of this one arent quite as naughty and mischievous as this one) and now all of a sudden i have this urge of the highest degree to write about a trip that happened around 8 days back (I am not sure if i ll get through this one or it will just add up the space in drafts box but hell i want to give it a try).
Anyways the event happens to be our trip to Malshej Ghat (Ref : 'our' stands for group of people whom i went with to the trip and will be introduced to at some point in this writeup). As is the case with any other trips, it happened after lot of hitches and hatches, a lot of changes, cancellations and "patauing" (the words back yeee :-) ) finally the 10 of us got into that bus. This Place happened to be liked by a lot of ppl who had visited it but none of us had been there before which looking back seems an excellent thing because we went without any idea or expectation about this place.
And like all trips this one started almost 1.5 hours behind schedule which is something me and Manav ( He's a Dude. If you dont trust me talk to some other people in ODC ) should have interpreted earlier and should have caught more sleep. So in we walk 'into' the bus ( and slowly the rest joined as we went through all the pickup points) the first thing i realised about the group was a fact that everybody had tremendous enthu for the trip. I could see that almost everybody was happy and was really looking forward to this trip. And tell you its not a bad thing at all because sometimes these team events can be such an boring affair that you feel like ripping your hair apart for being part of it. The other thing that i quickly realised was the fact that there was a fair bit of age difference between all the attendees but it didn't really matter who was of what age. Everyone just seemed to be on the same level which again was a great advantage going into a day out.
As we started 125 KM journey, the normal routines of teasing and taunting, fooling and laughing started as did the process of gelling with some of the lesser known entities (at least till then) in the group. Followed by a normal tradition of Antakshari. Every group has a singer and he invariably starts stealing show after a decent opening by all the contributors. In our case it was Rajesh (To be named the New MJ II very soon). I had heard that this boy has talent but boy o boy he's got much more than that. It seems like he eats sleeps and drinks (?????) songs. His vocab was impeccable, his stamina unmatchable and his enthusiasm untouchable. He was clearly the winner of mornings antakhari session but few others need a special mention. Ketaki was up and going right from the start and was almost neck and neck with MJ while Poonam surely knows a thing or two fighting. I cant forget how single handedly she fought her way through that Rapid Fire Antakshari. Others also contributed their bit in between but mostly they (including me) were dumbstruck by a brutal onslaught of songs that Rajesh and his experienced co were putting on us. In between all this we got down at one not so good and one decent place for breakfast and had our stomachs filled to almost a level where we could survive without any more food till almost evening. A special mention to Poonam' s Sandwiches which were simply amazing. (God i could do with couple of them now :-( )
Then as we entered the ghat section all eyes started turning outside. Nature had painted an amazing picture on the entire horizon. Mostly grayish but with loads of shades and lights. This was accompanied by a complete greenery on the surface and a beautiful freshness that's so typical in the early monsoon season in Sahyadri Ranges. I must admit one fact here, i have been around a bit and i have seen places but theres nothing that comes even close to the beauties of Sahyadris. Maybe there is a rustic, raw and unadulterated look to this region which appeals more to me than sophisticatedly architectured sculptures. It was drizzling in the beginning, then it started raining and that got all of us really really excited. This was almost as if we all had imagined something like this in our mind and we couldn't believe in the fact that we were seeing what we actually imagined. As we went along we saw some lakes and some spots which were absolutely picture perfect. Then suddenly it started raining heavily and we were all fogged out. We could barely see the things within 5 meters let alone anything far distant. Some of us were saying out loud whatever they were thinking or how they felt but in general we all felt short of words to describe what we were seeing.
Through all this we finally reached our destination (never mind that it turned out to be our only destination). We entered MTDC resort and as a gesture of honour clouds lowered there heights and welcomed us. Only one phrase fitted the scene there "Just Like Heaven". From here it was a journey that i will rarely forget. It was foggy , it was raining , we could hardly see each other.And it was here that we started a click me season which lasted for almost 2-3 hours. We went all out with poses and frankly it was the only way to capture our real emotions then as we all fell short of words to describe what we felt. We clicked photos at almost every possible spot and in almost all possible poses.With Solo, group, natural, intended poses we went berserk and kept on clicking. When i look back i see some really very happy people there. There was a couple of in Anita and Mohit who fell more in love with each other as click count increased, there was a shy and almost reluctant couple in Sachin and Surabhi who when combined formed a picture perfect frame (Surbhi Ji's Cap rocked even more as it could be seen on almost everybody's head in some pic or the other). MJ was as his usual best in solos and groups while Ketaki turned out to be miss Photogenic of the group. On our way back, one legged jump that Zoozoo (Sayali for those who are still not aware of this name) tried is the most refreshing memory of the trip for me. She was hardly able to lift one leg above the ground let alone the thought of making other leg touch it midway in the air. But yet she tried not just once but multiple times. It was a Million Dollar scene :-). There's a child in her like all of us have, and that child completely took over her when she saw swings and sea-saw (god is it the right spelling ??).
After a break and many more clicks in and around MTDC resort. It was then time to find waterfall (which btw continued to elude us all the way through). We started in search for that and never found it but we found a really good place to eat some corn , wada pav and a tea. After all in that rain "wada pav and chai to banta tha yaar". After a bit of search we came back to resort changed and started back to pune. On our way we stopped by a beautiful lake (???). There was water on one side , land on other and mountains on the other two sides. It was very very picterous place and as usual we found out that best way to describe it is to click pics let people decide what it was like. So we all went again, in all possible permutations and directions and clicked some memories that will stay with us for long time. One such memory is of Manav becoming a Hanuman and going after Sun pic while in other me and rajesh posed to Rishimuni. (It was a mad mad day i must say :-) )On our way back from there we stopped by Ozar ganpati temple (after all whats an indian trip without a visit to temple). I visited this place after a long time and it was nice to see some development going into this holy place.
In our journey back we played another game called damsharaj which for me was the best game of the tour as it got everyone completely involved into an act and guess game. This was followed by another version of Antakshari in which boys were comprehensively defeated by a strong gang of gals. This antakshari saw tendulkars of Singing like Rajesh go into shell while their lesser fancied partners like Sachin and Manav chipping in with more than handy contribution and although it couldn't save a defeat it surely gave mental strength to try and compete next time.
Time flew by and then it was time to say goodbye. It was then that i realized that i had to drag myself home because i was dead tired but mainly because my heart never wanted to come out of a place and a group that was such Divine. I am not sure if its the place or the company but in any which way this trip made me happy and made me feel better from within. And at the end of the day its this pursuit of happiness that drives us all towards something like this.
(Hell after a long time i seem to have completed a blog and it seems yawningly big in size so am sure no one's gonna care reading it till end. But again who the hell cares :-) )
