we have all been called up repeatedly by phone banking salespepole who will try to sell anything that can be under this blue sky ... Thought i shall share such an incident with you people ...
i was busy in my office and was in a meeting , suddenly i received a call from a restricted number....
i thought its an important call , so i excused myself and went outside the meeting room to attend the call .
Seller ( SR ): Sir, Good morning ?
Prospective Buyer ( PB ) : Good morning !!
SR : Sir, are yo Mr vinay jain living in bungalow no 10 , sindh housing colony , pune & holding a corporate bank account with HDFC bank .
Curious PB : What ? How ? why ? I mean how did u get this information and what do you want ?
SR : Sir , i am calling from ABCD insurance company and your name came up in a lucky draw .
PB interrupting in between : Lucky draw . .wow .. what have i won ? and how did you get this info ?
SR : Sir, you had filled up a customer feedback form at .. umm ... at inox cinema, baroda for a free holiday a year back .... our computer picked up your name from this huge database.
Feelin lucky PB : Wow .. i need to learn about customer satisfaction from you guys . so whats the deal ?
SR : Vinay Sir, we have a special plan for you ...
Little angry PB : Yeah , tell me about it .
SR : its one of a kind plan . its very unique .
patient PB : will u tell me about it .
SR: wait sir , two more lines . It shall make your life a lot easier for you and your family.
PB: umm..
SR : Sir , now i will tell you about the scheme ... our company which is affiliated to a MNC life insurance firm which has 5 million clinets in europe ...
PB: i have never heard of this MNC .
SR: Sir, its very popular in romania and ukraine ...
PB: hell , what else ?
SR: we have done analysis of your income and you have to pay 2000 as our entry charges and then 4000 per month for 10years ..after 23 years we would give you back 15 lacs plus life cover for you all this time. you would have tripled your money.
PB: what if you run away ?
SR : sir we wont , i promise .
PB : promise ????? wtf ...
SR: sir please take this scheme , i have to sell atleast one per day . please sir .
PB: thanks man .. nice talking to you for the past 10 mins ... my meeting's over .. thanks for talking with me ... i did not want to attend this meeting .. i can treat you to a coffee sometime.
SR: sir please take it ... sir ..
PB; bye .. thanks again .have a nice time.
Moral : do not register for national " do not call" registery ... this nuisance can sometimes be good . :P :P
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Monday, August 18, 2008
Looooong weekend vacation to Mahabaleshwar
the guys in this pic are me,chaitanya & bhushan . the fourth guy is anubhav whom you will find in other pictures.
Tata motors loooong weekend was from 14th to 15th august(Thursday – Friday) . Since our weekly off in tata motors pune is Thursday not unlike the lucky souls in other companies getting Saturday-Sunday off every week. In tata motors, the joke is that unlike other normal mortals who say TGIF( thank god its Friday ) we say OMGIF( Oh my god its Friday ) .
Anyways, my old department colleagues invited me to join them for a trip to Mahabaleshwar. I instantly agreed as I had no plans for this looong weekend. I also wanted to get out somewhere since it was months since I had gone for a trekking or a vacation .
Well, the people who were part of this vacation were anubhav,bhushan & chaitanya from NPI(new product introduction dept) .
12th Aug evening : I received a call from anubhav just as I was leaving office at my normal time of 7:15 instead of the official 5:15 pm . He asked me they were planning to go to Mahabaleshwar for this looooong weekend , and wanted me to join them . I agreed and started making mental thoughts about the pleasant weather there and how badly I needed this outing and a smile instantly came on my face.
The plan was to leave office by 5:15 on 13th and start from pune in chaitanya’s indigo by 6:30 pm for Mahabaleshwar. Reach Mahabaleshwar by 10 pm . The hotel booking was done by bhushan for a cheap 700 rupees for a night.Chaitanya will pick me up and anubhav since we stay near his house and bhushan will be picked up on the way.
So much for plans, lets see what happened !!!!
13th Aug morning : I reached office at the normal time of 8:25 , wished good morning to all and immediately announced to my boss that I need to leave at 5:15 today since I was going to Mahabaleshwar. He looked at me with angled eyes and with a grin on his face said “ We will see about it later” ……
We will see, what does it means ? I knew for sure this was a diplomatic answer.
13th aug evening : In the evening, at 4:50 pm I announced to my boss that I was leaving for Mahabaleshwar . he said again with a wide smile on his face : OK,Enjoy your time . Then he gave me gyan for the next 13 minutes and told me this is not the correct season to go to Mahabaleshwar as it would be raining very heavily & you wont even find any strawberries ….. I nodded and just said that I wanted to get out of pune for some time and be with myself. Finally, I said goodbye and left office with a big smile and anxiety to what lay ahead of me .
I took the long walk of 7-8 mins till the bus stop and talked to bhushan who confirmed the plan was still on track if anubhav and chaitanya can get out of their project’s review meeting before 5:30. Finally they did so by 6:00 .
I reached my guest house by 6:10 and packed my stuff in another 15 minutes . I called bhushan once again to know bout the stauts , he told me that chaitanya’s father did not agree to give the car since it was raining cats and dogs everywhere in maharashtra and driving in the ghats of Mahabaleshwar was dangerous in the night.
Somehow chaitanya convinced his father and we were rolling finally. Chaitanya picked me up from the guest house and then because of some miscommunication , anubhav was reached the wrong pickup point and we were delayed by another 15 minutes .
Well, it was an hour late as per our plan and now we had to pick up bhushan from a place near to his new house. Our navigation expert, anubhav confidently told us that he knew the way and guided us for the same. Then we tanked up the indigo and we were on our way.
8:15 pm : Well well well , anubhav made a small miscalculation and because of that we had gone 10 kms ahead of bhushan’s pickup point . once we had figured it out it was too late . We had to go 4 kms still ahead since there was no u-turn on this smooth 4 lane pune-satara highway.
9:10 pm , finally we picked up bhushan and even after 1.5 hours since we started from pune , we were still in pune. Anywayz, we grabbed a few sandwiches and burgers that anubhav had bought along with him. Chaitanya was driving till the ghats, all I can say is that he is an extra careful driver.
We all admired the engineering capabilities of Indian engineers who had made this awesome tunnel possible in between these ghats. Those who are interested , here’s a video on this tunnel .
Also looking at the same tunnel while coming back , the phrase light at the end of tunnel seemed apt. this picture tells it all ….
Also linkin park, godsmack , Jal , main hun don , limp bizkit etc etc all played on chaitanya’s pioneer audio system . It was fun playing all these songs at almost full volume.
Well , all this while it was raining in tits and bits. After driving for 70kms on this highway, we had to take a right for Mahabaleshwar which was another 50 kms . This was the toughest drive since it was in the ghats and it was a two lane highway. As soon as we entered this ghat. It started raining very heavily and our speed had definetly slowed down. Well , before Mahabaleshwar panchgani & wai hill stations also come on our way to Mahabaleshwar. It was 11 pm and we had about 20 kms left for Mahabaleshwar. We stopped at a roadside joint and got biryanis packed as all were starving by that time.
My god , now it was raining really heavily and the visibility had dropped to less than 5-6 meters . We didn’t know when the road was turning so this patch was a slow drive till the destination .
Finally, we reached Mahabaleshwar with three guides greeting us at 12:05 am and asking us if we wanted hotel room. My god, the guides here are very organized . There were probably at business for 24 hours.
Well, we moved to sudha sadan hotel bang in the middle of Mahabaleshwar market. Since we had reached post 12 in the night and it was raining very heavily , there was barely a soul anywhere to be seen.
This hotel is pretty cheap and is good enough for a night’s stay . Nothing luxurious about it. It costed us Rs 700 only for a night stay . This was cheap considering four people slept in this single room .
It was raining even harder while we ate the biryani and after watching a little tv , dozed off to wake up at 9 am .
It was still raining very hard . WE had our tea and parle-g and got ready by 10 am to explore Mahabaleshwar. Mahabaleshwar is a true tourist destination with a lot of points to visit. As soon as we got out, we were told that 7-8 points were closed down due to heavy rains . Kates point which is about 6-7 kms from Mahabaleshwar towards panchgani was amongst the few points which were accessible to public.
So we had our breakfast and headed for kates point.After having breakfast , anubhav and bhushan clicked some pictures with a horse only on its two legs…. Pretty amazing but I backed out since this was amounting to causing harm to the pretty horse.
Thereafter, on our way to kates point , we found a small waterfall and stopped at this spot for a photo shoot.
We clicked pics with the waterfall, on the stray bench and with the car. The weather was awesome and I have always loved to be around with nature. This was a perfect combination , amazing weather with a huge expanse of nature all around us.
We moved on from there to kates point. On our way to kates point we stopped at venna lake where locals told me that boating happens here but it has been stopped now owing to the heavy rains. We had bhuttas there and moved on … One unique characteristic of Mahabaleshwar is that there are many crossroads some with signboards and some without. Again on the advice of our ace navigator anubhav we took a wrong road and went on it for 4-5 kms .
This road was so narrow that taking a u-turn was not possible. So , with a lot of effort we finally took the u-turn at one point and then headed for kate’s point.
Kates point is at a height of 4235 feet, it gives a view of Krishna valley and is also an echo point.
But on this day, because of the fog and heavy rains , neither there was any echo nor any view of Krishna valley. Anyways, we also found a jyothish there . anubhav and me tried to have a peek into our future. Though I don’t believe in it, but still I thought lets give it a shot. He told me a lot of crap which I was not going to believe in .
Later on , we trekked downstream to needle hole point.
Amazing point and a great place for some more pictures. The four of us clicked pics in front of the needle hole. I guess it has been named so because the a small hole waterstream gives rise to a mid size waterfall …… the water flow was strong at this point.
Harami Bandar (Mischievous monkey) :
After this I changed into some dry clothes in the car. Chaitanya was taking some stuff out from the dicky when suddenly the harami Bandar plucked out a brown packet from the dickey which belonged to chaitanya’s dad.
He took out x-ray small prints from the box and was unwilling to hand it back to us . I opened my umbrella near to him and he got scared because of that .He then fled away.
After this, on our way back we stopped at archies strawberry farm , had the fream strawberry … apparently it’s a mixture of ice cream-cream and strawberry extracts. This thing was not worth 50 rupees atleast. They don’t even sell frozen strawberries considering they need it for fream shakes for the rest of the year. The farm in the background of this fream picture is a strawberry farm. The strawberry season is from October to may every year with 60 days for every crop cycle.
Thereafter we moved back Mahabaleshwar. We had to pay the toll for entry into Mahabaleshwar . this was not the case the day before since we had crossed this point at 12am and hardly anyone was present at that time. The fees is 15 bucks per person and 30 bucks for a car. Strange how can they charge on both accounts. Anyways, we reached the hotel …. We changed, relaxed a while and then checked out. I made the accounts till now and we paid each other the arrears.
4 pm : now our next destination was the MAPRO sales counter and food court in wai . this fell on our way back to pune.
A stop at the food counter of mapro was definetly a must do activity. We had a full grilled sandwich (Rs 80) and an Italian delight 12” pizza ( Rs 234) … I would say worth every penny. The ambience in the food court is amazing , lots of different types of flowers and comfortable seating infrastructure.
After this , we purchased some strawberry candies,chews and jam from the sales counter there.
5:30 pm : we hit the road once again with linkin park being played loudly. Bhushan was on the wheel now and he definetly drove welll ….. safely but fast.
We were on the satara-pune highway once again . we were easily cruising at 130 + speeds and the diesel engine of indigo was craving for more …. I bet it would have effortlessly put on another 20-30 kms/hr . A race ensued , with an opel astra overtaking us in a bizarre fashion . After chasing it for about 20 kms finally we came neck to neck . we had planned to play full on music while we crossed it but it turned out that the driver was a thin 65+ old man. What the hell !!! how can he drive so fast and skillfully …… well .. experience ..experience ..and only experience counts I guess.
Anywayz, because of this small race , we reached pune by 7:30 easily an hour before than the normal driving time. We checked on the newspapers and found that singh is king is playing in a nearby hall …. We rushed to the multiplex , ate & drank some samosas, dhokla , appy and minute maid .
The movie was good in between and we could bear it and laugh heartily a lot of times only because of akshay kumar. Of course it goes without saying, that Katrina looked gorgeous.
We ended the looooon day and I reached the guest house at 11:30 ..slept off the next day and kept remembering the good times that I have spent in Mahabaleshwar.
Thanks to you dudes for inviting me for this trip and looking forward to more such escapades.
Tata motors loooong weekend was from 14th to 15th august(Thursday – Friday) . Since our weekly off in tata motors pune is Thursday not unlike the lucky souls in other companies getting Saturday-Sunday off every week. In tata motors, the joke is that unlike other normal mortals who say TGIF( thank god its Friday ) we say OMGIF( Oh my god its Friday ) .
Anyways, my old department colleagues invited me to join them for a trip to Mahabaleshwar. I instantly agreed as I had no plans for this looong weekend. I also wanted to get out somewhere since it was months since I had gone for a trekking or a vacation .
Well, the people who were part of this vacation were anubhav,bhushan & chaitanya from NPI(new product introduction dept) .
12th Aug evening : I received a call from anubhav just as I was leaving office at my normal time of 7:15 instead of the official 5:15 pm . He asked me they were planning to go to Mahabaleshwar for this looooong weekend , and wanted me to join them . I agreed and started making mental thoughts about the pleasant weather there and how badly I needed this outing and a smile instantly came on my face.
The plan was to leave office by 5:15 on 13th and start from pune in chaitanya’s indigo by 6:30 pm for Mahabaleshwar. Reach Mahabaleshwar by 10 pm . The hotel booking was done by bhushan for a cheap 700 rupees for a night.Chaitanya will pick me up and anubhav since we stay near his house and bhushan will be picked up on the way.
So much for plans, lets see what happened !!!!
13th Aug morning : I reached office at the normal time of 8:25 , wished good morning to all and immediately announced to my boss that I need to leave at 5:15 today since I was going to Mahabaleshwar. He looked at me with angled eyes and with a grin on his face said “ We will see about it later” ……
We will see, what does it means ? I knew for sure this was a diplomatic answer.
13th aug evening : In the evening, at 4:50 pm I announced to my boss that I was leaving for Mahabaleshwar . he said again with a wide smile on his face : OK,Enjoy your time . Then he gave me gyan for the next 13 minutes and told me this is not the correct season to go to Mahabaleshwar as it would be raining very heavily & you wont even find any strawberries ….. I nodded and just said that I wanted to get out of pune for some time and be with myself. Finally, I said goodbye and left office with a big smile and anxiety to what lay ahead of me .
I took the long walk of 7-8 mins till the bus stop and talked to bhushan who confirmed the plan was still on track if anubhav and chaitanya can get out of their project’s review meeting before 5:30. Finally they did so by 6:00 .
I reached my guest house by 6:10 and packed my stuff in another 15 minutes . I called bhushan once again to know bout the stauts , he told me that chaitanya’s father did not agree to give the car since it was raining cats and dogs everywhere in maharashtra and driving in the ghats of Mahabaleshwar was dangerous in the night.
Somehow chaitanya convinced his father and we were rolling finally. Chaitanya picked me up from the guest house and then because of some miscommunication , anubhav was reached the wrong pickup point and we were delayed by another 15 minutes .
Well, it was an hour late as per our plan and now we had to pick up bhushan from a place near to his new house. Our navigation expert, anubhav confidently told us that he knew the way and guided us for the same. Then we tanked up the indigo and we were on our way.
8:15 pm : Well well well , anubhav made a small miscalculation and because of that we had gone 10 kms ahead of bhushan’s pickup point . once we had figured it out it was too late . We had to go 4 kms still ahead since there was no u-turn on this smooth 4 lane pune-satara highway.
9:10 pm , finally we picked up bhushan and even after 1.5 hours since we started from pune , we were still in pune. Anywayz, we grabbed a few sandwiches and burgers that anubhav had bought along with him. Chaitanya was driving till the ghats, all I can say is that he is an extra careful driver.
We all admired the engineering capabilities of Indian engineers who had made this awesome tunnel possible in between these ghats. Those who are interested , here’s a video on this tunnel .
Also looking at the same tunnel while coming back , the phrase light at the end of tunnel seemed apt. this picture tells it all ….
Also linkin park, godsmack , Jal , main hun don , limp bizkit etc etc all played on chaitanya’s pioneer audio system . It was fun playing all these songs at almost full volume.
Well , all this while it was raining in tits and bits. After driving for 70kms on this highway, we had to take a right for Mahabaleshwar which was another 50 kms . This was the toughest drive since it was in the ghats and it was a two lane highway. As soon as we entered this ghat. It started raining very heavily and our speed had definetly slowed down. Well , before Mahabaleshwar panchgani & wai hill stations also come on our way to Mahabaleshwar. It was 11 pm and we had about 20 kms left for Mahabaleshwar. We stopped at a roadside joint and got biryanis packed as all were starving by that time.
My god , now it was raining really heavily and the visibility had dropped to less than 5-6 meters . We didn’t know when the road was turning so this patch was a slow drive till the destination .
Finally, we reached Mahabaleshwar with three guides greeting us at 12:05 am and asking us if we wanted hotel room. My god, the guides here are very organized . There were probably at business for 24 hours.
Well, we moved to sudha sadan hotel bang in the middle of Mahabaleshwar market. Since we had reached post 12 in the night and it was raining very heavily , there was barely a soul anywhere to be seen.
This hotel is pretty cheap and is good enough for a night’s stay . Nothing luxurious about it. It costed us Rs 700 only for a night stay . This was cheap considering four people slept in this single room .
It was raining even harder while we ate the biryani and after watching a little tv , dozed off to wake up at 9 am .
It was still raining very hard . WE had our tea and parle-g and got ready by 10 am to explore Mahabaleshwar. Mahabaleshwar is a true tourist destination with a lot of points to visit. As soon as we got out, we were told that 7-8 points were closed down due to heavy rains . Kates point which is about 6-7 kms from Mahabaleshwar towards panchgani was amongst the few points which were accessible to public.
So we had our breakfast and headed for kates point.After having breakfast , anubhav and bhushan clicked some pictures with a horse only on its two legs…. Pretty amazing but I backed out since this was amounting to causing harm to the pretty horse.
Thereafter, on our way to kates point , we found a small waterfall and stopped at this spot for a photo shoot.
We clicked pics with the waterfall, on the stray bench and with the car. The weather was awesome and I have always loved to be around with nature. This was a perfect combination , amazing weather with a huge expanse of nature all around us.
We moved on from there to kates point. On our way to kates point we stopped at venna lake where locals told me that boating happens here but it has been stopped now owing to the heavy rains. We had bhuttas there and moved on … One unique characteristic of Mahabaleshwar is that there are many crossroads some with signboards and some without. Again on the advice of our ace navigator anubhav we took a wrong road and went on it for 4-5 kms .
This road was so narrow that taking a u-turn was not possible. So , with a lot of effort we finally took the u-turn at one point and then headed for kate’s point.
Kates point is at a height of 4235 feet, it gives a view of Krishna valley and is also an echo point.
But on this day, because of the fog and heavy rains , neither there was any echo nor any view of Krishna valley. Anyways, we also found a jyothish there . anubhav and me tried to have a peek into our future. Though I don’t believe in it, but still I thought lets give it a shot. He told me a lot of crap which I was not going to believe in .
Later on , we trekked downstream to needle hole point.
Amazing point and a great place for some more pictures. The four of us clicked pics in front of the needle hole. I guess it has been named so because the a small hole waterstream gives rise to a mid size waterfall …… the water flow was strong at this point.
Harami Bandar (Mischievous monkey) :
After this I changed into some dry clothes in the car. Chaitanya was taking some stuff out from the dicky when suddenly the harami Bandar plucked out a brown packet from the dickey which belonged to chaitanya’s dad.
He took out x-ray small prints from the box and was unwilling to hand it back to us . I opened my umbrella near to him and he got scared because of that .He then fled away.
After this, on our way back we stopped at archies strawberry farm , had the fream strawberry … apparently it’s a mixture of ice cream-cream and strawberry extracts. This thing was not worth 50 rupees atleast. They don’t even sell frozen strawberries considering they need it for fream shakes for the rest of the year. The farm in the background of this fream picture is a strawberry farm. The strawberry season is from October to may every year with 60 days for every crop cycle.
Thereafter we moved back Mahabaleshwar. We had to pay the toll for entry into Mahabaleshwar . this was not the case the day before since we had crossed this point at 12am and hardly anyone was present at that time. The fees is 15 bucks per person and 30 bucks for a car. Strange how can they charge on both accounts. Anyways, we reached the hotel …. We changed, relaxed a while and then checked out. I made the accounts till now and we paid each other the arrears.
4 pm : now our next destination was the MAPRO sales counter and food court in wai . this fell on our way back to pune.
A stop at the food counter of mapro was definetly a must do activity. We had a full grilled sandwich (Rs 80) and an Italian delight 12” pizza ( Rs 234) … I would say worth every penny. The ambience in the food court is amazing , lots of different types of flowers and comfortable seating infrastructure.
After this , we purchased some strawberry candies,chews and jam from the sales counter there.
5:30 pm : we hit the road once again with linkin park being played loudly. Bhushan was on the wheel now and he definetly drove welll ….. safely but fast.
We were on the satara-pune highway once again . we were easily cruising at 130 + speeds and the diesel engine of indigo was craving for more …. I bet it would have effortlessly put on another 20-30 kms/hr . A race ensued , with an opel astra overtaking us in a bizarre fashion . After chasing it for about 20 kms finally we came neck to neck . we had planned to play full on music while we crossed it but it turned out that the driver was a thin 65+ old man. What the hell !!! how can he drive so fast and skillfully …… well .. experience ..experience ..and only experience counts I guess.
Anywayz, because of this small race , we reached pune by 7:30 easily an hour before than the normal driving time. We checked on the newspapers and found that singh is king is playing in a nearby hall …. We rushed to the multiplex , ate & drank some samosas, dhokla , appy and minute maid .
The movie was good in between and we could bear it and laugh heartily a lot of times only because of akshay kumar. Of course it goes without saying, that Katrina looked gorgeous.
We ended the looooon day and I reached the guest house at 11:30 ..slept off the next day and kept remembering the good times that I have spent in Mahabaleshwar.
Thanks to you dudes for inviting me for this trip and looking forward to more such escapades.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Saturday 4th august ,2007 , dugarwadi trek = Rs 26100/-
The ten people who went for this trek are : Vinay, Mayank , Asif , Abhinav, Mani , Pushpak, Deepjyoti, Prateek , Das & Chaterjee . and those who did not go are : avinash , bashir , Saurabh & ankur .
Those who did not go will now get to know what they have missed and I am writing this to let them know the same.
One of my most memorable treks which costed the 10 of us Rs 26100/- only.
Recap: 2nd august evening , four of us were discussing about a possible trek while sipping our regular evening hot cup of tea at anna’s tapri . I proposed the idea of going for this trek as there were few holidays for us and nasik is a place to discover only during monsoons . Nasik has some of the most beautiful & lush green medium sized mountains to trek . The weather is as usual always overcast during monsoons . It was also our last few 4-5 months together , I argued we had to make the most of each holiday.
But , avinash who can single handedly influence a lot of people did not like this idea since we had gone for anjaneeri trek only a week back . His argument was that why should I climb and see the same rocks and trees again and again . My enthusiasm also took a beating after hearing aviansh’s arguments .
2nd august night , 1 am : I prepared the initial budget of Rs 200/- per person if the number is 10 people. But I had only 3-4 people who were ready to go for the trek at that time.
3rd august evening : the number of people willing to go was still at 4 . I was watching orange county season one when Das said to me just two sentences , we must go even if the number is 4-5 people as we wont get this opportunity again . I immediately booked a Toyota Innova as my sixth sense told me that we would get the required numbers . As the word spread that I have booked qualis for the trek , there were a few more positive enquiries .
4th morning , 7am : Yoga time , after it finished the planning for the trek started .I got the ten people required for the trek . I instructed mani(our mess coordinator) to plan for the food & beverages . Myself and mayank planned for the logistics . I collected Rs 200/- from all interested people . We confirmed for the qualis at Rs 1200/- for the day .
9:30 am : we all had a heavy breakfast and packed bread, butter, chips,water required for the trek . It was heavily overcast which gave me a sense that we all are going to have a hell of a day.
We all waited at anna’s tapri at 11am for the vehicle . Mayank called up the travel agent , who told us that the innova he had promised has not come back from shirdi and hence he is sending a Toyota qualis within 30 minutes . The qualis finally arrived at 12.
We all adjusted into the qualis somehow and embraced ourselves for an adventurous day ahead. Dugarwadi is a beautiful 200 meter high waterfall situated on the nasik – dahanu state highway some 35 kilometers away from our college . It is some 6 kilometers off the state highway , this road was muddy and just wide enough to accommodate the qualis.
I cant explain the mountain tops on the way to dugarwadi , they were all covered in a dense cloud cover and it was raining heavily. It was the most beautiful sight ever . Half way through the journey , our driver played himesh reshamiyaa’s tanhaiya & mauhtarma song …… hell , these songs were enough to bring us to life , everyone was singing on top of their voices ..and yes ..through their noses .. he he …
Ok , after all the beautiful mountains, songs , we reached dugarwadi . The entrance looked like a muddy 2 meter wide canal …. We waded through the water and moved ahead …. There were small crabs in between as well …. They looked beautiful although I avoided going near them . The left-right view was just awesome … I think the pictures will say it all . after about a kilometer of canal , it gave way to half a kilometer of dense forests …. We again waded through the bushy plants all along the 2 foot wide pathway . We stopped for a while after sometime and I only heard the sound of the dense forests , some leaves flapping and some of my friends whistling who were a bit ahead.
Not many people come to dugarwadi and that why it was clean and unexplored .
After the forests , there was a kilometer of plains with some farms around them . We clicked some pictures here and I came upon a hanuman mandir with a monkey like murthi made out of stone . Simple but elegant. I paid my respects here and moved on .
We were now at the top of the mountain . To my amazement , we encountered two stalls after the plains selling tea and parle-g . we did not have anything here and just stopped for some time . We could now see the waterfall , it was huge and the sound of water falling was heard here as well , even though it was still a trek of 2 kms down the mountain .
The view was just breathtaking and our enthusiasm knew no bounds now .
After a photo session with the waterfall in the background , we decided to move on as it was getting late. Now the trek downhill started , it was not as easy as I had imagined. It was muddy, slippery and the pathway was also 1.5 feet wide. The forest were now even more denser. This was nature at its best, I just cant forget the hundreds of the sounds of the typical tropical forest.
The left-right view just kept getting better by each passing moment and yes it was raining okie dokie until now. After about half the downhill trek , chaterjee’s left shoe sole came out . We had a problem in our hands, deepjyoti came to our rescue and tied the sole tightly with the lace of the shoe. It was jugaad at its best. The forest was getting more and more dense and the sound of water falling was increasing with every passing moment. After trekking through the tough downhill dense forests for about 30 minutes , we reached a beautiful scene with a huge tree fallen flat on the ground and the pathway was made beneath the flat tree . We clicked some pictures sitting on the flat tree , it was a good picture . The trek continued with wet mud, slippery moss , lot of dead leaves , steep downhill treks , small pebbles . Well, moving on for 15 more minutes, we reached a place similar to what I had imagined as heaven…. The 20 meter wide river flowing with a lot of brute force … this force was developed because of the heavy rains in the catchments area of the waterfall ….
Their were cries of ecstasy, sense of amazement at the sight in front of us. It was awesome. Now, a lot of murmuring was happening with everyone sensing a hell of a ride ahead….It looked dangerous and it was as we found out later but definitely worth the adventure…..
A group of 5 boys were returning from the other side of the river ….They formed a human chain assisted along with a 3 meter long strong flexible tree branch to counter the brute force of flowing water. The water level at places was till the knees and mostly till above the stomach . A person could have easily flowed down the river if he did not maintain his grip in between rocks and some slippery rocks.
3:30pm , 4th august : We kept all our mobiles and purses in the two bags that we were carrying. We got the branch from the returning group, and decided to go ahead with the adventure. The strategy was finalized of to stay together and as far as possible to maintain the human chain . Das, deepjyoti and me lead the way , at first it felt simple . It was all about maintaining your grip at the correct places with the support from the flexible branch. The force of flowing water was very strong at some places along the crossing of the river. After about 15 minutes of struggle with instructions coming from all the ten members as to who should do what …. 7 people were able to cross the river and three members ( Asif, prateek & Chaterjee ) could not muster courage to face the force of the river. Well, I was the one carrying the supplies & after reaching the other side we started eating the stuff …. I think this acted as a motivational factor to make people crossover. Prateek meanwhile was giving all seven of us 1000 bad words/minute …… and asif was worried about his cigarette supplies which were with deepjyoti . Chaterjee was in his own self and suddenly the three people who are the biggest “bakarbaaz” in the batch were very quiet and just trying to grapple with the situation on hand.
Anyways, two of us (Das & me) went back to bring our three comrades to reunite them with the group . Chaterjee came first and barring a few hiccups, he was fine . Prateek tried thrice to cross but relented , then finally he made it . Asif is as thin as a feather, so once he started there were no problems in crossing the river. It was raining heavily all the time and the water flow was increasing by every passing minute. With a lot of struggle , the three of them managed to cross the river.
4:00pm, 4th august : There was a sense of achievement once all three of them were reunited with the group . We marched ahead and came across another river stream to cross if we had to make it to the base of the waterfall .It was a breathtaking view of the giant waterfall, some pictures were taken . It was getting darker by every passing minute. We sat on the rocks in the middle of the river and ate all of the eatables that we had brought with us. Meanwhile, a group of 5 boys were returning from the base, and they took our flexible branch saying that it was they who had bought the branch with them in the first place. They also promised us that they would keep the branch with our reaching distance when we had to return back . This was our biggest mistake, we trusted them and gave them the branch.
Along with having the snacks , we debated on whether to take the risk of crossing over or return back …. After 10 minutes of discussion, we all took a sane decision of returning back considering the adverse weather conditions & the increasing flow of the river.
4:15pm, 4th august : We were back at “the point” where we took a deep breadth and embraced ourselves for the rough ride ahead. The level had certainly increased in the past one hour. Our motivation took a dip when we found out that the branch was nowhere to be found. We had to cross somehow because we had no other option. We could not have stayed back since we had already exhausted our supplies.
I looked at an alternative route and found one , this decision was my second mistake of the day . We saw a group of 10-12 boys who had just reached the base point. They waited and started to watch our return . I lead the 10 of us and all of us formed a human chain , and moved ahead. Slowly and steadily, I somehow found the supporting rocks and moved on . Just before I could reach out to the base point, there was a gap of 3 meter wide chest deep water . I somehow mustered enough courage and remaining strength in my legs to move ahead, found one rock in front of me . My second in command was mani garg , who had held me very tighly. I slipped a little bit and was now really till chest deep with mani and the sole rock in front of mw holding me back . I howled and gathered the remaining strength in my legs and stood up , took two more steps and grabbed the hand of people on the other side of the river. I was safe finally , but for that moment I am sure everyone was scared.
Moving on , mani decided not to again test this route as he is the bulkier one but Deepjyoti and Das decided that they will do it and came through the same route .
What a situation , now three of us were on this side of the river and rest seven were on the other side. Now , the seven of them decided to come form the original route . We searched for the flexible branch frantically but the effort was in vain . Again Das, me and deepjyoti went in to bring back the seven members to safety. Now our efforts were more synchronized and coordinated, all the seven of them formed a unbreakable chain and moved slowly taking one step at any given time . When the leader moved ahead , he waited for the rest six to take that one step ahead. Soon all of them reached this side of the river.
4:45pm , 4th august : Hip Hip Hurraaaah !!! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! …….. yahoooooooooooooooooo …. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh …… were some of then nonstop cries heard from all of us . The ten of us never felt this close having gone through such an exhausting adventure. Hats of to our teamwork!!!!!
We just kept taking about the river crossing non stop during our return trek . It had started to rain even harder. We kept on recollecting every moment, every action by any member, every picture taken . By 5:30, we reached our qualis .We changed there and got into the qaulis. Once our return journey to college started, the songs of himeshbhai were demanded and all of us sang for atleast 30 minutes nonstop ….
Meanwhile, I checked on my Moto razr V3i , it was not starting up …and there was water all around it . Actually, when I had slipped while returning back , the bag was drenched in water and maybe the zip was not 100% closed, so the rain & river water might have got into it . Whatever , I thought my mobile will be up and running once I have it dried with a hair dryer. But that was to no avail, as its circuit was fully damaged . Even mani’s N70 nokia phone met with the same fate, it is also damaged . Hence, the cost of this trip is 12000+12000+2100 = Rs 26100/- . But, I don’t regret it as I don’t think I will be ever be able to buy those moments with any amount of money.
Once again hats off to all my friends who went along and a big booh to all those who didn’t . Cheers everyone.
One more thing, I will try adding some videos of the trek as well provided I can remove the sound from them . Take care all .
The ten people who went for this trek are : Vinay, Mayank , Asif , Abhinav, Mani , Pushpak, Deepjyoti, Prateek , Das & Chaterjee . and those who did not go are : avinash , bashir , Saurabh & ankur .
Those who did not go will now get to know what they have missed and I am writing this to let them know the same.
One of my most memorable treks which costed the 10 of us Rs 26100/- only.
Recap: 2nd august evening , four of us were discussing about a possible trek while sipping our regular evening hot cup of tea at anna’s tapri . I proposed the idea of going for this trek as there were few holidays for us and nasik is a place to discover only during monsoons . Nasik has some of the most beautiful & lush green medium sized mountains to trek . The weather is as usual always overcast during monsoons . It was also our last few 4-5 months together , I argued we had to make the most of each holiday.
But , avinash who can single handedly influence a lot of people did not like this idea since we had gone for anjaneeri trek only a week back . His argument was that why should I climb and see the same rocks and trees again and again . My enthusiasm also took a beating after hearing aviansh’s arguments .
2nd august night , 1 am : I prepared the initial budget of Rs 200/- per person if the number is 10 people. But I had only 3-4 people who were ready to go for the trek at that time.
3rd august evening : the number of people willing to go was still at 4 . I was watching orange county season one when Das said to me just two sentences , we must go even if the number is 4-5 people as we wont get this opportunity again . I immediately booked a Toyota Innova as my sixth sense told me that we would get the required numbers . As the word spread that I have booked qualis for the trek , there were a few more positive enquiries .
4th morning , 7am : Yoga time , after it finished the planning for the trek started .I got the ten people required for the trek . I instructed mani(our mess coordinator) to plan for the food & beverages . Myself and mayank planned for the logistics . I collected Rs 200/- from all interested people . We confirmed for the qualis at Rs 1200/- for the day .
9:30 am : we all had a heavy breakfast and packed bread, butter, chips,water required for the trek . It was heavily overcast which gave me a sense that we all are going to have a hell of a day.
We all waited at anna’s tapri at 11am for the vehicle . Mayank called up the travel agent , who told us that the innova he had promised has not come back from shirdi and hence he is sending a Toyota qualis within 30 minutes . The qualis finally arrived at 12.
We all adjusted into the qualis somehow and embraced ourselves for an adventurous day ahead. Dugarwadi is a beautiful 200 meter high waterfall situated on the nasik – dahanu state highway some 35 kilometers away from our college . It is some 6 kilometers off the state highway , this road was muddy and just wide enough to accommodate the qualis.
I cant explain the mountain tops on the way to dugarwadi , they were all covered in a dense cloud cover and it was raining heavily. It was the most beautiful sight ever . Half way through the journey , our driver played himesh reshamiyaa’s tanhaiya & mauhtarma song …… hell , these songs were enough to bring us to life , everyone was singing on top of their voices ..and yes ..through their noses .. he he …
Ok , after all the beautiful mountains, songs , we reached dugarwadi . The entrance looked like a muddy 2 meter wide canal …. We waded through the water and moved ahead …. There were small crabs in between as well …. They looked beautiful although I avoided going near them . The left-right view was just awesome … I think the pictures will say it all . after about a kilometer of canal , it gave way to half a kilometer of dense forests …. We again waded through the bushy plants all along the 2 foot wide pathway . We stopped for a while after sometime and I only heard the sound of the dense forests , some leaves flapping and some of my friends whistling who were a bit ahead.
Not many people come to dugarwadi and that why it was clean and unexplored .
After the forests , there was a kilometer of plains with some farms around them . We clicked some pictures here and I came upon a hanuman mandir with a monkey like murthi made out of stone . Simple but elegant. I paid my respects here and moved on .
We were now at the top of the mountain . To my amazement , we encountered two stalls after the plains selling tea and parle-g . we did not have anything here and just stopped for some time . We could now see the waterfall , it was huge and the sound of water falling was heard here as well , even though it was still a trek of 2 kms down the mountain .
The view was just breathtaking and our enthusiasm knew no bounds now .
After a photo session with the waterfall in the background , we decided to move on as it was getting late. Now the trek downhill started , it was not as easy as I had imagined. It was muddy, slippery and the pathway was also 1.5 feet wide. The forest were now even more denser. This was nature at its best, I just cant forget the hundreds of the sounds of the typical tropical forest.
The left-right view just kept getting better by each passing moment and yes it was raining okie dokie until now. After about half the downhill trek , chaterjee’s left shoe sole came out . We had a problem in our hands, deepjyoti came to our rescue and tied the sole tightly with the lace of the shoe. It was jugaad at its best. The forest was getting more and more dense and the sound of water falling was increasing with every passing moment. After trekking through the tough downhill dense forests for about 30 minutes , we reached a beautiful scene with a huge tree fallen flat on the ground and the pathway was made beneath the flat tree . We clicked some pictures sitting on the flat tree , it was a good picture . The trek continued with wet mud, slippery moss , lot of dead leaves , steep downhill treks , small pebbles . Well, moving on for 15 more minutes, we reached a place similar to what I had imagined as heaven…. The 20 meter wide river flowing with a lot of brute force … this force was developed because of the heavy rains in the catchments area of the waterfall ….
Their were cries of ecstasy, sense of amazement at the sight in front of us. It was awesome. Now, a lot of murmuring was happening with everyone sensing a hell of a ride ahead….It looked dangerous and it was as we found out later but definitely worth the adventure…..
A group of 5 boys were returning from the other side of the river ….They formed a human chain assisted along with a 3 meter long strong flexible tree branch to counter the brute force of flowing water. The water level at places was till the knees and mostly till above the stomach . A person could have easily flowed down the river if he did not maintain his grip in between rocks and some slippery rocks.
3:30pm , 4th august : We kept all our mobiles and purses in the two bags that we were carrying. We got the branch from the returning group, and decided to go ahead with the adventure. The strategy was finalized of to stay together and as far as possible to maintain the human chain . Das, deepjyoti and me lead the way , at first it felt simple . It was all about maintaining your grip at the correct places with the support from the flexible branch. The force of flowing water was very strong at some places along the crossing of the river. After about 15 minutes of struggle with instructions coming from all the ten members as to who should do what …. 7 people were able to cross the river and three members ( Asif, prateek & Chaterjee ) could not muster courage to face the force of the river. Well, I was the one carrying the supplies & after reaching the other side we started eating the stuff …. I think this acted as a motivational factor to make people crossover. Prateek meanwhile was giving all seven of us 1000 bad words/minute …… and asif was worried about his cigarette supplies which were with deepjyoti . Chaterjee was in his own self and suddenly the three people who are the biggest “bakarbaaz” in the batch were very quiet and just trying to grapple with the situation on hand.
Anyways, two of us (Das & me) went back to bring our three comrades to reunite them with the group . Chaterjee came first and barring a few hiccups, he was fine . Prateek tried thrice to cross but relented , then finally he made it . Asif is as thin as a feather, so once he started there were no problems in crossing the river. It was raining heavily all the time and the water flow was increasing by every passing minute. With a lot of struggle , the three of them managed to cross the river.
4:00pm, 4th august : There was a sense of achievement once all three of them were reunited with the group . We marched ahead and came across another river stream to cross if we had to make it to the base of the waterfall .It was a breathtaking view of the giant waterfall, some pictures were taken . It was getting darker by every passing minute. We sat on the rocks in the middle of the river and ate all of the eatables that we had brought with us. Meanwhile, a group of 5 boys were returning from the base, and they took our flexible branch saying that it was they who had bought the branch with them in the first place. They also promised us that they would keep the branch with our reaching distance when we had to return back . This was our biggest mistake, we trusted them and gave them the branch.
Along with having the snacks , we debated on whether to take the risk of crossing over or return back …. After 10 minutes of discussion, we all took a sane decision of returning back considering the adverse weather conditions & the increasing flow of the river.
4:15pm, 4th august : We were back at “the point” where we took a deep breadth and embraced ourselves for the rough ride ahead. The level had certainly increased in the past one hour. Our motivation took a dip when we found out that the branch was nowhere to be found. We had to cross somehow because we had no other option. We could not have stayed back since we had already exhausted our supplies.
I looked at an alternative route and found one , this decision was my second mistake of the day . We saw a group of 10-12 boys who had just reached the base point. They waited and started to watch our return . I lead the 10 of us and all of us formed a human chain , and moved ahead. Slowly and steadily, I somehow found the supporting rocks and moved on . Just before I could reach out to the base point, there was a gap of 3 meter wide chest deep water . I somehow mustered enough courage and remaining strength in my legs to move ahead, found one rock in front of me . My second in command was mani garg , who had held me very tighly. I slipped a little bit and was now really till chest deep with mani and the sole rock in front of mw holding me back . I howled and gathered the remaining strength in my legs and stood up , took two more steps and grabbed the hand of people on the other side of the river. I was safe finally , but for that moment I am sure everyone was scared.
Moving on , mani decided not to again test this route as he is the bulkier one but Deepjyoti and Das decided that they will do it and came through the same route .
What a situation , now three of us were on this side of the river and rest seven were on the other side. Now , the seven of them decided to come form the original route . We searched for the flexible branch frantically but the effort was in vain . Again Das, me and deepjyoti went in to bring back the seven members to safety. Now our efforts were more synchronized and coordinated, all the seven of them formed a unbreakable chain and moved slowly taking one step at any given time . When the leader moved ahead , he waited for the rest six to take that one step ahead. Soon all of them reached this side of the river.
4:45pm , 4th august : Hip Hip Hurraaaah !!! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! …….. yahoooooooooooooooooo …. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh …… were some of then nonstop cries heard from all of us . The ten of us never felt this close having gone through such an exhausting adventure. Hats of to our teamwork!!!!!
We just kept taking about the river crossing non stop during our return trek . It had started to rain even harder. We kept on recollecting every moment, every action by any member, every picture taken . By 5:30, we reached our qualis .We changed there and got into the qaulis. Once our return journey to college started, the songs of himeshbhai were demanded and all of us sang for atleast 30 minutes nonstop ….
Meanwhile, I checked on my Moto razr V3i , it was not starting up …and there was water all around it . Actually, when I had slipped while returning back , the bag was drenched in water and maybe the zip was not 100% closed, so the rain & river water might have got into it . Whatever , I thought my mobile will be up and running once I have it dried with a hair dryer. But that was to no avail, as its circuit was fully damaged . Even mani’s N70 nokia phone met with the same fate, it is also damaged . Hence, the cost of this trip is 12000+12000+2100 = Rs 26100/- . But, I don’t regret it as I don’t think I will be ever be able to buy those moments with any amount of money.
Once again hats off to all my friends who went along and a big booh to all those who didn’t . Cheers everyone.
One more thing, I will try adding some videos of the trek as well provided I can remove the sound from them . Take care all .
Monday, June 11, 2007
Visit to nanak piao
Visit to Nanak – Piao
Yesterday was the hottest day in delhi , maximum of 45 degrees and minimum of 33 degrees . I was at my massi’s place all day and could muster courage to only venture out in the evening . So , I went along with Sahil( My cousin) and his friends ( Dadu, Rajeev & Vikas ) . We went out in vikas’s refurbished 1985 model ambassador . It looked an antique piece with its back window controller coming into my hand soon .
So, we first went to gurdwara nanak piao on the G.T – Karnal road . I like the history behind this gurdwara , guru nanak devji stayed at this place in the 15th century for some time and serve the travelers on GT road by serving them with water . That is why he made the place dug up to store water and quench the thirst of travelers . Hence , it has been named after this event : Gurdwara Nanak Piao . The gurdwara had an earthly appeal , beautiful bhajans goin on in the background and the walk around the sarovar was peaceful . The water was still being served to all worshippers and visitors as part of the ritual still being followed . The sarovar had all types of fishes in it and it looked beautiful . Thanks to Rajeev for making us visit this gurdwara .
Further on we went shopping to Kamla nagar . It was pathetic .. the crowd as well as the heat . The heat was unbearable . So , we just ventured into the shops and stayed there for as long as possible . Dadu bought some footwear .. we had some MCd burgers and some refreshing badam-pista and kesar-pista milk . By this time, my T-shirt had got all wet with my sweat .
I came back as soon as possible to massi’s place and another Sunday was over in a jiffy . Let me wish all of you a great week ahead . bbye .
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Hostel -- My best abode ever
My first home – Hostels
One of my cousins has said to me that I should write something personal & interesting about my life . Here it goes ….
I have lived 5 years of my life in hostel till now and one more year to go . Four years of my engineering life and two years of MBA , that makes it a little less than 25% of my life spent in hostels.
June’2000 … after getting admission in electrical, bvm engineering college I was a bit skeptical about living in hostel and leaving my sweet and comfortable home …. Pops said to me “ Son , its time you faced the world on your own but we will be there to support you” . I said in a reluctant voice “ OK” .
On the day of allotment of rooms , I went alone . There was utter chaos with people struggling to find room partners . I was also on the lookout for some good decent guys , but how does one look out for good decent guys . I said to myself “ bunny, look out for Central board people , they will the safest bet’ . So , just when room allocation was getting over I bumped into ranjit and abhishek . That was it, the day when the three musketeers met and the story of amar-akbar-anthony started .
We were first allocated Room no 62 in vindhya hostel . vindhya hostel was the nearest to campus and was an ancient sort of building with stingy bathrooms and toilets … hell even the water supply was not consistent . Sometimes, we had to go without bathing …. I did not mind that though , he he .
Well , room no 62 was on the top(second) floor . The room was very big giving us the feeling of ancient kings living in their huge palaces . Its ceiling was about 13-14 feet high with tin sheds …yes tin sheds .I will always remember these tin sheds because of the sleepless nights it has given me ….. MAN !!! the gutur-gu pigeons tapping these sheds all day long . We had iron beds which used to make a weird sound when we used to even touch the comfortable beds . So, it became pretty hot due to the tin sheds . But soon after joining, it started to rain hence the problem of scorching summers was no more but we had a new problem … crickets, frogs and some other unknown insects made entry to the rooms …. No option , I had to share my room and bed with them . One more thing , ranjit and abhishek will testify that I had a fetish for white bedsheets ….. one on the study table which was used for all purposes except studies and the other one to take over while sleeping …. Always !!!!
One routine which i will never forget are the morning classes @ 8 am …. Hell , how I reached those classes only I know . So, a person with two horns and a horrifying face used to come and wake me up at 7:55 am ….i always said “ 5 minutes aur “ … then the devil says “ u will be detained bro” ….. I sprang up on my bed and within five minutes was in the class … u can imagine what happened in those five minutes … I will leave it to your good and witty imaginations . If we used to wake up early someday … it was a ritual to go to class only after having tea, poha , bun-samosa at the SHAKTI’s .
Days passed and months passed on smoothly .
January 26th , 2001 . The devastating 7.9 richer scale Gujarat earthquake struck us at 8:46 am . Being a national holiday , the three of us were lost in their own blissful slumber. My bed was shaking as again I was thinking that the devil is here but hey the devil did not have so much power ….. my eyes just opened up a wee bit and I heard abhishek yelling “ BHAGO ,… BHAGO“ … What a bad dream … then I saw abhishek grabbing his slippers and running out of the door … I then realized IT IS AN EARTHQUAKE …. MUMMMMMY …. I got up and dammit “ where are my slippers “ .. I found the left one but after struggling found the right one and ran for the stairs . When I reached downstairs, I saw all my hostel mates in their shorts, towels , some came out halfway from their morning chores in the compound below . The earthquake lasted some 60 seconds . I did not realize the gravity of the situation until I went out and tried calling ma-pa to know their well being . All phones were jammed , electricity was not there .. those days people did not used mobiles that much . The electricity came in 30 minutes and we watched the cable with stunned shock …. Scene of total destruction and misery on the television sets ….. We went to the warden with a petition for holiday … this was the first and last time I had seen the warden …. Been a good boy that’s why never again met the warden ..he he … 1 week holiday was declared by evening and everyone went to their respective homes .
Okie then , seniors left by June’2002 and rooms on the first floor and ground floor became vacant , so we shifted to room no 35 on the first floor and this was my room for the next 2.5 years . V35 is officially also the name of our gang of ten brothers as most of the things happened there … all memories … all mishaps … all bad deeds … all beautiful memories . College went on smoothly with grades dropping after each semester .
Hostel became good once again …water supply was assured at least twice/day by the warden . Our fan was also good as it worked fine at speed five . The new batch of architecture college girls came which was just opposite our hostel … all of hostel mates standing there on the lobby of hostel with their famine stricken clothes and loser like personalities just drooling and drooling on .. he he …. So , hostel was enjoyable ..aren’t u liking it ?
I will write about the rest of my wonderful hostel years soon …. First year is over ….
Later brothers and their sisters !!! Cheers !!!!
One of my cousins has said to me that I should write something personal & interesting about my life . Here it goes ….
I have lived 5 years of my life in hostel till now and one more year to go . Four years of my engineering life and two years of MBA , that makes it a little less than 25% of my life spent in hostels.
June’2000 … after getting admission in electrical, bvm engineering college I was a bit skeptical about living in hostel and leaving my sweet and comfortable home …. Pops said to me “ Son , its time you faced the world on your own but we will be there to support you” . I said in a reluctant voice “ OK” .
On the day of allotment of rooms , I went alone . There was utter chaos with people struggling to find room partners . I was also on the lookout for some good decent guys , but how does one look out for good decent guys . I said to myself “ bunny, look out for Central board people , they will the safest bet’ . So , just when room allocation was getting over I bumped into ranjit and abhishek . That was it, the day when the three musketeers met and the story of amar-akbar-anthony started .
We were first allocated Room no 62 in vindhya hostel . vindhya hostel was the nearest to campus and was an ancient sort of building with stingy bathrooms and toilets … hell even the water supply was not consistent . Sometimes, we had to go without bathing …. I did not mind that though , he he .
Well , room no 62 was on the top(second) floor . The room was very big giving us the feeling of ancient kings living in their huge palaces . Its ceiling was about 13-14 feet high with tin sheds …yes tin sheds .I will always remember these tin sheds because of the sleepless nights it has given me ….. MAN !!! the gutur-gu pigeons tapping these sheds all day long . We had iron beds which used to make a weird sound when we used to even touch the comfortable beds . So, it became pretty hot due to the tin sheds . But soon after joining, it started to rain hence the problem of scorching summers was no more but we had a new problem … crickets, frogs and some other unknown insects made entry to the rooms …. No option , I had to share my room and bed with them . One more thing , ranjit and abhishek will testify that I had a fetish for white bedsheets ….. one on the study table which was used for all purposes except studies and the other one to take over while sleeping …. Always !!!!
One routine which i will never forget are the morning classes @ 8 am …. Hell , how I reached those classes only I know . So, a person with two horns and a horrifying face used to come and wake me up at 7:55 am ….i always said “ 5 minutes aur “ … then the devil says “ u will be detained bro” ….. I sprang up on my bed and within five minutes was in the class … u can imagine what happened in those five minutes … I will leave it to your good and witty imaginations . If we used to wake up early someday … it was a ritual to go to class only after having tea, poha , bun-samosa at the SHAKTI’s .
Days passed and months passed on smoothly .
January 26th , 2001 . The devastating 7.9 richer scale Gujarat earthquake struck us at 8:46 am . Being a national holiday , the three of us were lost in their own blissful slumber. My bed was shaking as again I was thinking that the devil is here but hey the devil did not have so much power ….. my eyes just opened up a wee bit and I heard abhishek yelling “ BHAGO ,… BHAGO“ … What a bad dream … then I saw abhishek grabbing his slippers and running out of the door … I then realized IT IS AN EARTHQUAKE …. MUMMMMMY …. I got up and dammit “ where are my slippers “ .. I found the left one but after struggling found the right one and ran for the stairs . When I reached downstairs, I saw all my hostel mates in their shorts, towels , some came out halfway from their morning chores in the compound below . The earthquake lasted some 60 seconds . I did not realize the gravity of the situation until I went out and tried calling ma-pa to know their well being . All phones were jammed , electricity was not there .. those days people did not used mobiles that much . The electricity came in 30 minutes and we watched the cable with stunned shock …. Scene of total destruction and misery on the television sets ….. We went to the warden with a petition for holiday … this was the first and last time I had seen the warden …. Been a good boy that’s why never again met the warden ..he he … 1 week holiday was declared by evening and everyone went to their respective homes .
Okie then , seniors left by June’2002 and rooms on the first floor and ground floor became vacant , so we shifted to room no 35 on the first floor and this was my room for the next 2.5 years . V35 is officially also the name of our gang of ten brothers as most of the things happened there … all memories … all mishaps … all bad deeds … all beautiful memories . College went on smoothly with grades dropping after each semester .
Hostel became good once again …water supply was assured at least twice/day by the warden . Our fan was also good as it worked fine at speed five . The new batch of architecture college girls came which was just opposite our hostel … all of hostel mates standing there on the lobby of hostel with their famine stricken clothes and loser like personalities just drooling and drooling on .. he he …. So , hostel was enjoyable ..aren’t u liking it ?
I will write about the rest of my wonderful hostel years soon …. First year is over ….
Later brothers and their sisters !!! Cheers !!!!
Friday, June 8, 2007
All abt Bunny
I have been reading blogs and heard about their reach since a long time back but never thought and felt that i have that creative instinct to write . Finally, i think i should give it a try and lets see what happens !!!!
I am Vinay Jain a.k.a " bunny " born on 13th february , 1982 in calcutta now known as kolkatta . It has been a long journey till now and i know that it is a long journey still ahead . In this blog i will just tell you the salient points of my journey so far , my ambitions , my dreams & ofcourse about myself .
well , first my name which means "namr" in hindi and polite in english . I hope i am living up to my name .... lol . My friends & family can tell better if i have lived up to my name . Secondly, how did i get my nickname ? i am the youngest in the family .. i will tell abt them later . so , i have two elder brothers .. navneet and kushal . Navneet & Kushal are 5 years and 7 years elder to me . Navneet a.k.a nipu used to watch a lot of cartoons on our newly bought national VCR and Emgee colour television . Nipu used to bring along the whole buildings kids and then watch cartoons and doordarshan . It was always a carnival with not less than 15 kids always in front of the TV . now nipu bhai like bugs bunny disney character and hence he named the new member in family as bunny . quite a story , thats how i got my nickname "bunny".
next up , i used to go to saint mary's primary school nearby jyoti basu's house till class 2nd . I dont remember much of that time , only that mamma used to pick me up and when papa bought his bajaj scooter he used to drop me .
Next up , pops got transferred to vadodara, gujarat in june,1991 . I came to the cultural capital of gujarat at a young age of 9. we started living in the central excise and customs colony , type - 3 block , flat number 112 .
life was always fun in the colony with lots of kids and a pomerian ( Sheru ) with our neighbours (the shuklas ) . evening was the most fun time when we used to play cricket , drive bicyles in JJWS style with us ruling the colony roads . i took admission in Navarachna school , one of the elitiest ones and studied there my 3rd and 4th grade . again dont know what i learnt there .
then papa got me admission in Kendriya Vidhyalaya , harni road ...... and i was here in this school forever and ever . imagine this , this school was nine kms away from home and chetan & arvind uncle used to take me in his auto till class tenth .
i also used my sunny to commute to tutions in class tenth .... i remember deepak sir's maths tution .... all rich boys and gals coming in their cars and bikes and i cribbing like a kid with pops ...get me a kinetic ..get me a kinetic ...thinking of that moment , i smile today .
January, year 1998 --> I was in class tenth , mom-pops were in a lot of tension as my boards were pretty close .... time for some action , my outdoor escapades were limited, tv viewing hours were monitored and controlled . i used to crib a lot that nobody cares for me , but now i turn back and say that my parents were right in doing what was required for me to have a goodie good career .
Back in school , i didnt used to interact with a lot of batchmates . i had a few close buddies , a few crushes ...one of them remains till now . School was to say not that exciting except for some friends whose friendship and releationship i cherish till now . i was okie dokie in my studies , with a touch of excellence in science . It was fun running away from school in the recess break to have somethig to eat.
After driving pops bajaj scooter in class eleventh , i was upgraded to a lml vespa in class twelveth . wasent i relieved to leave the bajaj , outside chemistry tution i was like kicking it 20-25 times before the bajaj baby would start . thanks a ton to bandookwalaji(Physics), Maths ( M.R. Patelji) , Jehangidji(Chemisrty) , Myself(Biology) for helping me make a decent career path .
May, year 2000 .... i got 79.4 % in my class twelvth .... lots of toil and hard work ..... thanks a lot to "vinay " for achieving success . i got through to bvm engg college in vallabh vidya nagar , electrical branch ..
i was really impressed with my college of dreams ... my engineering college . i always wanted to be an engineer ..so here i was ... june, 2000 . huge ancient buildings , big campus with sprawling lawns and beautiful flowers dotted the campus . My abode, vindhya hostel was adjacent to the college . i have stayed in room no 35 in that hostel with ranjit and abhishek for three and a half years . Hostel life was the best life i have ever had , i cant write in this public blog about all things that happen in hostel & college . Lets say i have had fun and will always cherish hostel life forever and ever after . Engineering hostel has given me 9 good lifelong friends . cheers guys .
I hail for Abhishek, Ranjit , Pushkar , Jhaji , T , J-Lo , Upa , Sniper and shitiya .......... cheers once again guys .... we will always rock ..right !!!!
Final year , L&T entrance test .... we nine (7 same year and two juniors ) all walked out of the exam hall with our heads held low .... all cbse guys + one guj board guy ..no one could make it through ... gad dammit .... L&T is a good for nothg company ........ slowly slowly companies came to campus .... TCS took jhaji and T . i was taken by JCT electronics where i worked for 22 months as a maintainence engg ... hell of a life but learnt a lot . Further on , ranjit got thru in Essar , J-lo in Mother's dairy , pushkar in abb and abhishek in KOCH glitsch , Upa got thru some tests and finally is with ISRO .
Now all nine of us held their head high and rocked the party with jobs in everyone's hand .
My 22 months of job ..well were rocky and just had to get out of there to do something worthwhile in life . well , i prepared for my mba entrance tests in night shifts and learnt enough technically to sustain the shift to troubleshoot some common problems . i gave snap with very poor preparation and got through the gd/pi process of SIOM , Nasik ...... symbiosis inst. of operations management .
So , today i am a student of SIOM doing my summer internship with ingersoll rand . i have been writing this blog since morning in office since had nothing else worthwhile to do . MBA has been fun and hectic as well . Lots of learnings/vipassana 10 day camp/ art of living 3 day course / yoga / workout / and some studies ...he he .....
Quite a beautiful life i have lived till now and expect to live a even more amazing life further on .....
that is all about me till now ... i will write in something more soon ..... take care all and have a great day .....
I am Vinay Jain a.k.a " bunny " born on 13th february , 1982 in calcutta now known as kolkatta . It has been a long journey till now and i know that it is a long journey still ahead . In this blog i will just tell you the salient points of my journey so far , my ambitions , my dreams & ofcourse about myself .
well , first my name which means "namr" in hindi and polite in english . I hope i am living up to my name .... lol . My friends & family can tell better if i have lived up to my name . Secondly, how did i get my nickname ? i am the youngest in the family .. i will tell abt them later . so , i have two elder brothers .. navneet and kushal . Navneet & Kushal are 5 years and 7 years elder to me . Navneet a.k.a nipu used to watch a lot of cartoons on our newly bought national VCR and Emgee colour television . Nipu used to bring along the whole buildings kids and then watch cartoons and doordarshan . It was always a carnival with not less than 15 kids always in front of the TV . now nipu bhai like bugs bunny disney character and hence he named the new member in family as bunny . quite a story , thats how i got my nickname "bunny".
next up , i used to go to saint mary's primary school nearby jyoti basu's house till class 2nd . I dont remember much of that time , only that mamma used to pick me up and when papa bought his bajaj scooter he used to drop me .
Next up , pops got transferred to vadodara, gujarat in june,1991 . I came to the cultural capital of gujarat at a young age of 9. we started living in the central excise and customs colony , type - 3 block , flat number 112 .
life was always fun in the colony with lots of kids and a pomerian ( Sheru ) with our neighbours (the shuklas ) . evening was the most fun time when we used to play cricket , drive bicyles in JJWS style with us ruling the colony roads . i took admission in Navarachna school , one of the elitiest ones and studied there my 3rd and 4th grade . again dont know what i learnt there .
then papa got me admission in Kendriya Vidhyalaya , harni road ...... and i was here in this school forever and ever . imagine this , this school was nine kms away from home and chetan & arvind uncle used to take me in his auto till class tenth .
i also used my sunny to commute to tutions in class tenth .... i remember deepak sir's maths tution .... all rich boys and gals coming in their cars and bikes and i cribbing like a kid with pops ...get me a kinetic ..get me a kinetic ...thinking of that moment , i smile today .
January, year 1998 --> I was in class tenth , mom-pops were in a lot of tension as my boards were pretty close .... time for some action , my outdoor escapades were limited, tv viewing hours were monitored and controlled . i used to crib a lot that nobody cares for me , but now i turn back and say that my parents were right in doing what was required for me to have a goodie good career .
Back in school , i didnt used to interact with a lot of batchmates . i had a few close buddies , a few crushes ...one of them remains till now . School was to say not that exciting except for some friends whose friendship and releationship i cherish till now . i was okie dokie in my studies , with a touch of excellence in science . It was fun running away from school in the recess break to have somethig to eat.
After driving pops bajaj scooter in class eleventh , i was upgraded to a lml vespa in class twelveth . wasent i relieved to leave the bajaj , outside chemistry tution i was like kicking it 20-25 times before the bajaj baby would start . thanks a ton to bandookwalaji(Physics), Maths ( M.R. Patelji) , Jehangidji(Chemisrty) , Myself(Biology) for helping me make a decent career path .
May, year 2000 .... i got 79.4 % in my class twelvth .... lots of toil and hard work ..... thanks a lot to "vinay " for achieving success . i got through to bvm engg college in vallabh vidya nagar , electrical branch ..
i was really impressed with my college of dreams ... my engineering college . i always wanted to be an engineer ..so here i was ... june, 2000 . huge ancient buildings , big campus with sprawling lawns and beautiful flowers dotted the campus . My abode, vindhya hostel was adjacent to the college . i have stayed in room no 35 in that hostel with ranjit and abhishek for three and a half years . Hostel life was the best life i have ever had , i cant write in this public blog about all things that happen in hostel & college . Lets say i have had fun and will always cherish hostel life forever and ever after . Engineering hostel has given me 9 good lifelong friends . cheers guys .
I hail for Abhishek, Ranjit , Pushkar , Jhaji , T , J-Lo , Upa , Sniper and shitiya .......... cheers once again guys .... we will always rock ..right !!!!
Final year , L&T entrance test .... we nine (7 same year and two juniors ) all walked out of the exam hall with our heads held low .... all cbse guys + one guj board guy ..no one could make it through ... gad dammit .... L&T is a good for nothg company ........ slowly slowly companies came to campus .... TCS took jhaji and T . i was taken by JCT electronics where i worked for 22 months as a maintainence engg ... hell of a life but learnt a lot . Further on , ranjit got thru in Essar , J-lo in Mother's dairy , pushkar in abb and abhishek in KOCH glitsch , Upa got thru some tests and finally is with ISRO .
Now all nine of us held their head high and rocked the party with jobs in everyone's hand .
My 22 months of job ..well were rocky and just had to get out of there to do something worthwhile in life . well , i prepared for my mba entrance tests in night shifts and learnt enough technically to sustain the shift to troubleshoot some common problems . i gave snap with very poor preparation and got through the gd/pi process of SIOM , Nasik ...... symbiosis inst. of operations management .
So , today i am a student of SIOM doing my summer internship with ingersoll rand . i have been writing this blog since morning in office since had nothing else worthwhile to do . MBA has been fun and hectic as well . Lots of learnings/vipassana 10 day camp/ art of living 3 day course / yoga / workout / and some studies ...he he .....
Quite a beautiful life i have lived till now and expect to live a even more amazing life further on .....
that is all about me till now ... i will write in something more soon ..... take care all and have a great day .....
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