After so many YESs and NOs we finally decided to go to Pune on first weekend of November i.e. 7th and 8th of November. Actually the plan had been almost cancelled as Atul and Deepa were not available. So we (people from Mumbai) had decided to go to Alibag on bike via Revas. But finally we had to postpone our bike trip for indefinite periodL. In a way its good as Ranjana can join us for Alibag bike expedition.
This visit was not supposed to be a picnic. It was more like a get together so that we all can meet and enjoy. From Mumbai, Pravin, Pooja, Gurdeep, Renjith, Sreegith, Jayesh and I were supposed to join. But Sreegith had to cancel at the last moment as he had an important meeting on Sunday to decide the date for our Keral picnic. I mean he had to see a girl for marriage J. As usual Jayesh opted out because he had to attend office on weekend due to release. Strange thing in software industry is that though the delivery is planned on Friday, with no exception, every project gets delayed and the team has to work on the last weekend to make the release. I wonder why people plan release on Friday. Why not on Wednesday or Thursday. For every picnic Jayesh is the first guy to confirm his availability but somehow for one or the other reason he has to opt out. As usual I say “Better luck next time Jayesh”. But next time never comes for Jayesh.
We caught Sahyadri express from Dadar at 6 pm. It was a bit difficult for me as we had intermediate release that day. But I managed to escape on time. Unfortunately I had got a boil again. This time it was on the left elbow. We reached Pune at around 10 pm. Except me everybody went to Vinayak’s place. I heard later that Deepa had cooked chicken. I missed it L. Anyway Jayanti had cooked mini chicken, I mean egg.
After so much thinking and changes in the plan, finally the plan was Saturday morning Sinhgad trek and Chokhi-Dhani in the evening. And Balaji temple on Sunday.
Kaustubh called us late night and asked us to leave early in the morning at 6:30. Like obedient kids we left quite on time just to find Kaustubh would come at 7. Too bad kaustubh J. We had 2 cars and 2 bikes in our caravan of 11 and half people. From Pune, Vinayak, Deepa, Archit, Jayanti, Nitin, Kaustubh and Saurabh joined. What is this Atul? I was very much excited about the Sinhgad trek. I had climbed Sinhgad 2 years back with Rakesh, Nitin, Jayanti and 2 other friends of Nitin. It was very tiring and awesome experience. We reached at the base of Sinhgad at around 8 and started having breakfast in a restaurant. It took us 1 hour to complete breakfast. And that’s when the plan of Sinhgad trek was spoiled. I was still firm on the trek and Gurdeep too was ready to join me while other would come via road. Because for me Sinhgad is equal to trek. But at the last moment Gurdeep showed loss of eagerness. And then I have to withdraw the trek plan. I was very disappointed.
We started our upward journey via a road full of path holes. On the way Nitin spotted a garden. We just stopped and went inside. I cant recollect the name but it’s a place on a hill. Its not maintained properly but one can spend an evening enjoying beauty of Sahyadri (Maharashtrian hill range). We left the garden after some time and resumed our journey. Kaustubh and Saurabh, who were following us on bikes, didn’t notice us going into the garden and passed us. They had to wait midway till we joined them.
Like other forts, Sanhgad which is also known as Kondhana, has a big history of Sacrifice. This time it was Tanaji Malusare, a knight of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, who sacrificed his life for the Maratha Empire. Shivaji Maharaj had to surrender Sinhgad along with other forts to Aurangjeb in the truce of Purandar in 1665. After getting cheated by Aurangjeb, Shivaji maharaj broke the truce and started conquering all the forts back. Sinhgad was one of the strong forts and it was not at all easy to get it back. Tanaji Malusare, despite upcoming marriage of his son, went on to capture the fort. After a lot of survey they found that getting this fort was next to impossible. First it was difficult to climb and second it was strongly protected by mughal fort keeper, Udebhan Rathod. But Tanaji was not the one who would accept defeat so easily. After all he had promised his king. They set a high risk plan of reaching on the fort by climbing a steep vertical rock. This would not be possible to do without somebody tie a rope on top. Tanaji used his Ghorpad (a big lizard) named Yashwanti to do it for him. He tied a rope around waist of Yashwanti who went up and held firm on a rock. Tanaji and his men reached on the top using the rope. Next impossible task was to defeat Udebhan. He was a very strong man and Tanaji lost his life fighting with him. Nevertheless Tanaji captured Sinhgad as he had promised Shivaji Maharaj. Shivaji Maharaj was very much disappointed on losing his fine knight and childhood friend.
We started roaming around on the fort. There are quite a few places to see. We spent a lot of time at Kalyan Darwaja (Kalyan entrance). The wind was blowing like anything. After that we started walking towards another point. It was almost 11 am and it was really hot. After around 15 mins walk we reached at another point from where you can see range of Sanhyadri mountain. We didn’t leave any chance of clicking photographs. After spending 15 mins there, we started walking back to center of the fort. Everybody was very hungry so next plan was to have lunch.
There are no sophisticated restaurants on the fort. But there are many country restaurants which serve food. If you have a big group, better place the order one hour in advance. You get only local food including rice, bhakari, daal, curd, onion pakode (kanda bhaji) etc. You can enjoy the food sitting on the floor under shade. This is an awesome experience. It reminded me of Van-Bhojan (meal in jungle) during my school days. Anyway I could not have lunch as it was Saturday and so I was on fast.
Meanwhile I had prepared Gurdeep to join me for downward trek. I could not have gone home without this. I knew that they would spend at least one hour sitting there after the lunch. So just after finishing lunch Gurdeep and me filled up a couple of bottles with water and started our trek. I estimated an hour to complete the trek. Initially we found it difficult to descend as it was a bit slippery. After some time we got used to the conditions and we kept descending comfortably. Though we were focusing more on our steps, we were enjoying scenic beauty intermittently. All the while we were talking a lot as you don’t need lot of energy while descending. We were mainly discussing about Gurdeep only. I was giving him a lot of Dnyan (Knowledge). I am not a great person but gave him tips which I myself follow. He was quite open and was freely discussing things in his life. We were mainly talking about anger and how anger can spoil relations. We took a pause at a tapari where we had sugarcane juice. Though it was 2 pm and it was very hot, still some people were going upward. I really appreciate their efforts. It took us 1 hour and 20 mins to reach the base of Sinhgad.
We thought other people must have reached and we were expecting Saurabh and Kaustubh to come and pick up us. The crossroad where these people would come is around 3 kms from the base. We started walking on road towards the crossroad. We were very much engrossed in talks and we were hoping that these people would not reach before us. It took us around another 20 to 30 mins to arrive at the crossroad. Nobody had reached there before us. After 10 mins we saw Nitin’s car arriving.
Nitin, Jayanti, Gurdeep and me went to Nitin’s place while other had to go to Vinayak’s place as they had left their bags there. I don’t know why L .
We spent good time at Nitin’s place till all people came. Gurdeep was a bit irritated since he was not able to take bath as his bag was at Vinayak’s place. Our next plan was Chokhi-Dhani. When everybody arrived at Nitin’s place it was already 7 pm. And we were still debating on whether we should go to Chokhi-Dhani or not. Finally we decided to go there.
After a small journey which took 45 mins due to traffic we reached Chokhi-Dhani. It is a Rajasthani theme based place. It’s original version is in Jaipur. As compared to Jaipur version, this is very small. The entry fee is Rs. 350 for adults and Rs. 250 for children between 3 and 9 years. We started having snacks just after entering. You can see Rajasthani folk dance, puppet show, a guy walking on rope tied 10 feed above ground, folk singing etc. You can also try your skills of gun shooting, arrow etc. You can check you fortune as there are few astrologers. First we saw Rajasthani folk dance which later got converted into Garba (Gujrati folk dance) due to a group of 3-4 girls who wanted to dance in Rajasthani style. But soon they started doing Garba.
Then we enjoyed watching rope walk. Nearby there was a puppet-show point. Once the rope walk was over, he started puppet- show. This was quite funny. He showed many characters including Aishwarya Roy who was dancing as if she is boneless. Then he showed a madari (snake charmer). Funny thing was the snake was biting madari only.
Nitin and I were very interested in Ferris wheel which was not so big. Nobody was ready to join us so finally we two only started. It cost us 3 coupons per person. They give us 5 coupons per head for free on entry which you can use for gun shooting arrow shooting etc. When it was going up it was swinging a lot. I was really scared but I kept shouting “Dar se mat daro, dar ke aage badho kyuki dar ke aage jeet hai.” That gave me some spirit. Then we tried our luck at astrologer.
At around 10 pm we were very hungry so we went for dinner. They serve pure-veg Rajasthani food. After a little search, we found a place for 12 people. The food was very delicious and full of sweet items. They are allowed to talk only in Rajasthani so it was quite difficult to us. After some time the waiters found that we were not eating sweet items so they started feeding us. It was quite funny. We left Chokhi-Dhani at around 11:30 pm and reached Nitin’s place in 30 mins. We stayed that night at Nitin’s place.
Next day we were supposed to visit Balaji temple, Katraj zoo (if time permitted) and Kaustubh’s place. We all woke up on time and got ready. Jayanti made good omelet for us. We spent some time in club house playing carom, TT, Lawn Tennis and pool. Unfortunately Pooja was suffering from headache. Then we left for Balaji temple. But before that we had lunch. Lunch was a treat from Nitin and Jayanti. By the time we finished lunch it was 2 pm and we didn’t have enough time to visit Balaji temple so we dropped the plan and went to Katraj zoo straight away. The zoo has quite a few species of snakes, turtles and different species of stags. There is a small lake which reminded Saurabh of special moment of his life. Contact him to know more about it. The zoo also has a white tiger. I never knew that there is something called white tiger. There are also normal tigers and leopards. Gurdeep cracked a PJ on leopard; nobody will laugh on it except him.
After leaving the zoo we went to Kaustubh’s place. We spent around one hour sitting and enjoying Dhokala and tea.
We, the guys from Mumbai left kaustubh’s place and reached Pune station at around 6 pm just to find that the train was delayed by 1.5 hours. Gurdeep was very restless as he had to attend engagement of his close friend. Finally the train left at 8:30 pm and we all reached safely.
It was a nice get together cum picnic. When are we meeting again guys?
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