Memoirs of my trip to Pune and Mumbai – Mumbai Part

Once Mumbai came closer we realized that the bus would not stop at Andheri or any other place near which Jay and Jinie would be coming to pick us up. Not panic-stricken, but in a bit of hurry and some speed thinking we decided to get down at Sion and cover the rest of the distance in Mumbai Metro train. Jay and Jinan were at Kanjurmarg and they said would try to come to Sion, the time we got down was almost 12:30 AM and, taking directions, reached the Sion station. After that, we took the ticket and suddenly we found a train heading Kanjurmarg, so we asked them not to come and climbed the train. Trust Mumbai trains, completely crowded even at 12:45 AM. Jay sent us a quick map explaining the number of stations we were to wait before we were to alight. The trip was quick and it was fun, because the excitement to meet friends at long last kicked in a lot of adrenaline in the body.

The scene at Kanjurmarg when we got down was really touchy, we were hugging each other and there was pure joy on our faces. I suddenly felt the joy that a small child feels when a mother comes around to hug him. Absolute touché…

Jay, Jinie and Rathod had come to pick us up. The trip to Jay1’s house in autorickshaw was equally exciting, as I sat with Jay and talked about the good old days. Just for the record, Jay, Rathod and Sallu are roomies, but I would say it as Jay’s place. At Jay’s house, awaited another surprise, JDS had travelled half-way across the city so that we could have a night-over together. It was really awesome and tired that we were, we still sat up chitchatting till the wee-hours in the morning. This was followed by a pillow fight once the lights were switched off, before the actual sleep took over us. We were yet to make a plan for the next day. I forgot to mention, we had also checked the previous day and my return ticket moved from Waitlisted to RAC, and so I was relieved about my return part, though, frankly, none of us wanted to return back.

6th April, we woke up around 8 and then lay down still talking and resting. Taking funny pictures and stuff, and then finally it was decided that we would go to “The Village” for lunch. “The Village”, located in Raghuleela mall, is an ethnic pan Indian type restaurant located in Kandiwali area. There is one more branch in Mumbai, but we planned to visit the Kandiwali one. At around 9, we called Jimmy and “emotionally blackmailed” him for not coming to meet us. The poor guy got ready and reached Jay’s place at 10 AM to find half of us yet in our night dresses. But we still did some more pranks and fun and finally managed to start at 11 AM. Reaching the bus-stop to catch the bus, we looked at awe towards the Powai lake and the Renaissance Hotel on the opposite side of the lake. Then we caught a bus, we went through some places with real beautiful scenic beauty of R. A. Colony, which is unbelievably a part of Mumbai.
Finally, we after the bus, we walked from Kandiwali East to Kandiwali West and then this was followed by autorickshaw ride and after almost 90 minutes of travel, we reached the destination, “The Village”.
Here we were joined by Vijli first and then later by Pooja and Rahul and one more girl Sonali, who works with Rathod and Jay1 at Cognizant. The reason why Jinie chose the The Village was because it is a really-happening place. With authentic Gujarati and Punjabi food, it also has folk music, dance and all the merry stuff. Now, the funny thing about “The Village” is that they stamp our hands when we enter inside and at the end of the food-drive we went on the photography drive, flaunting those stamp impressions on our hands. I also had a great time talking to Pooja about a lot of things, and as usual, I philosophised about life. ;-)
The rest of the time, till 3:30, i.e. when The Village closes, we had a merry time. We even did the Garba, which is a Gujarati folk dance and did a lot of other pranks and photography. This was followed by singing friendship songs, running around with food, taking photographs with every possible background. Sharma, in his usual self, made a killing eating the mango ras, gulping down loads and loads of it. ;-) We also had a lot of other fun, like when we heard people dedicating songs to their relationships, we all rushed to dedicate a song to our friendship, for which we met after almost 1 year, from different cities. But the moment, we went there, we realized that we had to pay Rs. 100 to dedicate a song, and so, telling eachother jokingly, that we weren’t “that good” friends, we returned to our tables. :-)
In midst of all the confusion, Shaily called me, if it was possible to meet, and ironically, she did not know that The Village was actually a restaurant and she thought I had left Mumbai and reached some real village. :-)

I promised I would meet her, but her Granddad being in Nanavati Hospital, made her pretty immobile. She asked me if I could come to Andheri and I refused as it was not really feasible. Nevertheless, we then went to Andheri with the hope that I would meet her for some time, but she was in the ICU at the time and so could not meet that special “Virtual friend” of mine. Maybe, that is the way it was destined to be, but then, trips are made to enjoy and that is what we did. Pooja wanted to go shopping with me, so her brother (me), would sponsor her some goodies and I happily refused. ;-)
Anyways, we returned from Raghuleela Mall, again changing 2 trains and 1 bus, because we went to Andheri this time, physically drained and emotionally super-charged. Jinie had to go to office and so did Jimmy, so I bid a farewell to Jimmy, because I was going to meet Jinie at night as we were to spend that night at his place. Ashu also left for Gandhidham and so with pain in our hearts and agony in our minds, we bid farewell to one of my closest friends once again. Coming back to the trip, we went to Jay’s place and had a gala-time there, more of lying down and catching our breath back and savoring the happy moments we had in each others’ company.
In the evening, we made a trip to Hiranandani Go-Karting, where we did not take a ride, but I spent some good time talking to Sallu there about his plans for further studies and stuff. This was followed by a break in the garden nearby, the time was running out, but our talk was not. :-) But this is what makes our friendship so very special. Then we had another monstrous meal at Lakshmi Restaurant and then Jinie came to pick me up. We sat for sometime at Jay’s and then with a heavy heart, I bid farewell to those friends once again. Another bus-train-rickshaw later we reached Jinan’s place. Man, Mumbai is really a huge city and the way Jinan knows what mode of transport to select, kept me in awe..! :-)
The reception at Jinan’s place was as usual, very very homely. I met Dadi and sat for a long time with uncle and aunty. This was followed by a midnight icecream (despite my refusing 1000 times) and another discussion. My train was to start at 1:30 PM on the 7th and so I kinda finished my work and went off to sleep. The morning came fast, which was followed by a Nirma style early lunch comprising of Shrikhand and stuff. Then another autorickshaw ride followed by a trip in the Metro, from Borivali to Dadar, we reached Dadar station at 12:30, my train was scheduled to leave at 1:15. Since he had to leave for office, with a heavy heart, Jinie left me at 12:45. The train was at the right time and so my happy trip was on the verge of an end. Now there was another element of surprise here, I was to recharge my mobile, because the roaming had taken a heavy toll on my talktime and I was down to last 10 rupees. I asked Jay to recharge for me, but our GREAT Jay1, instead of recharging on AP Airtel, did the recharge on AP Vodaphone and as a result I never got the talktime. Nevertheless, I called up Aditi in Hyderabad and asked her to do the needful.

The jouney in the train was pretty decent. I had the top seat and I sat at the window remembering the wonderful time the last 2 days had been for me (probably for all of us) and then slumped into sleep after the toll taken on my body by the excitement. Well, in next early morning, I was greeted by the same old Begumpet Railway Station, where I got down at around 6 AM. Then it was pretty simple, I got home, unpacked, rested a bit and then getting ready to go back to office, thinking of all the fun we had, the happy times we spent and the sweet memories that we will always cherish in our minds and probably relive many times with this blog.

Last but not the least, I would like to end this post with a simple line, which I believe is completely true.

“All good things must come to an end, except in our memories...” :-)

And, one more philosophy for this trip, for my wonderful wonderful friends.

चलते, चलते, मेरे ये गीत याद रखना,
कभी अलविदा ना कहना, कभी अलविदा ना कहना...

Skipping the other lines to say the final point

बीच राह में दिलबर, बिछड़ जाए कहीं हम अगर,
और सूनी सी लगे तुम्हे जीवन की ये डगर,
हम लौट आयेंगे, तुम युही बुलाते रहना... :-)

Memoirs of my trip to Pune and Mumbai - Pune Part

This post contains information about my trip to Pune and Mumbai in the first weekend of April 2008. It was a 2.5 day tour and the sole intention of this tour was to meet friends, no relatives, no work, just catch up with college friends, who I was separated from geographically by physical distance, but who are still with me virtually, and will be there for me whenever I need them. I guess I can write a whole post to describe what we all mean to each other, but the blog is with a different purpose and so, cutting the philosophy aside, I would get down to business and start the description of my trip.

The blog contains a lot of nicknames, so I would clarify as to who, each one means.

Ashish Sharma - Sharma or Ashu
Jay Shah - Jay1
Jinan Shah - Jinie
Jimesh Doshi - Jimmy
Jaydeep Solanki - JDS
Vijal Shah - Vijli
Vivek Rathod - Rathod or Bachchan
Shailesh Kandula - Sallu

4th April evening, a much awaited Friday ending at the company and I had brought my luggage (just 1 carry bag) to the office and was literally counting the minutes for my 6:30 PM reporting, for the 7 PM bus. The early bird that I am, I left office at sharp 5:45 and reached Paradise area from where the bus was to start at 6. Then I moved around for time, ate some nice sundae at Dinshaw Icecream Center and awaited my call at the Travel agency desk. The carry bus arrived at 7:10 (ofcouse, things here work with IST) and started at 7:20, but the excitement of the trip was so overwhelming that nothing could have spoilt it. Then the carry bus moved through the city, passing my office at 7:45 (funny, I should have caught it from here ;-) ) and we reached the Travels bus at 8:15. Boarding the bus, I got a phone call from Rucha and Snehal, who were unsure of my trip and we decided to meet in Pune on Saturday for lunch. Then like every day I called mom and dad for a normal 5 min chit-chat, when I disconnected the phone I realized that the phone had critically low battery. I was a little scared because of the battery ran out, I would be screwed as I wouldn’t be able to contact Sharma, when I alight from the bus at Pune. I switched the phone off and silently prayed that the battery would last that phone call in the morning. But around 11, the bus came to a Restaurant for a refreshments break, and the first thing I did was find a place to recharge my phone. I couldn’t get anything Jain to eat, which was expected, and so I had a milkshake and the 15 min recharge of the cellphone gave me enough relief to relax at night. Then a lot of dilemma followed as to whether I should drop down where Devang lived or where Sharma is, and finally, it was decided that I drop down at Sharma’s stop and then we would go to Devang’s. The bus showed a Telugu movie first, which was then followed by Taal.

The morning of 5th was also evenful as I reached Pune city at 5 AM in the morning. Now, Ashu lives in Symbiosis Hall of Residence, which is like 20 km outside Pune city. The driver did not know the area and so I started my phone and kept checking the area name. Finally, my instincts helped and I suddenly asked the driver, who would have otherwise forgotten to drop me, if we were at the Wakad cross roads, and hence I could get down at the right cross roads. Reaching there, I called Ashu, who came on the bike to pick me. Now this Hall of Residence is like 3 km from the place where I was. When Ashu came, you could have seen the real joy on our faces and all he said was, Ruskin, tu finally aa gaya. :-)

The fun doesn’t stop here, this was 6:30 AM and on our way back, the bike punctured just 200 meters to the Hostel. By God’s grace, this did not happen on his way to pick me, else we would have been stranded, but, when you’re on a great tour, nothing can go wrong for long. :-) We rested a bit at Sharma's room and I met a lot of his friends including Diwakar and Ankur. A special thanks to Diwakar, for giving us his bike for the day. That reminds me, the bike got a punture, so we got the bike fixed at around 8:30, which was followed by a long trip to the well-renowned Hijewadi IT Park, the IT Complexes made by Infosys and Geometric amazed me. All the buildings were great and being an early morning, that too. a Saturday, there was absolutely no rush. This was then supplemented by an awesome breakfast at Tamanna Cafe. We talked about a lot of stuff, how things had been over the 6 months, stuff was great.

This was followed by going to Devang’s place and catching up with him about the latest news and nostalgically remembering the old days. After this, we went to meet Sneha, who apparently lives at a distance of 10 min drive from Devang’s and spending some 15-20 min with her, we moved to Chaitanya Paratha Center for lunch. It is not a REAL HAPPENING place. The only USP was that I met Rucha, Snehal and Krupali here for lunch. It was really heartening to see Rucha come to meet me, even with her illness and doctor’s appointment, and I suddenly re-realized that I have always been really lucky with friends.

The lunch was followed by a dessert and it was time to bid farewell to those three members of PiNKRiSK and Devang as well. We returned to Symbiosis Hostel, this time in the Symbi-Bus Service and it was fun. This was followed by Sharma’s packing up and all that. Then we met 2 of his friends, Suchi and Kriti, from SIIB, and then getting our dinner, which were yummy wraps packed from Faaso's, went back to Wakad to catch our bus to Mumbai. The first day of our trip was about to end, but the bus there got delayed from 9 to almost 10, and that one hour, the discussion I had with Sharma was really wonderful. We talked about our futures, a lot of personal talk and especially the one that involved philosophy and stuff, just like the good old days. But, this is one discussion, which we'll never forget, right Sharma? :-)

Then we started from there and the bus of Neeta Travels, stopped at Neeta Café, where they served "Jain" Dabeli and even when we were both very full, Sharma and I had our "fill" of Dabeli there, reminiscing the good old days, when we used to eat Dabeli at Bhatta. The beautiful view of Lonavala in the valleys at night with all those wonderful lights doubled our joy and more than that was the excitement which was going to unfold once we reach Mumbai. I sighed at the thought and just waited for the bus to reach Mumbai.

The rest of the drama of the “Mumbai-part” of the trip will be followed in the next post.