Holiday Time

Diwali Holidays are going on (OK, coming to a close, but I don't really want to admit that). Holidays are always good, but this time they are turning out to be remarkable (for purely personal reasons of course). For one thing, I am reading at least as much as to please myself. The list of completed projects now includes Rosalind Franklin: The dark lady of DNA by Veena Gawankar, Antimatter by Frank Close, Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges and Not even wrong by Peter Woit [let me add that each one is good enough to deserve a review of its own, something which I haven't gotten around to yet]. A couple of empty rooms, devoid of any furniture except the bare minimum, but which allow complete isolation are proving to be my reading haven. I am also spending a lot of time observing a) beautiful cloud patterns and b) the biodiveristy around here (which frequent rains exponentiate). And every time my (untrained) eye finds something new. Another important thing is that after a long time the holidays of me and sis have coincided, so another big chunk of my time goes into pretending to be ten years younger. Distractions are to a minimum, I hardly watch TV and rarely access Internet. Calls and messages are down to a minimum. I can almost pretend these things haven't been invented yet. Today was the first day I left town, but in return it allowed some precious time with bhaanje-bhaanji to their now rather old mamu. I don't care much about food, but that front is well covered too (Gulab Jamuns are waiting as I write this :). All this , together, makes this time so remarkable. And dear reader, thanks for reading so far, but this post could've waited. Holidays won't last forever, make the most while they last. I am getting back to the same thing..

Enjoy!! [And a belated Happy Diwali]

Highlights: How I won a bunch of cookies..

I had never won a bunch of cookies before (except from a webserver). That happened yesterday, and consequently, I believe my excitement hubris over it would be quite understandable.

The occasion was Diwali party at office, and a new game was proposed, Dumb C++. Contrary to what I thought, there were no technical questions. A homegrown (or rather officegrown) variation on 'guess the movie' theme, and a lot fun too.. Teams as usual, but here the whole team enacts the movie and one guy guesses it. Should have been called Dumb 3 (if why 3 is your question, ~ is the answer).. So here is Sandip enacting a movie for yours truly..

Your's truly doesn't get it, so Rahul jumps in.. Look at the two photos carefully and you can guess the movie name (or cheat and take a look at Zarin's blog).
Tick....
Tick....
Tick....
[Actually there was no real ticking, and if there was, nobody heard it amidst all the shouting].
But I finally got it. Yippeee!!!


Winning is sweet, especially when the prize is cookies :p. As usual 'loser' teams wanted their share (which in a fair world is zero (I would say that now, wouldn't I? :p)). Here with the teammates and the trophy.

And finally Rasna.. The drink of the Winners

There was much besides cookie-winning at the party, superb food being one prominent item. For a less narcissistic (and more complete) account, see Zarin's blog.

Enjoy!!


[This post is tagged under GhumnaFirna, cuz the party definitely brought everybody out of their respective shells].

Vapi Trip

When you are falling asleep, thoughts become increasingly less connected (and hence logical), slowly.. until the consciousness completely fades away. I don't like to get disturbed in this state (I suspect nobody does), cuz then I cannot sleep for hours. This happened last Friday. We were to leave for Vapi (Khyati's native place) on Saturday morning (4 am, so it would be more appropriate to call it Friday midnight. Anyway.), and I wanted a good sleep before we begin. I left office early, and pulled the sheets over my head at 10:28. At 10:45, I heard Mithunda. In the TV. Being a Mithunda + DID fan, it would have been unworthy of me to sleep, so I watched the show. The sleep had left me though, so I read something after the show. Still no sleep. Thankfully Dushan Devta was coming on Max. I even sms'd people about it in case anyone else was suddenly hit by insomnia.

We left Pune pretty much on time the next morning (Thanks to Rabitt, who made a significant contribution by coming on time :p). The journey to Vapi takes about 6hrs but we did not feel it, because, surprise, surprise, everybody slept almost throughout. I remember stopping at a Kamath restaurant, where Sabudana Khichdi was rather good.

We reached Vapi by 11 IIRC. The town is an industrial center and a bit rusty look is to be expected. We were to stay at Khyati's place palace. This was my first experience of Gujju Aatithya. The high praise it has earned is not without reason. I almost felt like I was at my own home. Then I experienced the Gujju meal, again for the first time. Unsurprisingly I We ate like dogs (Kutte jaise khaya ka trans.). It might be my largest single meal till date. There was so much variety, and everything was so delicious. We automatically dozed off after (suspending the plan for Daman beach for a while).

We left for Daman beach (snap below) in the evening. It's quite close (an hour's drive max). We played on the beach, had a mast bhutta. Most of the junta didn't enter the water though. Can you believe they said it's dirty, like it matters? :p Daman port is worth a visit, and a good location for those interested in photography. Boats make an ideal backdrop. The church there is beautiful from the outside (and I heard that it is very beautiful on the inside).

Then we visited Mirasol, a garden resort. I think everybody, and I mean everybody has this fascination with trains. We jumped onto the toy train like kids! After that came boating. The artificial lake they have created is fundoo. Being the self appointed captain of the boat ship (see snap below) (I appointed Rabitt as the navigator), a dream had came true and we discussed Godzilla, Jaws, making dynamos, navigation using stars and other highly logical and related topics (people later wondered how come the fellow passengers of the boat ship did not revolt and throw the captain out. Did they actually tried doing exactly that is going to remain a mystery. And I must add I prefer it that way :p).

After this we went to the Jetty for food. Had anybody asked whether we wanted to eat, the answer would have been a resounding no. But then everybody hogged (again. Ab to aadat si ho gayi thi). The thing I most liked there was the statue of Saint Jerome (snap below). There are so many symbole there, and inscriptions in portugese and demons and stuff, I guess there is a job opening for a full time Robert Langdon. If only those cheapo groups wouldn't be there! I maintain that do kaan ke neeche (ulte hath se) a day will go a long way in solving their problems! Another thing I noticed was every board and sign was in Gujrati plus English. I actually asked whether there is a law mandating that. The answer was no, and I felt good about it (after all that we have seen happening in Maharastra).

After returning we fell asleep rather quickly, and two individuals provided the background score we absolutely did not want! The plan was to get up early next day and go for a morning walk, but then you know us. Half of the population maintained that they actually went out for a walk, a story that I am not going to believe.

The next day plan included visiting Silvasa. But before it came the Gujju breakfast. My definition of breakfast (after being a hostelite for 9+ years) includes a cutting chai + creamroll, but here you have scores of dishes just for breakfast. Dhokla, Fafada, Undhiyu, Khari, Khajli.. the list went on, and rather unsurprisingly, (again) kutte jaisa khaya!. Must mention that I hadn't had such nice Jalebi in years!

After the breakfast (and nap? I don't remember) we left for Dudhni. The road to Dudhni is scenic. There is boating facility in waters of Damanganga. I tried rowing but couldn't do it very well. It's one of the tasks that looks easy at a first glance, but is not.

So we made paper boats!


Thankfully(!) my wallet always has a lot of kachada (and very little actual money :p). We went for a sugar cane juice after the boating. The paryatak niwas at Dhudhni has two rather nice fish tanks. One of them had a kachua, and we spent a lot of time observing and clicking snaps. Discussion natuarally ensued on whether Kachua can breathe underwater. I don't remember how it was concluded.

We started our journey towards Pune at around 2:30 in the afternoon, and we were to make a halt at Amit's place in Thane. The journey was full of songs, laughter and even a few serious discussions. The lines of the song 'Dil chahta hai' kept coming back to me, and I thankfully had it on my mobile. I guess they were not that far from other people's minds too. My rather non-existant song compostion skills got me in a trouble though. Now I have made it mandatory for myself to wear helmet at certain places, even when not driving :p. After a brief halt at Amit's place which included pohe, ladu ani chaha, we started the final hop of our return journey. Reached Pune by 12 or so.

Nobody, absolutley nobody wanted to return to the mudane existence of daily life (read Monday at work), but then we hardly had choice. Thankfully we have these cherished memories! Thanks to Khyati (for taking the not insignificant risk of inviting us) and her family and also to Amit, Charuta, Lalit, Manish, Shruti and Zarin for making the weekend so wonderful!

Enjoy!

[The real yours truly].

Into the wild

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more...
- Lord Byron

They say a picture says a thousand words. Welcome to my million word post. The occasion is the amazing weekend trip to kaas valley and nearby places. Needless to say, it was awefome.
[Click on the images to enlarge. The thumbnails here leave out much].

We were to leave at 5:30AM Saturday morning. The car was supposed to pick me from office, but when I reached there at 5:40, not a single soul was to be found. I decided to go in search of a chai tapari. Found one on Sinhgad road, and the walk was wonderful. It feels great to walk so early in the morning, very few people to be seen and streets beginning to wake up. Streetlights were out, and the day had not yet properly begun.

Junta arrived eventually, by 6:15AM. Here's the group, except Amit and Shruti.


We started our journey towards Thoseghar. Our first stop was Sriram Vadapav center near Shirwal. The place is very famous, and for good reason. Probably the best vada pav you can get on NH4. The tea was good too. Here's Amit and me (with my third cup probably).


The journey was as usual filled with songs, discussions and jokes (PJs, some prefer to say). The road to Thoseghar is picturesque. Here are some snaps clicked at a random spot where we made a halt. The highlight was the sky, the grandeur could actually be felt, not only seen.


Here's one I clicked. Had to lie flat on my back, but I think it was worth the effort (Thanks to the good camera).


We resumed our journey after the brief halt. The most important feature of the place can be seen in the next picture.

Yes, pawanchakki. I remember seeing a few when I was a kid, but here we had an entire farm. Here's we trying to act as if we are falling.


I think I am the most realistic one of the lot :p. Here's one more.

As you can see, we are posing for different cameras, Lalit for the front camera, myself for the left. I don't know which camera MD was posing for. Here's another with the Pawanchakki.

If you look hard enough in the bottom left part, you'll find me, arms outstretched. The landscape was beautiful too, filled with flower beds like this


Here's another one. Don't know why, but it reminded me of the Eucledian plane, with many lines intersecting.


I really did not want to leave the Pawanchakki-land so early, but there're many more things on our plate. Our next stop was to be Sajjangad. I had heard about it, but never visited earlier. Beautiful, serene. We had Mahaprasad, and the simple elegance of the system made an impression on me. The food was great too. Maybe the purity of the people preparing it somehow finds its way in the food. Here's a snap taken from a distance..


In a just-another-stroll, we discovered this beautiful valley.


OK, all I am trying to say is, idhar mat jana, bahut gahari khai hai... I am unsure of how much success I had had in conveying that message.

For some reason, this is one of my favorites. But I see you haven't looked at the valley in its totality yet. Take a look


After spending the afternoon in wandering around and a little bit of shopping (me and Amit bought digging tools, these days we find ourselves in continuous need of those :p) our next stop was to be Thoseghar waterfall and then Kaas lake. Here are some new friends we made on our way.


Our first stop was the waterfall. Actually there are many waterfalls that can be seen from that point. They are not very big , but the the whole is very impressive. Take a look


Later we started our journey towards the Kaas valley and the lake. The valley is actually a plateau, where flower beds sprawl around this time of the year. It was beautiful, but I guess we missed the main season by a week or two. Our next stop was the lake. But first things first. Here's something we encountered on our way


The rain was falling, but on a very small portion of the water, just like they show in cartoons. And one could discern the moving shadow of the clouds on water. I think something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
We reached the lake in the evening. Here it is


Some of the group went swimming, but I did not want to, so went for a walk instead. We discovered another hidden beautiful spot

Now it was about sunset. So we decided to leave. We were to stay at Mahabaleshwar for the night. Thanks to C for making the arrangements. Here's a snap of the place.

We actually did not stay at one of the building in the snap, but in one to which the road leads. It was way better than I had expected. We had our dinner at Swad, which is famous for it's chicken. The plan was to do some tp in the evening. We gathered in a room, and within 15 minutes, most of the group was asleep :).

We woke up early next morning. Here's wonderful snap of a cobweb MD clicked.


Our original plan was to go watching the points in Mahabaleshwar. Instead, we decided to go to Pratapgad. I had visited it in a school trip in my sixth standard, but remembered very little. After a journey that did not go too well for me, thanks to the overdose of tea (5 cups) and breakfast I had had in the morning, we reached Pratapgad. Mist was everywhere. Here's a snap taken from the payatha.



And here's an attempt on beta's life (in the middle), by crushing him between two buruj. But he survived. You'll find out why in the snap after this.

Insan aur Shaktimaan

Dono milke Duniya bacha rahe hai

And may I add, Bwa ha ha :p

Here's me staring into the mist.

This was also the spot where I received my acid burns. Some plants here have white stringlike formations on their leaves and I accidentally brushed my hand against one. It burned like anything for the next five minutes, and marks could be seen for some time. As I kept saying the whole day, Evolution rocks!!

We continued our climb and we're halfway through when we encountered this handicraft shop. My initial reaction was to skip it entirely, but later we decided make a quick run. And, and, we spent almost an hour there. No doubt the objects were very attractive. All made from wood. Bought a model aeroplane, among other things, which I again convinced me that I am turning into have turned into a shopoholic. And we decided to skip the remaining climb when we got out. This small incident made our true motives (shopping) clear to us :p.

We wanted to start the descent asap, but heavy rains intervened. We found shelter in a tapari nearby. I'll let the pictures talk for themselves as for what we did for timepass there.

This
and this


Here are some more snaps from Pratapgad. This one is called idhar udhar dekho, idhar udhar :p


And here's me sitting on a three hundred year old sofa.

On our journey back to Mahabaleshwar, we found this beautiful zarna.

Next on our plan was boating at Venna lake. Here it is

We don't have any snaps of the boating as it was raining heavily. But we did spend quite a good amount of time after boating discussing whether we were kutte jaise bheege or a bheegi billi. :p And the bhutta was fundoo.

We soon started our journey back to Pune. But one cannot leave Mahabaleshwar without visiting Bagicha, famous for its strawberry-cream shakes.


Reached Pune by 9:30.

There are many more snaps and more stories, but I think I'll stop here. Thank you guys for the awesome time. (And special thanks to Lalit for paying all the bills. Ye ahsaan mai zindagi bhar nai bhulunga :p.) To use words of a member of the group, this was a weekend spent as it ought to be spent. I totally agree.

Enjoy!!

Update:
I jumbled the chronological order. We went to Waterfall before Sajjangad. Thou shalt not write in sleep. :p Thanks to C for pointing out the error.

Mavalsrushti

Just returned from a fun filled trip to 'Mavalsrushti', about an hour's drive from Pune. This was a team outing, and I am always a bit sceptical of such corporate sounding terms, team outings involving team building activities. Am I glad my scepticism was unfounded? The trip turned out be immensely fun filled, and a great refresher.

We were to report at office at 7:30AM, from where a bus was arranged to pick us up. I made it on the exact right time, only to find only one soul already there. A bit later one more soul appeared, and that was all for a seemingly long interval of time. There were chats, as usual, and I utilized the time by calling a few friends and informing them that "everybody's here, just waiting for you, so make haste".

The journey began at about 8:15AM, and the bus was quite full as almost everyone I knew from office was coming. The journey was overfull with jokes, on anything and everything (and some even not suitable for public listening ;-). The road is a zig zag, so the bags kept falling down (the word was 'saamaan', and it was probably the most fertile source for jokes). We reached probably by 9:30AM. A nashta of garma-garam upma and pohe was waiting for us. And then gavati chaha. Pure Bliss..

After the khana-peena, we started wandering. There was a waterfall on the map which was to be our first destination. We eventually did find it. Playing in water (any kind) is an activity which will never lose it's appeal to me. Sitting under the powerful current of water, where you barely can keep your eyes open.. Feels awesome. This was accompanied by slips, falls, photos and a lot of jokes. Later we started our upward journey (the path to the waterfall is a descent), where we discovered this swimming pool. The water was not too good, but not too bad either. And the enthusiasm was overflowing. There were races (running and swimming. yes running, the pool was quite shallow), throwing people into the pool (one of my favorite activity. But let me also tell you that I was thrown as well), and later frisbee and volleyball. Reminded me of the cherished Konkan trip.

This continued till the lunch time. I was literally shaking from chill when I came out (discovered this when I noticed the cup of tea in my hand was almost spilling). The two (or probably three) cups of tea saved me. We returned for lunch, but I ate very little, feeling not very hungry. After lunch, there was gapshap, but I, with a few others, soon found ourselves out for a walk. A new round of photographs, bamboo fights and of course jokes followed. We returned for tea and soon began our return journey. I spent the time in a half sleep mode.

'Mavalsrushti' is a good place for a one day trip. I don't think any photos have been uploaded as of now, but they'll appear soon. Also you might spot some mistakes or even gaps in the temporal flow, because to be honest, my brain is not at its optimal at this point in time, but I wanted to write when all the fun and memories were still fresh.

Enjoy!!

Unplanned Fun

Friday evening: Rains, tea, gupshup. Somebody says movie. Rest consider. Rabbitt pulls out his ever useful N95 with the ever useful GPRS. No useful results. Junta bashes the poor fella. Then a call to DialM, some results, but not the times we want. Shows at 9PM or so are rejected on the ground that they are late. Then is chosen a show at 10:45. We really, really want to watch a movie!

The chosen one (movie) is 'Transformers 2'. One thing, you need not have watched the first one to watch this. The reason is simple, the story is a big big patchwork. Some jokes are good, others are directly imported from B-grade bollywood flicks. There are also some, sorry to say this, almost pathetic attempts to appeal to such noble feelings as patriotism, companionship and love, which more or less completely fail to have any effect whatsoever. But, but, my friend, do not give up. There is one thing that makes this movie a must watch and that on a big screen. You know what. The special effects. Awesome is an understatement! Especially the scenes towards the end in Egypt. Do not miss!

I reach home at about 2AM. I have only one plan for the weekend, sleep, sleep and then sleep some more. A call wakes me up. The clock says 10AM. I pick it up and for the next 2 minutes not a word spoken enters my brain. Nor do I understand who it is. Thankfully the voice persists. After the 2 minute boot, the voice says something about Sinhgad. The number says C, the voice is unknown and talk of Sinhgad all convince me that I am in a dream. I am about to doze off when the voice identifies itself, it's V and there really is a Sinhgad plan in progress. The voice asks me to inform MD. I dutifully call, and MD's sleepy voice again convinces me that I am spending my Saturday lazying around in my room. I laugh my evil laugh on the poor souls who get up early on saturdays and plan things. But only some time later I am infotrmed that the plan has been finalized.

We start at around 12 in MD's car. First destination is the chai-tapari near office that was only recently discovered (Thanks to C). The journey was fun filled, and the roads were filled too. Our first stop (second, if you count the first tea-stop) was a beautiful valley on our way up. We spotted a distant peak, and could not resist climbing. Take a look

Now climbing might be an overstatement, but we reached the top. The view from there was just breathtaking. Many snaps were clicked. See some towards the end. We continued our journey. Being weekend, the parking space was overflowing and administration is totally lacklustre. We continued our journey on foot from that point on. The scenery is uniformaly awesome, so I'll mark the milestones based on what we had. First a malai kulfi. A few steps and it was kharawlelya shenga. Some more steps and a fundoo lunch of pithala bhakar, taak and bhaji. After the lunch, we started our journey back. Worth mentioning is the chai at a tapari on our way down. Reached Pune by 7, where the journey ended with a malai kulfi. An apt, sweet end!

A few snaps: All were clicked on mobile cameras.

(Zindagi. Ulta Latko :p)

Totally unplanned and totally fundoo weekend..