Thank You

Thank you for being there for me. You are the air that I breathe. And when you had many chances to leave, you stuck by me during the hard times. I'm so happy that you are mine and because of you my life is fine. You stayed with me during the pain. You're the best person that I know and I love it when your love shows. You were there when I was rich and you stand by me when I fell in a ditch. You are there when I had a frown. Even though the many times I lied, you made me happy when I cried. Because of you I'm not dead and because of you I'm not on the streets. You gave me everything I have and you know that that's a lot. Even though all the times I did wrong, you stuck by me all this long….
We’ll be happy today, tomorrow and forever if only you believe me one more time…

Plan for 20th June 2009 Prabalgarh and Kalavantin point trek

Brief Introduction about Prabalgad / Kalwantin Durg:-

Height: 2300 ft
Grade: Prabalgad Easy, Kalwantin Medium
Time: ~3 hrs from Thakurwadi, Base Village
Location: Prabalgad is a fort located near Panvel.

Prabalgad fort is situated on northeast side of Panvel, on Mumbai-Pune road. One can see it from express highway as V-Shaped mountain. The left one is Kalwantin durg & on the right side is Prabalgad. But there is a dense forest on the way till the the top of fort Prabal. Historical references indicate that Freedom fighter Umaji Naik made a stay there in 1826.

Journey Details:-

The bus is scheduled at 07:00hrs from Panvel bus depot, and will drop us at Thakurwadi village around 07:30 Hrs. Please be sure about the timing. Its sharp 7 am. We will be getting down at the last stop.

Trek Details:-

08:00 Hrs -- Move towards Prabalgad fort from Thakurwadi village.
09:00 Hrs -- At Thakarwadi. 1st Halt. BreakFast Time.
11:00 Hrs -- On Top of fort. By taking right side route. Whereas left side one goes for Kalwantin

I guess 2 hrs for Fort Exploration, Lunch etc. is enough.

We will descend the fort around 13:30 Hrs.

15:00 Hrs -- At Thakarwadi
15:45 Hrs -- At Kalwantin Durg Pinnacle

Kalwantin durg pinnacle is tougher than Prabalgad. It has some rock cut steps intially and then few more but muddy path near the pinnacle. It will be slippery, but real adventure. Hopefully we are going to scale the pinnacle.

16:30 Hrs -- Descend from Kalwantin
18:00 Hrs -- At Thakurwadi ...

From here we will catch the last bus for Panvel, or take a rick if its available towards scheduling fata and henceforth to Panvel, have Snack/tea at Panvel.

And then depart for home. The Estimated initial expenditure is about Rs. 100/- This includes Panvel to Thakurwadi return fare for bus/rick. Veg Sandwiches as morning breakfast, theplas with chutni/chunda as lunch and evening snacks/tea.

Things To Carry:-

A Water Bottle (~2.5 Ltrs)
Rain cheater (Optional)
Camera, Cell Phone (Optional)
Please avoid wearing Gold and other ornaments
1 torch (if u have any please bring)
Some ready to eat food. Plum cakes, Biscuits etc.
Medicine if u require usually (Optional)
Extra pair of clothes,
Knife
And a haversack to put all these things.

Oh ri duniya, Oh ri duniya,
Aye duniya, aye surmayee aankhein ke pyaalo ki duniya oh duniya,
Surmayee aankhein ke pyaalo ki duniya oh duniya,
Satrangi rango gulalo ki duniya oh duniya -2 times

Alsaayi sejo ke phoolon ki duniya oh duniya re,
Angdaayi tode kabootar ki duniya oh duniya re,
Aye karwat le soyi haqeeqat ki duniya oh duniya,
Deewani hoti tabiyat ki duniya oh duniya,
Khwahish mein lipti zaroorat ki duniya oh duniya re,
Heyyy insaan ke sapno ki niyat ki duniya oh duniya,
Oh ri duniya, oh ri duniya, oh ro duniya, oh ri duniya,
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai? – 3 times

Mamta ki bikhri kahani ki duniya oh duniya,
Behno ki siski jawani ki duniya oh duniya,
Adam ke hawwa se rishte ki duniya oh duniya re
Heyyy shayar ke pheenke labzo ki duniya oh duniya,
Ooooo…oooo…hoooo….hooo…ooooooooo…
[Gaalib ke maumin ke khawabo ki duniya,
Majazo ke un inqalabo ki duniya] - 2 times

Faize firako sahir umakhdum meel ki zoku kitabo ki duniya,
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai? – 3 times

Palchin mein baaten chali jaati hai hai,
Palchin mein raaten chali jaati hai hai,
Reh jaata hai jo sawera wo dhoondhe,
Jalta makaan mein basera wo dhoondhe,
Jaisi bachi hai waisi ki waisi, bacha lo yeh duniya,
Apna samajh ke apno ki jaisi utha lo yeh duniya,
Chitput si baaton mein jalne lagegi, sambhalo yeh duniya,
Katpit ke raaton mein palne lagegi, sambhalo yeh duniya,
Oh ri duniya, oh ri duniya, wo kahen hai ki duniya,
Yeh itni nahi hai sitaaro se aage jahan aur bhi hai,
Yeh hum hi nahi hai, wahan aur bhi hai,
Hamari hare k baat hoti wahin hai,
Hume aitraaz nahi hai kahin bhi,
Wo aayi zamil pe sahi hai,
Magar falsafa yeh bigad jaata hai jo,
Wo kehte hai…aalim yeh kehta wahan ishwar hai,
Faazil yeh kehta wahan allah hai,
Kamil yeh kahta hai,
Manzil yeh kehti tab insaan se ki,
Tumhari hai tum hi sambhalo yeh duniya,
Yeh ujde hue chand baasi charago,
Tumhare yeh kale iraado ki duniya,
Ohh ri duniya, oh ri duniya…
Hoo ri duniya…

9th december 2008- still in the train

Still in the train, ALONE! Kerala sure is a beautiful sight from the train. Its almost mid December and kerala is still green. And red too. The rock that they use to make those houses in kerala, amazing… there is something in the texture of the rocks that attracts me to it. Those fields with the plastic bags as scare crows. Crows remind me of phoonk. I bet these plastic bags can scare away more things than that movie.

Well now, I have some company. A father and his little daughter must be around 8-9 years old. They didn’t have a seat, don’t think they even have a ticket, but I gave them half of my seat, not that I needed company, I just didn’t care about anything, I just moved and gave them space. But, I kinda started liking the girl. Damn sweet. But, I didn’t care about asking her, her name… was too busy in the whole soul searching business.

Him feeding her home made food with his own hands makes me cry. Why? Was I never fed like that? I was, but not anymore. I lost that relationship with dad the day we moved out of andheri and our old house. His mistakes, mom & I suffered. Still haven’t come to terms with it. I want to forgive him but something within me doesn’t allow me to. May be I may never be such a good father. I sincerely feel so. I could never be a good brother, nor a good son… I’m not a good man anyhow. I sometimes wonder, the people I miss so much in my life, the people who I think about so much, would I have been nice to them, had they been with me, alive? I don’t know. Life doesn’t plan to give me a second chance, don’t think I want one. I want to go through it, shamelessly.

Its funny, the girl holds her breath and keeps looking towards the bathroom till her father comes back, our seat is the first one, form where the bathroom is visible. Where have I lost that kind of innocence? I was like that once in my life, what happened? I don’t know; don’t think I want to know at this stage in my life. Watching the girl do that over and over again just made me cry. The best I could do is gift the girl for all her sweetness and pray that she remains the same always. Life is truly not of the moments you breathe away, its made of the moments that take your breath away.

God knows when ernakulam will come and I will get off this soul searching trip of mine

8th december 2008 - the train journey

Every morning in my life is eventful, this one wasn’t a exception. Almost collided head-on with trucks, a few buses and countless number of cars. All this, just to get to town early so that I could get the calendar printed, which amazingly I got printed at 8 in the morning… Those shops around metro don’t seem to have much to do, all of them open pretty early. Back to the calendar, don’t know why but I did something like that for a girl… literally first time in my life… you may say there is always a first… but in such a case, I hate myself for doing it. Funny, xtremely funny… a self proclaimed heartless prick like me doing something like this for a girl is as funny as it could get. & that too for someone who is ‘just a friend’ plain, pretty plain… still just a friend. God knows! Don’t know who knows!

It’s a funny feeling to be travelling alone and that too a 1600 km journey over 28 hours. The scenery surrounding the konkan railway track do at times stop you from going into that soul searching trip, but not for long… it hits you, and it hits you where it hurts you as bad farah would feel if u cut her tongue off.

& the funny thing here is that a group of college students are travelling in the same compartment as I am going probably to goa or further, may be for their industrial visit. Shit! Looking at them I get a dose of what I will probably miss coz of this decision of mine to go to kochi for sailing. Will I regret it all my life? Sure, I will. I have been regretting not going with my school friends till now & I will regret not going this time too. Shit! I can hear all the scare crows in the farms saying go back! go back! I can’t … sailing is too way important, who says… she says… who she? I don’t know

May be life’s like that & every man in his quest to become great has always something to look back at. It’s a void, I void that makes him ordinary like others. Inside, deep inside!

one kid’s dreams and a young man’s memories

As you all know, ‘I’m old school.’ I have a cellphone, all it does is makes call and sends messages; I still wear those old clothes and straight jeans and savvy the Yezdi and Royal Enfield over a Bajaj Pulsar. I grew up in Mumbai suburbs and the then untouched parts of Pune during a time when ‘Potli wale baba’ & ‘Alif Laila’ was on TV and my friends and I would play ‘sakli’ & ‘chor police’ running through the fields and hills behind my grandparents’ house, which leads me to the tree house.

When I was a kid my playgrounds were the hills and woods near Kothrud in Pune and in 1998, when I reached the age of 11, I was proficient in the swing of an axe and the grip of a saw. That’s when the creation began. We picked a Gulmohur tree which was half way up the hill. You could only get there by those old grassy farmers’ roads that twine through the straw field along the hill, and for the next 6 months, every spare moment I had, a vision emerged about half-a-km in back of our house.

It was small but grand! At not more than a height of around 10ft above the ground and had two rooms. Old furniture was cut to size to make the walls, and slab wood came from the construction site nearby. No pictures of it exist.

The first room was our living room and the next room was the bedroom which we called the Taj Suite and the very top opened like a hatch door leading to a nest. At this point I had cleared the treetops and had a clear shot at the Gandhi library nearby; which I think is the last of its kind. I even had a rope which hung the tree that you could use to help yourself climb into the tree house. The nights were lit by a kerosene lantern and water and food came from home.

Very few people knew of its existence, except for some summertime friends who lived nearby. The memories are priceless. Before finishing off the vacations in the summer, I actually lived there the entire 3 months of the holiday.

During the time I was at school in Mumbai someone torched the whole hill— deliberately or by accident, who knows. By the time I returned all that remained was ashes to ashes and dust to dust — it had returned to the earth.

I’m now approaching 22 and sometimes catch myself wondering where the time went, but will never forget my summers in Pune. I return when I can and my grandparents still live in Pune and are planning to move back to Mumbai soon.

Sorry if I rambled — thought this story might be an interesting as one kid’s dreams and a young man’s memories

Somewhere.
And someone who's sold his soul to the game
has just got out of bed.
Propelled by a new way of inflicting pain.
On himself.
We are not talking about a particular game here.
Like cricket. Or soccer. Or sailing.
We're talking sport.
And why, like a restless worm.
it gnaws into a man's soul.
Pushing him to run 0.025 seconds faster.
Or jump 0.5 centimeters higher.
Or shave all his body hair to
gain 0.01 seconds in the pool.
Is this a form of madness?
Hardly.
It's worse.
It's more like a disease.
Undeterminable.
Incurable.
And contagious.

this is what sport actually is