Shrivardhan, this was the fourth time in last 5 years and I was equally excited about it. Now you will wonder what so special about this place. Let me tell you, there is nothing, absolutely nothing great about this place as far as scenic beauty is concerned. But there is something in this place which attracts us. ‘Us’ means our Geometric group: Geo roamers. Shrivardhan is situated on a sea shore around 220 Kms away from Mumbai. Roughly 6 hrs.’ drive from Mumbai/Pune. The beach is not very good looking, but the real beauty is the resort which we book: Nivant Sagar. The resort has only basic amenities but it has everything that a group like us need: hall for sleeping, dining area outside, hammocks, swings, Machans, Jacuzzi, and huge area to play any team game. It is this place because of which I like to go there again and again with our group.
As usual we had a huge struggle finding a suitable date for everyone. Finally we deiced to go on 19/20 march as almost everyone was available on this weekend except Gurdeep. We had struggle fixing the venue also as Sreegith was very reluctant to go to Shrivardhan again. But he had to give up after a long teleconference of 50 mins. By the time we decided the venue, it was too late and Nivant Sagar was already booked. It was disappointing. Nevertheless we found another resort just adjacent to it: Khotachi Wadi.
We expected more than 15 people this time but Atul and Kaustubh had to drop out at the last moment. Finally it turned out that only 4 people would come from Pune and 1o from Mumbai. We had planned to leave by 5 pm from Mumbai but actually we left at 6:15 pm and that costed us badly. We crossed Panvel at 8 pm. Wadkhal was the rendezvous where Mumbai and Pune people would meet. Nitin, who was traveling from Pune, had already reached Wadkhal and they had to wait for an hour for us to reach.
After driving for another half an hour together we found a good restaurant to have dinner. Good because there was nobody else in this restaurant. The moment people got out of the car they started hugging each other as if we were meeting after a decade. Everybody was so happy and excited that everyone had forgotten all the daily life fatigue. This was the real motivation behind the picnic. It turned out to be a really good restaurant as the food was also decent. You generally don’t expect such food from highway restaurants.
After an hour’s dinner break we started again. It was 10 or 10:30 pm. Still 2.5 to 3 hours journey was remaining. You need to take right turn at Mangaon for Shrivardhan. It is 48 Kms from this point. But the road is very bad. At most of the places it was under construction. As the next day there was Holi, locals were busy cutting trees which they would burn the next day. We had to be very careful while driving as after every half kilometer we would find a group of people pulling a tree branch on the road.
We were feeling very bad that people were cutting trees just to burn them. There is already shortage of trees and we are facing greenhouse effect. But they can afford to cut few trees as the place is full of trees and cutting few trees won’t make much difference. Only if they had chosen the trees carefully it would have been better. Obviously I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Secondly they have rational behind burning woods on holi. It’s more like emotion purgation. Woods are just symbols of all the devil things.
We reached our destination at 1 am. The resort was not very good as compared to Nivant Sagar, but it was not disappointing either. There were 2 bedrooms and a hall which can accommodate 7/8 people. On the first day we were 13 people plus Maya: Umesh’s daughter. There are two more rooms which they call tent. But actually there are not tents. They can accommodate 4/5 people each. But 2 bedrooms and a hall were enough for us. When we were driving everyone was feeling sleepy, but the moment we arrived, the sleep had disappeared. We had tea and chatted for some time. Then we few went to beach which is just behind the resort. Going to beach after arriving has become a ritual now. On previous 3 occasions we did that and we continued it this time also. The beach was looking milky under the almost full moon. After spending some time on beach we return back and were asleep straight away. It was 3 am by then.
Next day we got up at 7 am. This is because of the enthusiasm. Despite sleeping very late at 3 am, everyone was up by 7 am. We had ordered Kande Pohe for breakfast but it would not be ready until 9 am so we decided to have tea and go to beach. It’s very delighting to go to beach early in the morning. We didn’t want to miss that. Ranjana and I run for a kilometer. The beach spans 3 kms. When we finished our run, we found that the confluence of creek and sea is just one more km away and we could as well go there. So we walked for one more km. It was a very good sight. On previous 3 occasions I had planned to come at the confluence but I never really made it.
The resort is full of coconut trees so you never really feel heat. They have arranged 3 hammocks so we played some music and enjoyed chatting. The breakfast was still not ready. It was time to play some games.
We decide to play Son Saakhali. You start with one player who tries to catch another. Then they make a chain and catch 3rd player. This goes on and the chain grows long and then on catching becomes a lot easier. But there are some rules which make it very difficult to catch a player. You cannot catch a player when he is with another fellow player. Secondly because of coconut trees all over you need to break the chain again and again. Unfortunately I was the one to start with. It would have been very easy for me to catch anybody but you just can’t run like that. You have to become an elephant while running. Becoming elephant means touching your hand to opposite side ear and keeping another had straight like trunk of the elephant. Can you imagine how difficult running like this could be? And they all will come and beat you when you come out of this elephant pose. After trying for long time I was unable to catch anybody so I decided to target somebody weak. I targeted Sunil and caught him. After this we had to just make a chain and catch 3rd player. No elephant pose is required once you catch your first victim. But Sunil was already exhausted by the running so he opted out. I was back to elephant pose. This time somehow I managed to catch Deepa. Then we made a chain and in some time we caught Nitin. Then we easily caught Smitha and after some efforts Umesh. We somehow wanted to catch Jayesh and Sreegith as they were teasing us and were making fun of us. Puru was on our target for long but we were not able to get him. Finally we cornered him and he fell down. He got bruises on his knees but he was ok. Nitin too got his foot hurt. We were in our childhood. We run like mad, fell down, got some injuries. By now our chain had grown big and we were ready to catch Jayesh but then he said ‘Time please’. Typical childhood cheating. We enjoyed the game thoroughly and got ourselves exhausted.
By then it was almost 11 and finally the breakfast was ready. A local boy was climbing on coconut trees to fetch Maadi: a fluid deposited inside coconut tree. We bought one litre and drank it. It tastes like wine and gives bad burps later.
Next plan was to have lunch and then go to Diveagar. Vinayak was supposed to join us on that day as he was at his native with his son: Archit. Saurabh too could not come with us as he was not able to leave office early. He had started from Mumbai in the morning and had not reached till then. By the time we finished lunch it was almost 3 pm and Saurabh just arrived. Vinayak would join us directly in Diveagar.
Diveagar is 18 kms away from Shrivardhan, exactly in opposite direction of Harihareshwar. On the way, just 5 or 6 kms from Shrivardhan, there is a beach. The road passes touching the beach. 
I was stunned by the beauty of that beach. Normally in this area you will find all the beaches with black sand. But this one was an exception. It has got white sand and it was very clean. No doubt a film institute from Pune had chosen it for their shooting workshop that day. Puru later told me (in low voice) that they call such beaches ‘Virgin beach’. Most of the road moves close to the sea so the ride was awesome.
Diveagar has a small Ganesh temple and they found a Ganesh idol there in 1997 which dated to 7th to 9th century. The idol is golden and they found it 1.5 feet under the ground. The idol looks as if it is made yesterday. Also there is a beach in Diveagar but we didn’t go to the beach. We sat there for some time. Vinayak had already reached there. He had his all-time favorite Sarbat and others had tender coconut water. After clicking a group photo we started back to Shrivardhan.
On the way back we stopped at a big curve which has a sea in background. I thought that that was a perfect location to click some photos. I had some ideas for group photo but I could implement only a couple of them as arranging 15 people for a group photo is a tough task.
After spending some time there we resumed the journey. When we again arrived at that beach, those people were still shooting. We decided to spend rest of the time till sunset there. Meanwhile we had some miss coordination and other 2 cars went ahead. But still we thought let’s spend at least 15 mins there. It took me some time to figure out where the shooting camera was and whom they were shooting.
After spending some time on the beach we left for the hotel. 
By the time we reached the sun had already taken leave to brighten up lives of people of other part of the world. We spend next two hours chatting and then went to beach again. After coming back from beach at 8:30 pm we went to market for dinner and came back by 10 pm. That night we slept early. After some hassle the resort guy arranged two extra matrices for two extra people.
On Sunday there was holi: a festival of color. I don’t like holi much. At my native there is no concept of throwing colors. So for 16 years of my life I never played holi with colors. When I came to Mumbai, I found people enjoy holi a lot. But then I never had a group with which I could enjoy holi. Moreover I hated holi because on the day of holi you have to seat back at home. You cannot go out and enjoy the one day holiday like other holidays. But with friends around I thought this time holi would be special. I had already carried powder colors with me.
So that was all we needed. After having first round of breakfast we started playing holi. We colored faces of everyone with different colors: green, yellow, pink, orange. Some of us were reluctant of getting colors on their hairs. But there was no escape. 
The more resistance you show, people enjoy more. Sunil, Puru, Umesh and Saurabh had gone to Harihareshwar early in the morning. They would return by 10 am. After enjoying throwing colors, the guys were still not satisfied. So they had found an innovative way of troubling people. They decided to drench everyone in mud. I was the first victim. One by one we would pick up a guy, put him inside mud, throw some sand on him and make him feel disgusting. Girls were lucky to escape from this. When it was Sreegith’s turn, we put ash on him along with mud.
When Umesh, Puru, Sunil and Saurabh arrived, they had no idea what was going to happen with them. First we threw a lot of color on them and then water. Umesh showed some resistance but there was no mercy. They must have anticipated this. Then it was time to put them into mud. 
We had some trouble tackling Puru but picking up Sunil was most difficult. But we managed even that. By then Umesh realized that there was no point fighting with us so he surrendered himself. But then what’s the fun if a guy is himself coming and sleeping in mud. So we picked him up and put inside ash. The holi will be most memorable.
The maadi guy came again and we again bought it from him.
That day we had ordered Upama for the breakfast which arrived at 11:30 am. After having the breakfast, we went into sea. The sea was at its best. I never saw here sea like this during last 3 visits. We enjoyed thoroughly riding on the waves. Smitha was experiencing the bath in sea for the first time and surprisingly she was not at all scared. We would not have stopped, had we not supposed to leave that day.
After coming back from beach, we had bath, packed our bags
and it was time to leave. But before leaving we clicked some group snaps. After having lunch we started back home.
I don’t know about others but I would always like to come here every year with Geo Roamers.
