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 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.
