Rangeen Parinde, featuring Johnny Ibrahim, Boxer Bhai and Brothers - episode 2 - the curious incident of umm.. something in the night time...

So we reached Pune, got down from the bus, and promptly had an incident with a rickshaw, turned out he had turned the meter on before he took us, luckily Roochay, having lived in Pune, was wary and checked the meter. We promptly got down midway and took another rick.

Reached sanchit's place, i think the incident of the 'keys' happened here (am a bit hazy, roochay might remember - he confirms, it didnt happen here, it happened on The Return). Mihir, arpit and nakul too arrive. We borrow lots of stuff from Sanchit before setting out. I think the scene was kinda like whatever we laid our eyes on and would be cool to take along we took. Sanchit might have a full list i guess (i think roochay even took a bandana for some reason). He must've feared for the safety of his beloved camera, i think we did ask him in a mock-serious tone for it.

And oh yeah, the problem of the passport, well ya, you guessed it, Sanchit graciously agreed to give his passport as collateral, (maybe in return for not taking his camera, :D) not knowing his passport would have to endure a 'Behind Enemy Lines' kinda story later on...
Well the car (ford ikon) comes, we leave around two, eat like havent eaten in years at an unassuming joint (before the Satara highway i think). If someone would have seen the empty plates and bottles that we had left at that place, he would have been forgiven for thinking that roughly 15 absolutely famished ravenous (refugees?) had attacked the place.

So, having had our fill, we finally leave, thinking we would take around (6-7) hours to reach as it was about 450 odd kilometers from pune. Oh how wrong we were... (sanchit had told us it would take longer so we should leave early, but i think we just thought it was a ploy to get rid of us so that we wouldnt steal any more of his things)... Anyway, the drive was awesome - full music, amazing conversation, awesome scenic view...

Then night came, we asked for directions, and a man, who looked like morgan freeman, assures us that we will not be able to find our way through kolhapur and will get stuck, so generously (if you count 100 bucks as generous) offers to ride with us, guide us forlorn travellers, so that we cross kolhapur without getting stuck.
After a discussion the motion was carried with a ratio of 4 to 1 i think... and that 'kaka' jumped in with us at the back, guided us across twisted ways, whether deliberately to make us realize how lucky we were to have him with us or not i dont know, but he led us through the city, we let him out and then we were on our way...

The drives at night are especially beautiful, this beauty was specially shown by nakul by turning the headlights off, you see he didn't us want to miss a single part of the beauty, the pure awesomeness and the adrenaline rush that you get from the dread and fear that comes with the realization that you are going at over 100 kmph without headlights and at any moment something big and mean and with wheels could appear in front of you...

We stopped in the middle of nowhere at night and got out of the car. The night was so so beautiful, the heavenly silence, i haven't seen so many stars ever, you could just be there and look at the stars for eternity, lost in thoughts, funny how just looking at the stars makes you go into a different world, totally oblivious to what is going around you, but everything becoming crystal clear for that moment...

Anyway i digress, we realize its getting late, again drive, figure we should be nearby by now. We find a sign saying Tarkali, debate on whether to follow the sign or not, since it led to an offbeat road, away from the main road. We decide to follow it, rejecting the notions of some horror movie scenario, where some undead might have planted the sign to lead unsuspecting people down to their doom or something...

Well the night was dark, roochay was spooked, the road got progressively worse, the night got darker (if that were possible), roochay got more and more spooked (yes this is definitely possible), nakul was driving. And suddenly there's a loud 'thump'! Something hit the car... did we hit some animal, run over a dead body (the undead who had planted the sign), run over some guy 'i know what you did last summer' types, or was it just some harmless bush, well we had no idea and we weren't going to stop to find out, coz it was definitely something...
'the curious incident of something in the night-time'
... so roochay gets more spooked and tries to scare everyone else, we seem lost, and there's no one around to ask for directions. We keep driving, finally see a hut, with a dim light, 'someone' (who has been named previously but has since protested against the 'allegations') is too scared to go ask for directions, finally arpit goes with him, asks directions, turns out we should have taken the main road, but this road is also okay, just a bit long and rough and umm... scary... Still haven't figured out the mystery of the signboard though...

We rumble on, reach there late around 1 in the night, realize we had made no reservations, cue we frantically calling up all the resorts after getting their numbers from the signboards, turns out everything is full. We drive on, looking wistfully at the parties going on in various cottages. Going to every resort, asking for reservations, we ditched the car, walked on foot. No rooms free anywhere! In the entire freakin place!!

Well the place is like a strait, a narrow piece of land, with resorts, and with sea on either side. Thought we might have to spend the next three days sleeping in the car or on the beach... hmm.. on second thoughts would that have been that bad...well anyway, right at the end, we find a resort, literally and figuratively the last resort, turns out the guy was watchin a movie thats why he was awake, and he had a couple of room to spare!! So we get the rooms, trundle down to the beach, take in more of the beautiful night, the silver moonlight shining on the pristine sand and waves, the sand was so white it glittered even at night.

We sat there for a while, in absolute silence, just the sound of the crashing waves...  This silence is so addictive, you crave for such moments when you get back to the real world, the world you want to run away from. It is these moments, which give you the energy to face the world. I think vacations should be made mandatory every couple of months, i guarantee productivity will go up 200%...

We realize its real late, get back to the rooms for some well-deserved-even-though-we-dont-want-to sleep, waiting for the morning to arrive... with all its exciting possibilities!!

Rangeen Parinde, featuring Johnny Ibrahim, Boxer Bhai and Brothers - episode I

I still remember the day i walked out of LnT, just walked out.  Left office around lunch, caught a bus, went to CCD, spent the entire day reading one of the most amazing books ever written, decided there's more to life than this and never went back. But that story is for an another time.

I guess we all were fed up and wanted a break, so were thinking of a road trip, to reconnect i guess, and a lot of things were happening in everyone's lives, a lot of things needed to be discussed. Lots of places came in contention, then a week before my leaving lnt, roochay mails us about this wonderful place called Tarkarli, in Malvan district, about 540 odd kilometres from Mumbai. The pics looked enticing, wiki and blogs assured us we would not be disappointed. Bags were packed, tickets were booked.

The base was decided as Pune. I left Mysore, early morning on 1st April, with my full boriya bistar, since i planned never to return, had had a real tough time packing. Finally had managed to stuff everything in 4 bags, with about 20-25 books apart from cat material (some of which i had to leave behind), the clothes were stuffed in whatever space that could be found between the books.

With 4 bags, (two on one shoulder, one on the other and one bag suffering the ignominy of being dragged around, i think i actually slowed the traffic down... people nudging each other and pointing at me, must've been my new shoes), caught a bus for Bangalore. That is something i loved there, 24 hour bus service, Volvo, for Mysore-Bangalore, amazingly comfortable, just push back the seat and fall asleep (I have actually been woken up by a conductor once, on one of my weekend sojourns, he said something along the lines of  "Aap yahin soyenge ya ghar jaayenge?").

Roochay was late, as usual, and i had to wait for him at Majestic, as the bus stand of Bangalore is known. It is unbelievably huge, a person can easily get lost here, but a good mix of signs and people will usually set you in the right place for the right bus. The intercity bus stand,the part where the buses come from other cities, for some reason, always seemed to me like a graveyard for buses. Not that the buses are old or dilapidated, on the other hand they are among the best in the country, but maybe that image of hundreds of buses at night, lying indiscriminately, gave a feeling of being among prisoners at some concentration camp... (That image was probably captured some late Sunday night, in a dazed state, after the usual heady weekends). 

Well Roochay finally turned up, and it turned out that the bus for Pune was waiting for us only. So we were off for Pune at around 1 in afternoon. It was an 17 odd hour journey and to compensate for that we were treated to amazing movies like the Shawshank Redemption, Blood Diamond and Pursuit of Happyness in the bus. Okay okay... they were Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge, 3 idiots and, erm, Chance Pe Dance.

Around evening, Mihir and Arpit left from Surat, Nakul from Baroda. Constant locations updates were being relayed by the troops. As is natural for guys our age, naturally we wanted to drive to Tarkarli by ourselves, without a hired driver, we wanted a road trip, but for some reasons we couldnt get our own cars. But as they say - where there's a Will, there's a Way - and so we met these two brothers, named Will and Way... but then this is not a story about them, maybe some other time... so out came the laptop, reliance netconnect+ and google to the rescue!! Turned out there are only 4 companies in india which provide self driven cars, guess it has not caught on much here, and they were all fully booked! Well, there were a couple of Rolls Royces left... Ahem... But we looked at some other car rentals in Pune and Roochay, as only Roochay can, convinced one car rental fellow to rent out a car to us without a driver. He wanted an outrageous amount as deposit but ultimately Roochay convinced him to settle on a passport as collateral.
But as it turned out we did not have our passports with us, and Nakul, Mihir and Arpit had already left... well we thought we'll figure that out after we reach Pune.