Trip to Mahabaleshwar 2

Strawberry Fields is an event held annually in Bangalore for rock enthusiasts that I haven’t missed for the last many years. Simply love going there for the music, the people and the atmosphere. And given the number of strawberries I ate during this trip, and the fact that I will never forget this trip for the music, the people and the atmosphere, I'm almost tempted to label this trip “Strawberry Fields”. Moreover, the entire trip was just like the strawberry itself; bright, cute and very very sweet.

24, January: Rohan asked me off-handedly if I’d be interested in joining him and rest of the Shah’s inter alia for a trip. I replied instantly with the affirmative without even asking where we were headed. And although I decided not to travel too much this year after all the loafing I did last year, I decided to chug along, as the Shah’s always make wonderful company and I hadn’t been on a single trip since I’ve come to Bombay with college friends. Please note ‘college friends’, because I’ve been on more than enough trips otherwise.

25 January: Sapan reminded me about the trip and asked me to stay over at his place in the night, as we would be leaving very early next morning. He also asked me to give my share of the money to Ankit. I had no money and told Ankit that I would pay him later. Just before I bid them adieu, I thought I should find out where we were going!

26 January: I woke up to Sapan shaking me at 4:00 a.m. He told me that the cab would arrive in half an hour. I knew I only needed 5 minutes to get ready. So I told him to call me later and went back to being feed for the umpteen mosquitoes at his place. I let the mosquitoes have their feast, as I really wanted to get some sleep after the drinking session with Bala just before I left to Sapan’s place the previous night.
At 4:30, Sapan woke me up again and I decided to get my butt up this time. Brushed, got ready and waited for the cab which conveniently arrived a whole hour late. Once it came, we threw our bags on top of the cab and got settled. We then headed to the girls hostel where the three ladies stood outside waving India flags as we arrived. That’s when I realized it was Republic Day today. Quickly changed my caller tune to signify the glorious day with a nice AR Rahman number.
There was an issue with the seating arrangement as there were 11 of us excluding the driver. But with a bit of deliberating, MBA style, we figured the best way in for everyone. I was just glad that I got the middle row seat next to the window.
We started off and people were saying Jai Krishna and Jai Hanuman. I added a Jai Hind! Wasn’t all the inappropriate, as it was Republic day after all.
We drove on till we reached a nice restaurant for breakfast. Or so I thought. But it was only a tea break here as our dear friends actually packed food for all of us. So there was no need to eat here and we ate later in the car itself. There were so many interesting things to eat. A dish called ‘thipali’, a sort of chapathi. Probably Gujju style, but tasted amazing. Then there was a smaller, different color version of the thipali that Vidhisha called poori. But I was quite sure poori’s didn’t look green in color! But even this dish tasted gorgeous. Man, I have never been on a trip where people got food along since I was 8 and my mom packed food for us. And this is why I say the Shah’s are good company. They think of everything!
We moved on and by afternoon, reached Mahabaleshwar. We then went hunting for a decent place to stay. And a certain ‘Kedar Hotel’ found approval with the girls. So we guys acquiesced by default.
After settling in and a much needed bath, we left to do what everyone does in a hill station. Visit all the ‘points’. So we went to this point and that point (I’ve stopped memorizing the names of these points, but they would mostly be some English dude of the 19th or 20th century!) and finally finished it off with the sunset point. This was a real spectacle. I have never before seen such a grandiose enthusiasm for the setting sun. There were over a thousand people shoving and pushing, trying to get a glimpse of the sun. I found the scene extremely hilarious. And giving me company were some foreigners who were actually filming the silly Indians instead of the Sun. And who would blame them? These people were indeed making a mockery of themselves. I too did a film on the crowd, and after some time decided to try and get a glimpse of the Sun myself as I wanted to see if there was anything great about it. So found myself a place and watched the Sun go down. Go down all the way till it dissappreared. And it was the same setting Sun that you would see anywhere else. Seriously wonder what the big deal about ‘Sunset point’ was all about! But there was no time to think after the Sun sunk, because the entire junta was headed back and we too had to get to our car, ASAP. It was like a typical rock concert!

Somewhere in between the ‘points’, we even visited a market. Now this was actually a temple I had visited even the last time I was here. But the fact that it is a temple is almost overshadowed by the capacious market that sprung up outside the temple. I was positive that the previous time, there was nothing but a single bhajji-wala from where I had the most number of egg bhajji’s ever as we had skipped lunch and were extremely hungry. And now, in the place of that singular bhajji-wala were vendors selling everything from shirts and figurines, to, of course, strawberries.
The group went about buying stuff and taking loads of pictures of each other. I just killed time taking some interesting snaps and chewing my gum.
Later on in the evening, we went to the Mahabaleshwar lake and once again, there was a huge crowd here. And I was getting quite annoyed with this now. I’ve come all the way from Bombay where you just cant seem to get away from sticky bodies all around you, for a nice vacation, and all you get are more sticky bodies. But this anguish was soon suppressed by the really nice time we had boating in the lake. This was the grand finale and the highlight of the day. It was just so much fun paddling the two boats we hired, crashing into each other, and once again, taking plenty of snaps.
After this, we went hunting for a good place to have dinner. While everyone was out looking for a satisfactory eatery, Aparna and I found ourselves at a taste-and-buy fruit product outlet. We went about tasting all the jams and juices available for sale and finally spent 200 bucks between us on some nice products. We had consumed so much sugar during this process, that we almost lost our appetite. We also ran into a nice restaurant serving continental food and hukka’s. should definitely try dropping in here the next time I come. But on this trip, it was good North Indian food that everyone wanted, and that’s what we got, lots of it. After a very hearty, filling dinner, we hung around the market while Rohan and Arti with Vipul and his intelligent probability calculations tried their hand at games of chance in the stalls of the Mahabaleshwar market. I remember giving this a skip the last time I was here, not because of a lack of interest in the sport of losing money real fast, but because of the bevy of beautiful girls who decided to engulf us that day. I would never foget that time in Mahabaleshwar when Jeetu and Hari went about filming all the girls with my camcorder and now, after 6 months in Bombay, I wonder if I would ever react to a situation like the way we did then.
Well, after Vipul felt he lost enough money, we had some ice cream at another restaurant, and walked back to our hotel after that. I remember changing and telling Sapan that I would join them for a game of cards. The rest was history. I woke up the next day, once again to Sapan shaking me, asking me to get ready for a morning walk.

27 January: what started off as a morning walk, turned out into a quest for finding the sunrise point called Wilsons point in the car. When we got there, I recognized that place as well. I was here the last time too. Only difference was, there were only six of us on Wilsons point waiting for the Sun to surface. There were six of us again this time, but we were accompanied by at least 200 others! And it wasn’t just the people. There were tea vendors, men with horses trying to lure customers into a ride on the studs, or at least getting their photos taken on them, and all sorts of other signs of commercialization. I was really taken aback by the amount of change that affects a tourist spot in a gap of six years. From just a few of us enjoying the Sun rise, to a whole bunch of tourists clapping when the Sun shown from behind the clouds.
More photos later, we got back to our hotel and it was time to check out. We got ready, played some cricket. Sapan made a record 25 at a pitch that didn’t allow the rest of us to score anything more than 5 runs tops. Then, Rohan and I played some catch. We kept playing till we pretty much got into the car and on our way to Panchgani.

En route to Panchgani, we stopped at a place from where we got a clear view of this village called Wai, where movies like Swades was shot. Coincidentally, an article on this village was present in the newspaper the next day and in fact, that was how I even got to know that this village was called Wai.
At this point, we played some games, and Sapan and Vidisha even won biscuits for all of us. We then played some Dumb Charades. And I was completely lost as I had no idea what the Hindi words in the movie names meant. But managed to act one out by breaking the words properly and my extremely intelligent team doing the rest of the job.
We then continued to Panchgani to a place called ‘table land’, which is basically a plateau, about 6 kms in circumference, and it truly looked like a ‘table land’. Here was the highlight of the entire trip. We went parasailing and it was awesome fun. I’ve always wanted to go parasailing and what was offered to us at 300 bucks and negotiated down to 150 was the best fun we all had during the trip. All except Sapan probably, who ended up getting dragged along just before take off which caused quite a bit of injury to his knee. And the poor guy didn’t even have his video taken of his take off, as the camera decided to run out of battery just then.
After the parasailing, we once again watched the Sun set. This time, I really enjoyed it. We sat at a place where there wasn’t any crowd and I watched the Sun go down right in between some mountains. Exactly the way we have drawn the Sun set in our sketch books as kids. The scene was simply breathtaking. I enjoyed every minute of watching the Sun disappear. There haven’t been many other memorable Sun sets as this one. I remember the Sun set in Kumta with my beloved Bosch colleagues and the Sun set on the 30th of December last year in Goa. This one definitely made it to the top. Suddenly, I wasn’t as cynical at the glorious sight of the setting Sun, as I was the previous day at Sunset point.
After this, we headed back to Bombay. We reminisced about our trip and commended everyone on their roles played. We even gave awards like Tarang bagging ‘chief coordinator”, Ankit getting “treasurer”, Vipul “navigator”, Siddharth getting “self obsessed photographer”, Aparna “worst celebrity”, Rohan “best interviewer”, Arti “best wife”, me “best spoken hindi”, Vidisha "ek solo please" and as Mayuri was not awared anything, Rohan suggested we give her Lifetime achievement award!
We drove on to Pune, where we dropped Vipul off, then had dinner and by 3a.m. found ourselves outside college in Bombay. Lots and lots of fun, and really glad I decided to go on this trip. Still owe Ankit a lot of money. But will never forget the 500 odd photos that were taken with all the digicams, the parasailing, and of course, all the strawberries.