Biking & Trekking : Sinhagad

Right after the previous trip to Bhandardara, we had decided to go on another such expedition soon. Pratul, Lolo and I decided to extend it to two days as the previous trips had made our return rather cumbersome. This Saturday it was Sinhagad, a fortress strategically located at the center of a string of other forts during the maratha rule. One of the most famous battles for Sinhagad was fought to recapture the fort by Tanaji Malusare, a general of Shivaji Maharaj in March 1670. Its 35kms off Pune and we decide to stay a night in Pune at our friends's places.

Deovrat was kind enough to lend his Unicorn to Pratul once again and we picked his bike up from his residence in Thane on Friday night. Deovrat was suspecting a puncture in his bike and had intimated us to get that fixed before we start. We found the bike to be ok, with only slight lesser air than normal. Since it was getting late that night, we turned lazy and decided to go ahead without checking it. This time Baba joined us instead of Bittu, who had gone to his home. We finalised our destination and maps to the place as usual and decided to pack up in the morning when we get up at 4:00 AM.

An unexpected start

We got up at 4:45 and finished packing by 5:30 and went down to start. A really hilarious thing happened here. There was someone cleaning the car, whom all of us started staring in an awe from far. She was wearing a rather small skirt with absolutely fair pair of legs :). I looked up to Pratul, who was too busy staring the chick. And right then, when we all would have been grateful for such a great start to the day, we found out that SHE was a GUY !!! It was a middle-aged person in his shorts cleaning up his car. All of us were so full of laughter when we left the building and headed for the call center for our first chai.

Barely 5 minutes after we started, I got a call from Pratul who was left behind. The bike had a puncture :(, Deovrat was right !!! Now where to find a puncture repair shop in the morning at 5:30. We asked some people and headed for Sakinaka to find a shop. To our fortune, there was a shop open. I filled up my pulsar and we had our chai here while the bike was getting fixed. By now, the dawn had broken and I was getting wary of being late and caught up in the city traffic. We finally started the journey at 6:15 AM from Sakinaka. Amidst the city roads, I was trying to find the Eastern Express Highway. After a bit of getting lost and a mix-up, we were on our track and cruised ahead towards Panvel via Chembur. It was my first time in Chembur, and I found the place to be quite beautiful with clouds surrounding the tip of the peaks in the area. I wanted to capture one of them, but we carried on as it was already late. I was ahead on the Pulsar with Lolo as my pillion and Pratul & Baba on the Unicorn.

Panvel-Lonavla-Pune

We kept it pretty slow as the road was quite slippery from the showers the previous night. As we crossed Vashi on the highway, the peaks were all surrounded by clouds and it was overcast thoughout. We all knew that rains would welcome us for sure at some point or the other. We too were prepared accordingly as I had asked Baba to manage 4 raincoats for all of us. We reached Panvel at around 7:30 and decided to halt for a breakfast and chai.

Another funny thing happened here. While we were having the ommelette and sipping the tea, Lolo took quite long for taking a leak. Turns out he went to a wrong place and had to pay Rs3/- for the same. So he decided to "make the best use" of his money and use all the facilities that the place could offer :D.

Lolo (given the kameena he is), took over the Pulsar from me after I had driven through the city traffic. We carried ahead and took NH-4 as bikes are not allowed on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Anyway, the NH-4 is a better treat for eye for the bikers if you're a serious one. The Sahyadri peaks started greeting us one by one, many surrounded in clouds. It wasn't raining in this part, nor the roads were wet, so Lolo revved up the Pulsar and cut it loose. As exited I was seeing the curvy roads and the peaks, I was a bit pissed at Lolo for taking away the fun of driving at this road from me. So it was me and the camera now and started scanning the landscape.

We stopped and went off the NH-4 before Khopoli to capture the view of a peak amidst the clouds that I saw from far away. Apart from the peak, there was another view of a temple that caught my eye. We moved on and soon we were climbing the Lonavla-Khandala ghats. The roads were a treat for a biker and the guys enjoyed every bit of it.

We halted at this place for a snap from where we could view Khopoli down below the valley. I captured an MSRTC bus over one of the ghat's curve.

Soon after we drove ahead, the road merged into the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. I was not sure to go on, but Lolo knew that this portion was common for ALL vehicles. So we carried ahead till Lonavla on the expressway at a greater speed.

The ghat here was all surrounded in the clouds and the visibility was low. I captured one snap of the foggy road here of the road from the moving bike as its not allowed to halt on the expressway. Another one was this great waterfall that I saw across the mountain were on. I captured the view while moving, but could have surely managed to take a better one had we halted.

Shortly after this, we took the exit leading into Lonavala city and kept moving without halting as we wanted to reach Pune early. The climate was quite cool with overcast all over and we were lucky not to encounter any rains except for slight drizzling showers for 2-3kms.

We reached the outskirts of Pune where I had a plan to meet up with Gopal in Wakad, which was on the way if we carried on NH-4 (which actually leads ahead to Bangalore, skipping Pune city aside.) He we had a mix-up in finding our way here. We moved towards Pune via Chinchwad skipping a road which Lolo thought was the entry to the Expressway(which was infact the NH-4). After moving quite a while, Gopal called me up and asked for y location. He informed me that I was on the wrong way and had gone quite long on that one. I took over the bike from Lolo and we went through the interior of the city asking here and there for our way to Wakad . This cost us an additional 45 minutes or so. We halted for some tea and meanwhile Pratul called up Murarka to meet up. Pratul and Baba were to stay in the night at Murarka's flat where I and Lolo had planned to stay at Gopal's. Murarka had initially planned for a 2-day trip to Alibaug with his flatmates starting the same day. So we went to see his flat and get the keys so that we could stay over.

Approach to Sinhagad

Around 11:45, after getting the directions from Gopal, we set out for Sinhagad via Khadakvasla where prestigious NDA is located. The NDA sure is located in a great scenic place (well so is IMA Dehradun), with the Khadakvasla dam nearby.

I captured a picture of the dam and could see the maroon colored NDA Main building far away across the dam. There were lots of people and specially couples by the dam and the smell of roasted corn was just amazing as we passed by. We carried on without much halt as it was already late. The Sinhagad fort was 12kms from here, and we could see a high peak surrounded by dense clouds which we thought was our destination.

We got off the road by 200mts to capture this first view of the fort. We halted for some snacks as it was lunch time already and we were a bit hungry. All of us were clear to not to stuff up our stomachs full from the previous "puking experience" at Mt. Kalsubai. After asking the locals, we found out that we could either take the bike way up to the fort or we could park them at Paytha village and trek up. Given the time we had, we decided to trek up. We reached Paytha,parked our vehicles and filled up our supplies : Water, Five starts, Perks, Kit-Kats and Lolo's Thums up.

I captured ourselves before the trek started and a small village farm which was just beautiful. After all this drama, we commenced our trek up at 1:45 PM.

L to R: Baba, Pratul & Lolo

Trek to Sinhagad fort

The trek was quite easy initially, rather it was just a moderate walk uphill. I and Pratul knew that it would surely not be as physically demanding as Mt. Kalsubai which we scaled 2 weeks ago. There were quite a number of people moving up : families, kids, couples. An initial easy walk led us to this flat space where we saw these kids playing cricket.

We moved on and now the terrain started becoming moderately difficult. We found that there were multiple ways to go up and decided to take steeper ones to have some challenge and reach there soon. I captured ourselves at one such place and the view of the adjoining hill. We kept on moving the increasingly steeper terrains, no one really needed a break. The guys kept energizing by Perks and Five-stars and Thums-up.

One hilarious incident took place here. I dont know what that Thums-up did to one guy amongst us, or was it the sheer beauty of the nature that came across, he asked to halt and wanted to take a dump !!! Rest of us were laughing ourselves off while the guy took the mineral water and went aside. I put my camera to action and captured him duking (name withheld on Lolo's request). I wanted to display the image here but someone in the group later requested me to keep the blog clean so that he could show the blog to someone else :).

All of us had a good break here. I kept on clicking the valley and hills to my either side suspecting that I wont be able to do it from the top as it was highly dense up there. We could not see the fort from below yet.

Lolo took a break here as his shoe's sole kept bothering him. He opened up his bag for the fevicol he carried (among "other" things that he always does, should the time come) but it was finished. We climbed up and reached a hut where this old man was selling taak (butter milk) and Nimbupaani. None of us wanted to drink the nimbupaani naturally. I asked for a rope from the old man to tie-up his shoe sole before having a glass of taak.

We captured the kids with him as well. Pratul just loves kids !!! He gave them HIS kit-kat and we moved ahead. Pratul managed to get in touch with a climbing family and was specially seen "bonding" with their small kids while climbing up. At some places he even lifted them up while they wanted to climb themselves :).

Moving ahead I clicked some mesmerizing views of the valley and the hills.

Another notable ones were a snail Pratul found out and a wild flower.

We were still some way ahead to go and the fort was still not visible due to clouds.

Finally we entered in the clouds from where I saw a hazy view of the valley and decided to click it. It was only here that we started getting wet, else the rain gods had spared us almost all the day.

The passers by told us that it was just a couple of minutes away and we continued to finish-off the rest of the climb soon. Just before reaching the fort, I clicked these last steps to be taken up which most of us covered running. We were at the fort exactly at 3:15 PM.

L to R: Lolo, Baba & Me.

The Fort

As I told earlier, the trek was not ardous as the one at Mt. Kalsubai, yet we were glad that all of us made it. At the entrance there were lot of people which I was not happy to see as I wanted my pics to have least no. of people. Up there, we were in dense clouds with low visibility of almost 30mts. We were encountering a chilly feeling owing to the cloudy drizzle and moderate winds. We could not see the valley or the landscape below as I had suspected.

I covered the fort entrance with least no. of people I could manage & ourselves at a place.

L to R: Me, Pratul, Baba & Lolo.

Further up, I clicked some of the fort views with almost no people and the guys by a narrow stream of water.

We wandered the fort randomly and due to the clouds we could not have a look to figure out as to how the fort was strategically located or its layout. By now, the water droplets on my camera lens started bothering me. I just hoped I could capture the already partially visible views decently. It was here that I thought that may be we were better off with some lesser no. of clouds.
I captured lots and lots of views of the fort, a couple of which are these.

We came to this open space further up, where we halted finally for some rest. I captured this place and the view of a pool below.

Some more excellent views that caught me were these. At this open space I set my camera timer and asked the guys to jump at best as they could at my count. They did almost perfect in the first click :)

L to R: Lolo, Baba, Pratul & Me.

We were getting chilly to the bone and we desparately wanted some tea now. We sat at this place at the edge of a cliff with our feet hanging down. I covered the adjoining views again. We sat up there chatting for a couple of while and wished if we could see the view of the valley below.

The Trek back

By now it was getting late and we decided to get back.

I captured us at a place and couple of more views of the fort. We stopped by this place for corn and mangoes before starting the descend down at exactly 5:00 PM. The climb down took longer than expected, with us being careful at the slippery terrain due to the rains. I captured just one view on the way bach which I had in mind that I had missed. I had captured most of the views on the way up. My nail was bothering me a lot while I was getting down. Its always strongly recommended to get your nails cut before any such trek. It sometime causes a blinding pain should your shoe be inappropriately fit. We tried to take less steeper descends due to the slippery area and kept on moving without any break.

We were finally down at exactly 6:10 PM, it definitely was a longer time than our previous descend. We rested at the place where we had kept our bikes. We had had a lighter meal at lunchtime, naturally we were hungry. We had some ommelettes and special tea. Lolo refuelled himself up with his Thums up again. We sat there chatting for some time and looking up the pics that we had taken. This last rest after is always the most satisfying one where you are relaxed, both physically and mentally. The feeling was just awesome. As we prepared to get back to Pune, the clouds had descended down and we saw a heavy drizzle with chilly breeze. It was time to put our raincoats on and we cruised back with moderate speed and glancing back the peak that we had just scaled.

We still could not see it and it was just amazing as ever :)

We reached back to Pune by 8:00 PM and the next day headed for Lavasa (details to be posted soon)

A biking trip to Bhandardara

Yet another weekend and got nothing to do. So thought of another biking trip, and may be this time something more than that. My usual accomplice was Pratul who suggeested we go to this place called Bhandardara, 180 kms North East of Mumbai in Ahmednagar district. Apparently this place had Maharashtra's highest peak called Mt. Kalsubai (5400 ft) amongst other attractions as Wilson dam, Ratangarh Fort, Randha Falls, Kokankhara etc. Bittu was available for the weekend making the count to 3. Pratul had managed to get a Unicorn from somewhere and I needed a pillion rider. I gave a call to Lolo and he was in. We gathered at Pratul's house in Powai 11 PM on Saturday, played Poker for sometime and decided our trip plan as we usually do. We managed to catch some sleep for 2 hours before starting the proceedings at 4:00 AM on Sunday.

The Journey begins.

After a bit of packing up, we went to the call centre nearby our place for morning chai where I caught up some of my IITK seniors. After a brief chat with them, we were off on our way at 5:00 AM as I glanced at my watch. Pratul asked me to lead as he did not know the way to NH-3. My Pulsar had Lolo on my back and Pratul had Bittu on his Unicorn. The initial ride was piece of cake with almost no traffic in the morning, we managed to cross Thane from Powai in just 20 minutes (Imagine doing that in rush hours here). I was a bit concerned for Pratul initially as I was not sure if he'd manage properly on the highway with the ravishing truck traffic. Earlier, he had given me a hand on the bike in the Mahabaleshwar biking trip, but not in busy traffic and ghats. But gradually I saw that he managed it quite well, so we had 3 experienced drivers for the 2 bikes including me, Lolo and Pratul. The only concern was to stay on the way which only I knew, so I was keeping it slow. Also the glare from the trucks coming from the opposite direction usually challenged me, with my bike's headlights being misaligned added to the trouble.

It did not last for long as the day broke at around 5:45 AM, that made me take liberty on revving up my Pulsar. I had thought of a nice place, a restaurent where we'd have our first break, to watch the morning sunrise between two electricity towers. It was a great sight to watch when I had seen that for the first time and thought of showing that to these guys. Turned out that we crossed that place quite early in morning while it was still some time to sunrise. We stopped in hope of petrol for the Unicorn, it was yet some time for the sunrise and it seemed cloudy. I decided to not to wait for the sunrise and carry on ahead : this time with greater speed, 90-100kmph.

As we were approaching near Kasara, a small temple caught my eye by the roadside and I decided to shoot it closely, making that as our first official stop. I was a very simple place with no glory or fame attached to it, with the railway track to Mumbai close by. I clicked the temple and ourselves as usual. I saw a train to Mumbai passing by near Mumbai, and decided to click it. Unfortunately my camera settings ditched me and by the time I could re-adjust the shutter speed, the train was gone :(. Soon we encountered the Kasara ghat, which is a beautiful place to drive for bikers with the scenic landscape around. Unfortunately, I could not click any pics there as it was a high traffic zone with almost no parking space on the ghat and we were in a hurry to reach our destination.

We carried on ahead and the day was quiet cloudy, which gave me high hopes of rain and the clouds descending quite low near the peaks which would be a awesome site to capture. We crossed Igatpuri and reached Ghoti village at around 8:00 AM for the breakfast. It was from here that we started venturing into the interior. Pratul went to fill up as we did not know if we'd have any more petrol pumps ahead. I asked Lolo to replace Pratul on the Unicorn and give him some rest. Lolo, the usual harami he is, asked for my Pulsar to drive, and I complied as usual and took up the Unicorn with Bittu on my back. It was my first stint at Unicorn and I found the baby to be just fine, with driver comfort and maneuverability better than Pulsar for sure.

Shendi village & its approach

The hills welcomed us just after 15 minutes and there was this great first view of the hills that I managed to capture. The first looks are always an indication of what are you into and I was damn excited that this trip is surely going to be worth the pain taken. As the curves started coming along, my excitement overcame the fatigue that I was beginning the encounter. Although, there was one thing that was bothering me, the place was not as green as I had thought it would be. It immediately occured to me that may be we were a bit early as monsoon had not hit this area. (So if someone finds a hint of editing in my photos here, you are right). I was constantly looking for the highest peak which we had decided to scale today and there were two of them. It was the one to my right which was the Mt. Kalsubai, which we did not know yet and its base village was on our approach to Bhandardara.

We decided to carry on to the village Shendi and then decide our course of plan. We reached Shendi by 9:00 AM and while we decided the plan ahead as we sipped some more tea. The village was a quite humble place and I could figure out the usual stuff that goes on with day break in the village. I managed to get two captures of the life at this place. One was two chaps with wassup, and another was a cute kid voraciously trying to repair a bicycle. Till now we had decided our plan and scheduled our places to visit. Our first sight was Wilson dam which unleashed the Prawara river and had a garden at its base which was just an amazing treat to the eye. Pratul and Bittu desparately wanted to bathe in the river and we decided to do that later on. We all had an idea that the trek might take long time and we had to return back to Mumbai by the same night.

Wilson Dam, Bhandardara Garden

Bhandardara Garden was popularly just known as Garden amongst the localites and was just at the base of the dam where the gates were usually opened up for Prawara river. We wanted to see those gates from close quarters, however we were not allowed beyond a certain point due to safety reasons. From here we set off to our next destination, Randha Falls which was 12 km from this place.

Randha Falls, Prawara River

After a brief ride and mix-up in finding our way to the Randha falls, we managed to reach there and it was here that I finally realized my suspicion to be true. We were a month early to visit this place, a localite told me that the falls usually has larger amount of water. Yet the Prawara river was kind to us, so that we could atleast see a fall. It was a small fall where the river fell some 50 odd meters down the hill. I wasn't particularly excited to see this, as we had Kokankhara falls in our agenda as well, which is supposedly India's 3rd largest waterfall as the literature says. A place nearby had some significance in terms of hydro-electric power generation which we didn't visit. Yet I ventured to cross the railing and capture the falls from close, but again was stopped by the security guys over there.

Ratangad Fort, Ratanwaadi, Amruteshwar Temple

We set off for Ratangad fort, which was 25 kms from Randha Falls and further interior in the hills. Apparently as per literature, Ratangad was one of the favourites of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. He used to visit this place quite often to "chill out" when he was free. As we progressed on our way, the terrain became tougher. I started thinking how Shivaji Maharaj's forts were all placed so strategically. If you visit his main fort at Sinhgad, you'll come to know immediately what a smart ass he really was to build up that fort up there. Never could anyone attack on these forts with ease.

On our way I captured couple of serene views that came across. Life surely is peaceful here with scarce population people having small farms and their huts right here. It was here on the way that my pulsar slipped while negotiating a turn, luckily I controlled the bike. I was hoping our bikes sustain this terrain, a puncture was the last thing I wanted in this region.

After some 45 odd minutes of careful driving, we managed to reach Ratanwadi village from where we could go up to the fort. I checked with localites who told me that we were supposed to keep the bikes in the village and trek up to the fort which was a total of 4-hour expedition. A localite offered to accompany us up there which they usually used to do. We kept looking up, but could not see a hint of fort up the hills. After a brief discussion we decided to drop the idea of going up the fort as Mt. Kalsubai was a higher peak and we did not want to miss it. So we just visited Amruteshwar temple in Ratanwadi and had a brief break of 15-20 mins and set back for Shendi. It was lunch time already and all of us were hungry, plus we wanted to start the trek soon so that we could get back to Mumbai by night. Plus, the time it would have taken us to climb Ratangad was enough to give us the idea that Mt. Kalsubai would take even more time. On my way back, a farly large snake crossed my bike. I managed to brake quite early as I'm scared from snakes. Phew ! that was a close one ! Here's my deal with snakes: No matter which snake you see, you always think its a poisonous one, when actually quite a few of the poor species are so. We continued back to Shendi and the ladies of the village were screaming badly when they saw Lolo on my back seat. The rascal must have had something to do with them as its his usual deal with the fairer sex. On my enquiry, he denied all the allegations as his usual custom.

Just 7 kms off Shendi, we saw Prawara river's approach to the Wilson dam. The place was about 200m off the main road and we decided to stop and have a walk to look. The water level was quiet low as rains had not hit yet. Any other day in the monsoon, we would have been submerged in water where we were standing and capturing the place. Yet it was a treat to the eye, with natural breeze flowing around.

We all were getting hungrier, and hence could not stay longer there. We reached Shendi for lunch, a bit disappointed on not making it to the fort, we thought we wasted 2 hours. Meanwhile I kept on enquiring with different people about the trek for Mt. Kalsubai. All of them had different versions to say:" You start at 6 AM and you'll be back by 7 PM", "It takes 3.5 hours to climb", "To and fro will take you 4 hours" and so on. Despite all the uncertainity that prevailed, and after a rather heavy lunch and a chai we set off for the village which was the base for the trek at around 1:30 PM.

Mt. Kalsubai (5400 ft) Trek

We reached the base village shortly which was just 8kms off Shendi. I had earlier thought that we should have probably done the trek in the morning while it was colder and we were at best of our strengths. Also, I realized that ideally this place deserves 2 days to visit. There was no way that we could have visited the Ratangad fort and Kalsubai all in one day. I and Lolo were almost sure that we wont be able to see Kokankhara Falls anymore. "This trek better be worth it," I thought. We reached the village and met a guy who offered to keep our bikes and bags while we went up. I agreed to the bike, but insisted we keep bags with us as I did not trust him. A small kid offered to take us up there and said the climb up would take 2.5 hrs if we went faster.

We set off finally at 2:00 PM to scale the summit, after having another chai from the guy who kept our bikes. The small kid and his pet bitch accompanied us to this venture. There were some farms at the base and it was a great sight to watch. I glanced the peak from its base and man it was mighty. I wondered if really the kid take us up there in 2.5 hrs as it seemed impossible to me.

The initial trek was moderate before a bit steeper terrain came across. Bittu was the first to take a break, after a bit of pumping he was up on his feet again and we reached a temple called Kalsubai temple at moderate height. We took a stop for like 10 minutes after visiting the temple and some guy there asked if we'd like to have Nimbupaani (Bad decision as it turned out later on).

We set off from here and the terrain now started becoming a bit challenging. Pratul had taken his shirt off by now and we all had a share of the nimbupaani that the guy gave us.

It was Lolo and Bittu who stopped twice this time. We had to stop in between for the guys to get their breathing back to normal. My heartbeat was fast too, but I was sure I could manage some more distance. I really was not able to figure out why Lolo felt so tired. Finally we reached a hut, where this lady was selling Nimbupaani again. We took a stop here for some and by now we realised that this Nimbupaani shit was doing that damage. It made the throat to dry up and we just had a heavy lunch. While we rested here, the people who were coming back told us that the real trek was to start from here and it would take 4 more hours to climb. I was surprised to hear that still I there's a different version. The kid said we'd be on the top in another 1.5 hrs ! After some 15 minutes, we decided to go ahead but Lolo and Bittu did not want to go further. We egged both of them, but to no avail. Finally I and Pratul offloaded the bags with them and just carried up some water and my camera up. It was from here that the terrain started testing us. My usual motivation in keeping up with this is to think about the guys back in the Kargil war who laid their lives on a much steeper terrain. It helped to some extent, yet I kept on taking breaks. My back was aching badly as climb up needed us to stay bent forward for a long time. Breathe was not the issue with me atleast. Pratul pumped me up here to carry on. I was suprised to see how the kid was leading us with so ease. Never did he himself ask for a break. He just went on and on. Shortly, Pratul took a small break and said he wanted to vomit. Certainly it was the heavy lunch that we had had and the nimbupaani fucking around with him. He said he felt much better, and said lets go on.

Now here's the funny part, I had a good enough break when he vomited and was ready to go ahead. I had barely climbed 5 steps up and I suddenly stopped, It was now my turn to vomit !!! The funny part is, I had not expected this. Within a minute all my Paneer came out, and I went way more than Pratul to empty totally my stomach. There was our lesson : "For a trek, DO NOT EAT HEAVILY ! And for sure dont drink that Nimbupaani shit."

It sure felt better after that, though I don't know what happened just later, I started losing my breathe. Every step here on seemed like an ardous task and I simply kept on panting badly. It took a break or a two, but no help. It was here that I started contemplating going back but Pratul insisted. Had it not been for Pratul here, I would never have made it further. Finally we reached a flat area where we met a couple of guys returning. Upon enquiry, they told us to hurry up if wanted to get back before nightfall.

Upto here, there were concrete and stone stairs made up, but now the gradient was almost 70-80 degrees in most of the portion. So there were these steel stairs starting up now. We started negotiating the terrain, but it just became tougher and tougher and tested ours wills. Every step seemed like a real herculian task. Before the start up the stairs, we took a stop. I asked the kid in detail about the layout above. He said there were 3 points up. The 1st was close, 100 steps he said. We started climbing the increasingly harden terrain. Pratul was using a stick for support, while I sometimes used my hands on the railing to pull me up.

While clmbing up, I saw the adjoining cliff and captured it. I was just beautiful, by now we had reached at top of any other peak but Mt. Kalsubai. And we kept on going, only to find that there was more and more ! It was heartening to see now that my breathe was back and I slowly was getting more and more confident that I WILL make it to the top. We reached the top of the first point and I asked the kid about the second point, he said it was another 200 steps and the third one was 1500 more steps from there. By now I had come to realize that this kid did not know much about the peak. Amidst the confusion and fatigue, I decided to set a time limit. We decided to keep on climbing till it was 4:00 PM and then no matter what, we'd return. Off we went without wasting any time. By now, Pratul had been panting and he took a couple of breaks in short span of time. It was my turn to egg him up now. Suprisingly, the last part of this trek which happened to be the most challenging did not bother me much. I dont know what it was, I almost ran my last steps up and soon I was at the top and Pratul followed shortly. At this time, I found that we were right in setting the time limit to 4:00 PM. We reached the 2nd top at 3:55 or so and to my surprise, the 3rd top was way too far. The kid said it will take another 1.5 hours to reach up there, we were already climbing for almost 2 hrs now. No way we could have gone up and come back before nightfall. Our bottomline was to reach Mumbai the same night, so it seemed fair to decide against going ahead.

The view atop was simply mesmerizing ! All the hardship that we took to see this great view seemed well worth it. The trek had damn near wasted me, but all that had withered away in a flash of a second. It felt like victory up there, with the breeze blowing past us and all the landscape below. None of us had words for it. We captured ourselves with the bitch that accompanied us all the way up and screamed below for Bittu and Lolo (later we found out that they heard us!) I almost lost my DSLR camera here when I was clicking both of us and the camera stumbled from the railing. Pratul screamed and in a flash I grabbed the strap of the falling camera. A close shave it was ! Luckily, nothing happened to the camera. We wanted to stay longer, but time was something that we did not have. I thought we should have spared another day for this place so that we could have scaled the 3rd top as well and it would have been great if we carried tenting material and camped up here on the summit. That would just have been awesome ! We decided to return in a hurry and soon reached back to the place where we had left Bittu and Lolo. Lolo was sleeping :). We soon returned in a hurry to the base village at 5:30 PM. We washed up our faces and had some chai which the guy made for us. We paid the guy and the kid and bought a pack of Parle-G for the bitch :).

As we left the village, I gazed back at the cliff. It seemed just great to see that we had scaled it just an hour ago. And we sure were lucky now, as I saw dense clouds surrounding the cliff. It could have been dangerous if we stayed up there for longer time, yet it was beautuiful from down here. This was a great shot to capture.

We headed back to Shendi for the bath in Prawara river for which Bittu was very keen. It was only here that I took a break from driving and asked Lolo to take over the Pulsar. At the river, the water was damn cold and all except me went in while I just dip my feet and sat out relaxing. All their fatigue seemed to have gone after the bath, may be they enjoyed a threesome in there, who knows :P.

F to B: Pratul, Bittu and Lolo

Before taking off for the long drive back to Mumbai, we had a chai again, just to combat sleep. I took the Pulsar and Pratul took the Unicorn. It was exactly 7:00 PM when we started and there was still some light. We managed to reach Ghoti and hit the highway just at nightfall at around 7:30 PM.

The journey back was tougher than I thought, with the usual glare from vehicles almost blinding me, all of my body was breaking apart and I kept on fighting the sleep. I desparately needed a stop, which came as a dinner break for us right after the Kasara ghat. Another chai after the dinner and we were on our way. But shortly, the fatigue was killing me and I was struggling hard. Somehow in between, the confidence of the trek getting done kept me going. The glare of the vehicles forced me to open up my hemet flap and soon my eyes grew red. I thought of taking another break and was looking for a suitable spot to wash off my face and kill the sleep. I thought of stopping some 30kms from Thane, which I thought would be close. Damn it was still 42kms, which means another 12kms to drive !!! Every km was seeming like too long to cover, even though we were atleast at 60kmph. Finally we stopped at a place, I thoroughly washed my face, had a stretch and set back on wheels. The outskirts of city approaching eased our struggle and we finally touched home at about 11:45 PM. We dont know when we crashed in the beds.

I wish we could see more of the places there and that too at right time. But given the time we had, I think we made the best out of it :-).

---

Sandeep.

Awake but dreaming...

The night was getting lonelier by 3:30 AM. His roomie who was still employed was deep asleep in the room gearing up for the day ahead. He, however, was not so lucky in the lay offs that took place. No work to do and all that he had is himself to decide what next. People had given him words of wisdom to take this as positively and decide what he really wanted to do. Apart from the money and may be the stature that his family enjoyed back in his small hometown due to his high pay, there was nothing much enticing in his job. Had it been for his choice, he'd certainly wont get back into this again.

Sleeping was definitely not on the agenda. Though he held records back in his college for sleeping. He could sleep no matter what, not that his intake of 5 Gold Flakes in past 4 hours helped him stay awake. After all, he got to use his roomie's company laptop only in the night when he was asleep. He'd already done all that he could muster to apply here and there with possibly not much of conviction, but just a blind shot. Apparently he was fond of the quote,"You miss hundred percent of the shots you never take." to such an extent that he even got it printed it on a t-shirt back in his college. So there was not much "productive use" for the laptop, as some workaholics may put it. TV Channels in the night again did not have much to offer either. Be it repeated news on the news channels, Non-hindi channels that not much of the people have the shittiest of idea about, or shitty Mithun-da era movies on Movie channels, or may be repeated movies on HBO, or repeated shows on MTV, or even that saas-bahu crap : He scrolled all the 100 channels in 5 minutes. But nothing. May be it was TVs own way of saying to him : "Get a life you loser !"

He' d been through all the stuff in his hard drive again and again: Movies, Seasons of South Park, Friends or whatever. He did not however touch photos of his wing back in the college days, that used to make him nostalgic at times. All that he was left with the internet to browse through. He was thinking as to what to choose, and then smiled himself. "As though you could make that decision, you silly." he said to himself. He knew he was not good at making choices, not that he did not make any in his life. But he hated being in that spot. He used to say," Life is always better for those who do not have a choice to make." May be he never was at the receiving end of the situation he was talking about, nevertheless, he had the liberty and he used it, more often than not. Stuck amongst these thoughts, his concentration broke with the beep of his watch. It was 4:00 AM already and it was time to rush to the chaiwaalas place near the call centre to eat his favourite dish Poha . He liked the taste of it, to a variable extent depending on how close what that place to his town, but mostly he found it good anywhere. He kept the TV open, may be it was his way to reply to the TV," Up yours!". This was now becoming his daily practice, as he used to stay up in the night quite often for applying for jobs everywhere and the poha break used to be the perfect excuse.

But this night was different, he had nothing to do but to wander amongst his driving thoughts which reminded him to do something. Do what, nobody knows, but something! While finishing off his tea and sutta in the cold, his eyes grew wide open all of a sudden. He had a flash of thought, a question that he had not dared to venture upon quite often. He tried answering it many a times back in his college days, but failed to. May be this was the reason that he had given up answering it. The question was: "What does your heart want?" So general and open ended. Needless to say, it had choices to be made and he never wanted to make a choice. He just wanted to be a part of the flow, yet wanted to be who had achieved great heights in life. Within a flash of a second, he knew his dream for long was to join the army. The honour and pride that follows with the profession, the life-long adventure and the love for the uniform: What not it had to offer ? It was worth the hardships that one came across. Dying on the border or war was however not on what he had considered. He thought, "Everyone dies, its just a matter of how and when. If its written that way, so be it." and then remembering it as one of the dialogues of one of the enormous war movies he had seen. He knew he did not have to make a choice, he had to just follow orders there. Not to make a choice : Bingo ! It had everything he wanted. He rushed back to his flat in haste, with only one thought in his head. He went over the website to find out how he could apply, he knew those inadvertently as he used to do that quite often. He knew he could do it !

By the time dawn came near, he had seen the war movies he had: Lakshya and LOC Kargil, again for the umpteenth time now ! Dialogues of movies as Shaurya, Men of Honor, A Few good men, Full Metal jacket from youtube followed next. Posts on the net by the war veterans about the Kargil war came next. All this kept reinforcing whatever zeal that he had. And then the sun rose, with the national anthem choirs from the nearby school. He stood up in honor. He remembered that he always insisted in going to movie theatres before time just to stand in honor of the national anthem which they played before the movies in Mumbai. He repeatedly used to read the biography and related content on the Kargil war heroes, Capt. Vikram Batra, the Param-Vir-Chakra (Posthumous) being his favourite.

"Soye nahi be?"His roomie appeared all of a sudden.

"Nahi be bas aise hi time ka pata nahi chala". He tried to make an excuse.

Roomie, grabbed and lighted a Gold Flake and went to answer his nature's call as usual. He never understood this. " Was it the cigarette that triggers the switch or is it otherwise?" he thought. He knew it were the last 15 minutes of the laptop for the day. He loved making tea for him and the roomie in the morning as a daily custom, where he used to bombard his roomie with the trivia related to the army these days.

"Jaldi aa jaana be aaj, aajkal bahut late aane lage ho saale." he told his roomie who was leaving for his office as a daily custom these days. His roomie too used to nod as a custom..... and then come up with reasons for being late in the evening starting with," Bhaiyya kaa kare...."

Normally after his roomie left for office, he used to crashed in the bed. He had planned to stay awake, for he had to follow up by calling in various offices about his job opportunities. Just to stay awake, he got back to his TV, his companion for most part of the time when the laptop was not around. A couple of hours passed by in hibernation and he called up a his friend's brother who was an ex-serviceman. He talked, and talked long over the phone with him, almost for an hour, exchanging thoughts over joining the army. He was explicit over what was going through in his mind and conveyed it well. He was well aware of the pros and cons and realistic facts that existed : he being from IIT, parents factor, money factor, career progression and everything that could have possibly held him back. He knew these facts, whether he realized them for real or not, was a different story altogether. The Capt. in the end told him what he wanted to hear, that he had enough passion to join the army and should go if this is what he really wanted. He was happy, he sat back and contemplated for a while. He wanted to know if this was a mere spontaneous feeling or real passion. He dwelled in the past, he knew he never felt so strongly for something last he knew. All those times he spent searching about the army, reading about various details, he had never done that for anything. It was not that he used to get in front of a mirror and see his body build (for he was a lean guy and he knew it). It was in his mind. He knew it, it was his passion. (Or atleast close to it)

His thoughts finally broke when something broke his concentration looking at his watch. He finally remembered to make those calls in offices for the job follow up. He made a follow-up call, to a guy in the competitor company for the same work profile that he was doing before he was laid off. After he hung up, his emotion was unusual at best. He had not seen himself like that. He was too occupied to think. Occupied in what, even he wasn't aware. He just crashed into his bed. May be he was not in a position to think or he was tired since he was up for long now.

Any other day, he would have been asleep within minutes given the "sleeper" he was. Somehow this day was different. Amidst the creepy fan noise, he rose up and lighted another Gold Flake . Then various thoughts flew through his mind in discrete order: he living off with a salary which would be at best one-fifth than he was earning lately, staying at fronts with his parents being not-so-satisfied with his salary(who would always have issues with him being in the army, specially his sensitive mother), his relationship with his girl that would no longer continue for sure. Above all, he'll have to forget that he was from IIT: the only commendable achievement that he had earned, and the fact that his education will be put to use to some technical work that he'll be eventually landing into and "he would have had no choice". He did not want to be in that place. For him, joining the army meant joining the "armed forces" and doing some soldiering around. (His dream was to get into Rashtriya Rifles, the best!) But the former seemed inevitable. His cigarette was over and he went to bed, but his mind was running. May be this was what people actually meant by the word "realization".

He did not open eyes until e saw his roomie changing his office clothes.

"Kya be, saale phir late aaye tum aaj." he complained (as though he was waiting the whole day for him like a loyal housewife)

"Bhaiya kaa kare... gaadi nahi thi. Wait karte rahe hum." as the roomie explained lighting the Gold Flake.

He was indifferent, for he was used to hear this daily. So was the roomie, as he was used to speak this daily.

"Aur batao, phone be baat kiye the aaj job ke liye kisi se?" Roomie passed over the cigarette to him.

Taking a deep puff inside, and halting for a second, he said,"Haan be, Halliburton (competitor company) mein baat kiye the aaj. "

"To phir kya hua ?", roomie taking the sutta back.

He smiled ," Interview call aa gayi finally."

Roomie smiled back," Bhaiya very good , bahut acche !!!" They both knew it would be going to be easy for him to get into this company.(If everything went okay.)

He stared for a moment at his Indian Military Academy t-shirt on the hanger nearby which read on the back," If death comes to me before I prove my blood, then swear I'll kill death." and then looked for a moment at the IMA Emblem on the t-shirt.

Gazing towards his roomie for a while as he dumped the cigarette, he exhaled the last smoke he spoke," Haan be chalo sahi ho gaya, ab dekho saala sab sahi ho to jaldi se ho interview, aur jaldi se lage naukri pe. Kyu be ? Theek hai naa ?"

"Yess Yess"..... they both smiled as he gave a look at the IMA T-shirt once again.

------
Sandeep.