It Was A Hectic Weekend For Me

July is the month of admissions and fulfilment of dreams of thousands of children, similarly my brother was frenzied with happiness to get an admission in his dream college. My cousin who has just passed his class 12th got admission in Symbiosis pune. Mesho and mashi flew directly from lucknow to pune for the admission of Kunal in Symbiosis as soon as possible. Everything went on smoothly, Kunal got admission and fortunately found an appartment which he has to share with other two children . Mesho mashi then came to mumbai to my sis's home. In the same evening they rang me and informed me about their plan for next few days.

Mashi wanted to go to kunal's paying guest house once again to ensure that her son is alright in supervision of his big brother who is in his second year of MBA in pune itself. Since I am an introvert by nature and a man who loves to live in his own dreams would certainly try to escape from such social obligations. But unfortunately I reluctantly said yes because there were no other ways to escape from this pit. When I met mashi and showed my gratitude to her, suddenly she looked at my face and suggested to have a quick tour to shiridih. Now I must say at that moment it was like " ohh gawd main kyun aa gaya...koi acha bahana bhi nahin mil raha " ...but you know the common hindu belief, never say or think about god in wrong way. So I was somehow felt like under the bondage of religion at that time and didnt get the opportunity to plea for my rescue.


We happily left for pune and took volvo bus from nerul( its on harbour line ) . It was my first time on the express highway so I was enthralled by the serene beauty of the untouched ghats. Before entering Lonavala and khandala I smelt the redolent of the city with the traces of the buildings built on mountains cutting them brutely. Whole natural beauty was lost in the gloomy dense fog of commercialization. However after three long hours we finaly reached pune station and from there to my cousin's home. We left for shiridih next day in the early morning so that we could get enough time to return back to pune before dusk. While returning from Shiridih we watched lots of sai baba movies in which people rococo Sai baba's shrine and with full of sanctimonious devotees reciting paeans to make him happy.


We reached Pune by 8 o'clock, met my cousin gave him the prasad and left for mumbai. My mashi is in her 50's so she has tonns of prejudices regarding the new generation . She is a live example of acerbity for the new hip hop generation. Therefore naturally she was afraid of travelling during night due to so called fear of bhaiya type people who are suppose to plunder people whenever they travel at nights. But it took half an hour to convince her that the general gentry and overall scenario is different in mumbai as compared to UP. She reluctantly agreed but with one promise that if she is convinced that the people travelling are OK then only she'll travel. I also nodded with loyalty because it was a valid point.

Fortunately one volvo bus was waiting for the passengers. Mashi first went inside the bus to inquire the quality of passenger, but I could surely tell by looking at her face that she was enough reluctant to travel. I could make out with her expressions that she must have saw some half drunk men watching bar girls dancing inside the bus. She came down and was about to say NO but suddenly people with wives and children hurriedly went inside the bus. Now mashi was in dilemma whether to go or not and finally she chose to go because the number of people with family overcame the number of single men who were sitting initially inside the bus. Believe me when I got inside, there was nothing as such type whatever I saw on mashi's face. As the matter of fact there were few middle aged men disconsolated from their bosses, sitting at the back half dozing so that they dont get disturb by the incoming passengers. Now that was hilarious .Overall It was bit tiring journey since whole day we had been travelling more than half of the time in buses glued to our seats. But I enjoyed the western ghats untouched beauty, about which i'll write soon when I will feel like I have justified vaocabulary to express my thoughts.