the weekend getaway...

Last Monday over a rapid round of mail exchanges, we (Aloke, Handa, me) decided that we should plan a trip over the weekend (3rd/4th Sep). I already had a ticket lying around...so I just had to pack my strolley and take off!! We decided that we would go to Kamshet, which is just off Lonavala and not too crowded.

I landed in Mumbai on Thu night, following which Kan and I had to zip to Astrid's (who owns the place in Kamshet) house to pay her the money. They take room rent in advance. You just pay for any extras viz. Beer, cold drinks, snacks at the cottage. This was followed by the quickest Thai dinner ever (clocked at 28 min..with a cab waiting...go and beat that!), after which I crashed at Kau's place. Next morning was chilled out with me having nothing to do in particular as the whole of Mumbai geared for another day at the office. So I could meet up with Handa only around lunch time, where I took the opportunity to visit his humble abode and park my strolley. He promises me (Aloke, Kan, Abby are witnesses to the fact that he has expressed his desire to move out soon) that I would stay with him in a not-so-humble-abode next time I visit. We will wait for that one till it actually happens! Anyways, Resh joined us for lunch as we dug into some chinese food at Kamling at Churchgate. Handa was off to office again as Resh and I went next door to Mocha to down a Sangria before the movie (Pyar mein twist). Please avoid the movie, see it on vcd/dvd if you wanna absolutely catch it to see the stunning Ms. Kapadia. In the evening, Handa came and joined us at Geoffrey's. The Economist have them on their city guide but I could give the place a miss. It was too bright and the music was very bad. When did you last listen to Air Supply croon at a pub??? That settles it I think! Then we were off to Not just jazz where I helped Handa come up with a make-it-yourself pizza and I polished off my pasta. Kan and Aloke joined soon and after dinner and drinks we were audience to a car go up in flames bang in front of the Not Just Jazz crossing on Marine Drive. We had never seen something like that! We then conned Handa to pack his stuff too and head to Aloke's with me so we could all leave together the next day. As usual, after a few groans and moans he was game and we were off, but not before we got some softees with Handa claiming he did not want the 'big' one, when clearly he told me and Aloke that he wanted the big one with nuts and the works. And again, after the cribs, he was the one who had polished it off before either of us did manage to finish our 'small' ones!!!

Day 1 at Kamshet
We were off by 10:30am with Abby joining us. We had got ourselves a Toyota Innova for the trip which cost us around Rs.4500 for 2 days including daily allowances for the driver. The car's pretty comfortable except for the last seat which is less spacious than other models I have ridden in Toronto. But it handled the roads and potholes amazingly well so I would definitely recommend it for out-of-the-city trips. We had got a detailed mail from Native Place as regards to the direction to the cottage. It was absolutely perfect (to the exact kilometre)! We were in time for lunch which we washed down with a beer. After lunch we went exploring the area to find a way to the lake. While the property does not have direct access to the lake, if you are willing to jump fences and crawl under barbed wire fences, you will be rewarded! We absolutely did that and soon we were at the lake. Its very beautiful as its surrounded by mountains and you can see the clouds and mist settling down on them. While boating is not allowed you could take a dip in it for sure. Abby was looking forward to catch his first live fish and then smoking the same. He was to be disappointed too!!! While everyone took a nap, Handa sat outside to take in the scenery while he read his book. I joined him soon and we played a game of songs, singers, albums. We discovered a large number of them, specially songs end with the letter 'E' or 'Y'! Abby was on the receiving end of most of these!!! Hahaha. Most of the evening and night was spent drinking the Red Absolut and playing Cranium and Taboo. I ended up becoming quite a Cranium addict and we finally called it quits around 4:30 in the morning. In between these sessions, we had quite an interesting discussion on hindu mythology viz. ramayana and mahabharata where Aloke told us the links in the epics and how they were connected.

Day 2 at Kamshet
Day 2 began with a powercut around 5pm (just as we had fell off to sleep). There was no generator but since it was cool, I managed to sleep till 9am. The morning began with breakfast and masala chai. Handa made sure that the guys at the cottage were kept busy preparing our lunch so we could use their bat and ball and have us some one-tip cricket. Aloke decided he wasn't gonna beat the 5 runs that Handa scored, so he decided to win it the golf way by scoring -46 runs (you lose 5 runs for every dismissal), which would have put Tiger Woods to shame. In the meanwhile JP and Ranu turned up from Pune and we headed to the lake (taking a different route). Abby was the first in the water and called everyone a prude who didn't want to go in. Handa joined in and taught Abby some swimming lessons. The weather was perfect with an overcast sky and a slight breeze (the temperature would have been around 20-21 degrees celsius). We hung around the lake for quite sometime before he headed back for lunch. Beer was called for as we feasted on some great chicken. Cranium followed, with JP acting out the happiest bent dead body ever!!! We left around 5:30pm but not before we had to tackle the muddy roads to our car. The aftermath to that was caking the carpet at the Meridian in Mumbai with our muddy footprints as we went for dinner to the Great Wall!!! We were wondering if they would throw us out. And you should have seen the car...looked like we were just back from the Dakar Rally!!! The last time I had done something like this was to drag the front carpet at the Park in Calcutta all the way home (it got stuck to the fiat and no one noticed...we did notice someone yelling though!!! hehehe). Just for trivia, all the chikki vendors (atleast 95%) call themselves Maganlal Chikki (Abby wondered if anyone would use that as a meeting point!)in Lonavala. Go figure!

So all in all it was an awesome weekend, which kept the every 3 months meeting schedule on track. So here's to the next one around New Year's!!!