The Season of Reunions - "Destination Matheran"
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It was Friday, 9th June 2006. I was just entering the apartment in the evening when my phone rang, and to my surprise I was in a conference with Sheetal, Milind and Mahindra. The agenda was to plan a trip to Matheran for six of us in Mumbai (Sudeep - who had just joined IBM Mumbai after his training in Bangalore - and Vivek being the other two). We decided to gather @ Thane station at 9 AM on Sunday, 11th June. The original plan was to proceed by local train to Neral and then move ahead. But I was guilty of messing it up as I got up late (courtesy of the FIFA World Cup matches) and could only reach Thane @ about 10 o'clock. So, we ended up hiring a Sumo, which in the end proved a good choice.

Matheran is hardly 1.5 hours drive from Thane. The weather on that Sunday was quite pleasant, not too hot after the early monsoon showers . As the Sumo started going upwards on the really steep mountain roads to Matheran, we could feel the cool mountain breeze blowing. Once you reach the top the vehicles have to be parked in the parking space and then you have to either walk to the various points or hire a horse. We, of course, decided to take a walk without worrying about the number of points we visit (Though Mahindra - who was the only person among us to have visited Matheran before - was insisting on visiting some points, we knew that there was no "point" in doing that :-) ).

We started walking along the Toy Train Track - you can catch the Toy Train from Neral - which is closed now for the rainy season. The soil was moist and slippery at places due to the early monsoon showers. And Sheetal was troubled the most by it as she was in high heeled sandals! (God knows what she was thinking while leaving from home :-) ). But kudos to her for completing the trail without breaking her sandal!

We reached the Madhavrao Point (a small garden) after about 1.5 hours, including the breaks for cold drinks, nimbu paani (prepared with mineral water!) etc. Sheetal and Milind spent a few bucks to see some spots in the valley from the "Doorbin". Only the owner of that "Doorbin" knows what exactly he showed them as he was controlling the directions, nevertheless the guys seemed happy after this "sightseeing" session. We spent about 45 minutes there, had a cup of tea and left for the Khandala Point (supposedly the point from which you can see Khandala, we never got to see it!). The view of valley from this point was even more beautiful. It also provided us an oppertunity to shoot a few photos like the one below and we were caught in a passing shower also (It did not last too long :-( ).

At about 3 o'clock we left the Khandala point and started walking back towards the parking place. We took a halt @ a nice restaurant to have lunch and then bought some chikki (Matheran is famous for Chikki and Leather objects) from the market. Around 5:30 in the evening we left Matheran after what had been another wonderful outing. The day is as fresh as the Matheran air in my memories and it is going to stay that way!

The Season of Reunions!

This summer has truly been a season of reunions. I have been a part of three gatherings of TEESA friends in the past couple of months, and needless to say all three days were wonderful.

First, it was the trip to Mhaismal in Abhijeet's WagonR. Six of us, namely- Abhijeet in the driving seat, Sudeep, Anuraj, Mahindra in the luggage space (Kudos to him and Sudeep for fitting themselves there!), Mudit and I had a real good time on the warm afternoon of 15th April 2006. It brought back lots of memories from the 4 years @ GECA. This was probably the first time that even this big a group had got together. And mind you, this was a totally unplanned trip and turned out to be much better than the one we had tried to plan @ the time of Diwali in 2005.

Sudeep was enjoying his post IIM holidays, and Anuraj was going to be there for Good Friday and Easter. Mahendra, Milind and I had a long weekend. Mudit came down to Aurangabad to collect his degree certificate (which I believe, he has not received till date) and I and Sudeep called Abhijeet and persuaded him to come to Aurangabad. And there we were, on Saturday afternoon @ Sudeep's place. We decided to give a visit to the college and found the department deserted because of some seminar. So we left for Lucky, to chill off with Thanda Fresh Fruit Juice.

And I think, the juice got our brains working and we decided to head off for Mhaismal. We enjoyed the sunset there and visited the Balaji temple and chatted about everything from Prof. "Lalu" Gaikwad's style of talking and walking (demonstrated again by Mudit of course) to the Discipline Committee in college gatherings. We re-lived some of those unforgettable moments again.

On the way back, we stopped @ the Fauji Dhaba to have a dinner, for which Milind was supposed to rejoin us. Well, he did and also did Devendra and Manik, a nice surprise! Devendra had come all the way from Bangalore on a week long holiday, and decided to come down to Aurangabad to see us when Milind told him about our plan. It was time for the hostelites to dwell into the hostel days. Courtesy to the poor service @ the dhaba we enjoyed our dinner for more than 2 hours, anyways it was secondary to the talks. It was a wonderful break from the daily Mumbai routine for me, so much that after 2 and a half months I still feel as if it was yesterday!

Next was the trip to Matheran, more about it in my next post.