Drive to Mahableshwar - Travelogue

Before I begin, I must put in a few disclaimers and warnings. First things first, I'm not a very good writer. Furthermore, much of what we experienced on this trip cannot be recreated through words as weak as mine; neither will our photographs do justice to those memories. Coming to the pics, we had a simple camera, besides our modest cellphones. It is therefore likely that you will find my effort very amateur.

So after the drive to Saputara & Goa from Mumbai, it was time to plan another trip albeit a short one within the state of Maharashtra... It was wifey dearest’s birthday and i decided to drive her down to the beautiful & misty Mahableshwar. Before i delve further, here are some facts/stats:

Start Date:- Sept 6th, 2013                                              Return:- Sept 9th, 2013

Distance in Kms (Mum-Mahableshwar):- approx 250Kms    Total Kms Driven:- 760Kms

Route taken:-  NH4                                                         Start Time:- About 6am

Time to reach:- About 5hrs 30mins                                    Vehicle:- Grande Punto 1.2

Day 1:-
We planned to leave early morning around 6am on Friday, 6th Dec to beat the morning traffic in Mumbai. On the D-day we were all but 22mins late when i cranked up the car engine. 

There were 2 ways to reach Mahableshwar from Mumbai suburbs... the shorter distance (but longer travel time due to narrow road) is via the Mumbai-Goa highway and the quicker (but longer distance) NH4 which is what we took as we had explored the Mumbai-Goa highway for our trip to Goa earlier this year... 

As usual i loaded up my pen drive with the latest bollywood chartbusters prior to the trip but started off the trip with my latest fav english number - Diamonds, by Rihanna....

  

 Its always good to drive on less populated mumbai roads and the early morning drivr thru the city was peaceful with a good view of the sun spring up....

...soon we were on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway which is the only place near Mumbai where you can actually step on the gas and coast at high speeds.. altough have done 170 regularlyin my modest Italian hatchback beauty, managed to hit over 160 more than a couple of times on the straights....

...and if you are on the E-way, tunnels are never too far... as a matter of fact there are quite a few tunnels on the NH4 even post the express way...

... well the weather was good, so was the light and wifey thought she might as well click a snap of your truly...

On the way we took a couple of breaks.. one post the Khalapur toll plaza for a quick chai with wada pav and later after crossing Pune.. In all there were 3 toll plazas on the way - Vashi, Eway & one post Pune... To our dismay there also is a tax one needs to pay to enter Mahableshwar [valid for 7 days] for he vehicle as well as tourists and whats more annoying is that altough you cross Panchgini on your way up, if you are coming down from Mahableshwar back to Panchgini, there is yet another silly tax that needs to be paid....

Well brushing aside the disappointment, we drove towards our Hotel which was near Wilson Point and gave a magnificiant view from the Hotel premises (as seen below)...

... we checked in and got fresh and decided to explore a bit... We drove back down towards a few points we were told could be covered quickly.. On the way we first took a halt at the serene Venna Lake which also has a boating ride for few bucks but the only downside is that they are oared by the staff and you do not get to oar on away on your own...

... here you will also find a small market of sorts with some food stalls and horsewallahs trying to woo you to take a ride on their magnificent beasts...

Driving a bit further we suddenly noticed a beautiful rainbow in the sky etched post a mild drizzle. Being September it was nearing end of Monsoon and there were no heavy showers but just light drizzles and heavy mist in the evening and even in he afternoon at times...

... next halt was Parsi Point which gave another enthralling view of the valley...

Going down a bit further we came to Syndey Point.. Nothing so great about it but yet a nice view with the famous Table Land in the backdrop as seen in the snap below... we went to table land next but did not click any snaps.. it is the second largest table land they say and good enough to land aircrafts.. 

.... next we went to a place which has 2 points adjacent to each other - Lodwick point & Elephant Head Point... You will see lots of waterfalls thru out this hill station and once such was visible from the base of these points... from the base its 1km walk to the 2 points... Snaps of these posted below (you will know why Elephant Head if you look carefully)

.. in the evening we decided to explore the Mahableshwar main market (unfortunately no snaps). The market has loads and loads of shops and is fairly crowded. Shops range from eateries to icecream parlours (yes no matter how cold it is, people are enjoying icecreams all the time as this place is known for awesome srawberries and hence stawberry icecreams), mementos and quite a lot of gambling shops which mainly host slot machines and a couple of dice/ball games. The gambler in me got enticed and we ensured we splurged a few hundred bucks before my wife had to drag me out of the place...

Day 2:-

So we thought of visiting the famos Pratapgad which is roughly 30kms away but on a looooong ad winding road which has a lot of ups and downs. I was warned by many to be careful as the roads are pretty tricky on a few turns... So we started and reached at the base of the fort in about an hour. The information board at the base boasted of over 2 dozen points which the guides there tried selling us but we decided to pass the help... The fort has about 500 footsteps leading to the top. The climb was a bit tiring but what was disappointing is that the fort has not been kept well and completely commercialized with food stalls all over it and somehow it seemed more like a abandoned mill than a fort. Reaching the top we found there was nothing but a statue of Shivaji on his horse and nothing much to look at... Dejected we came down tired losing out the better part of the day.. However the drive to and from the Fort was interesting and we halted a couple of times to soak in the atmosphere at a couple of places..

The evening again was spent roaming in the market and gambling...

Day 3:-

We were told most of the points would be deserted due to monsoons and frankly these points have nothing new to see as most of them are similar... so the next place that sounded interesting was a place called Mini Kashmir [Tapola].. Again this was a good 20 kms away so it was a long drive of sorts given that the roads arent very broad.. On the way to Tapola we saw a road sign to a Babington Point and we thought we might as well check it out, but again to our dismay, there was absolutely nothing that could explain what this place was and what was so special about it...

Eventually we reached Tapola where we see the River Koyna flowing. There was water sports of sorts by way of speedboat rides which took you for a ride and well as for some extra bucks took you to a couple of points via the waterways... we opted to just take a quick ride on the speed boat..

Conspicuously we could see a lot of bats around and like you see in the next snap, the trees were full of bats hanging upside down as they usually do..

On the way back we spotted some peahens [guess thats what we call the better half of peacocks] but they scampered away before we could pull out our camera... going further down came one of the most astonishing sights of the trip at what is called Shiv Sagar Point.. A steep and huge valley with the Koyna flowing thru it was a breathtaking view perhaps this snap may not do justice to....

On reaching down to the main market area we found the Rajdhani Express somewhat derailed and moving on 4 wheels..

Next we thought we would visit Mapro garden in Pachgini which is famous for its products and its garden. However since this was the season when Stawberries grow there wasnt much to see in the garden. Another thing that Mapro here is famous for is the food... The pizzas and sandwiches here def make you forget the Dominoes and Pizza Huts...

So we had our feast and moved towards the hotel to retire for the day and we spotted a roadsign to Lingmala Falls.. we decided to give it a quick dekko and parked the car at the base. This one too had considerable stairs that were to be climbed up and down to reach the actual point.Somehow we ambled thru those but by the time we reached there it was evening and the mist had set in big time. There was this huge deafening sound of water falling hundreds of meters and splashing on to rocks but we could not see thru the mist... we patiently waited for the mist to clear a bit but we werent in luck and left the place with just the sounds of what might me an enthralling sight [maybe next time...]

We finally called it a day and returned back to our Hotel...

Day 4:-

This was basically the day we returned so we checked out in the morning and since Wilson point (Sun rise point) was practically next to our hotel we decided to have a quick glance at it on the way... Once again a short drive thru a narrow road and we arrived at Wilson point where we were greeted by a nice little... well cant call it little , but a nice big Ostrich! The poor bird seemed to be in a poor state and to our amusement it took an instant liking to our car and stayed next to it pecking at it till the time we left from the place...

and it seems there were a few langoors to give it company....

We decided to have the Brunch again at Mapro...

Further down towards Panchgini we came across a point called Bhillar falls...

Finally further down we came across our last attraction in Panchgini called Harrison's Folly which like its peers looked down on a fantastic view and we finally decided to take a horse ride to ride out the vacation on a high...

Its All In Black & White Here!!..... Contemplated Trading The White Fuel Guzzling Beauty For The Black Eco Friendly Beast! - But The Ghodawala Let The Offer Pass! :|

Towards the highway there was a flurry of sugarcane fields..

Finally we made our way back to be greeted by Lord Ganesha who was being welcomed for the Ganesh Chaturthi commencing on the day...

And Finally Finally.... End Of 4D-3N 760 KMs Trip

.... and that friends is the end of a lame attempt to write my first travelogue... hope atleast some of you who started it reached thru it to read this :)... To sum it up, Mahableshwar is a beautiful place but the right time to go is when the monsoons are just ending to stay away from the peak season crowds and enjoy nature at liesure.. its a must goto place if you reside in Maharashtra for its scenic beauty and cool & Misty weather...

How & Why HR ? ! ? ! ?

This is a question that has been haunting me ever since I declared my MBA plans to my friends when I was working in my previous organisation... Nothing has changed even today and people still ask me this... Latest being Rajat who said today, “how can you study this kinda *#$# and why did you take HR!!’ So I thought let me pen down some of the reasons that made me choose HR as a specialisation. Now whatever I publish here is public so I will be a bit careful (as I am sure some of my colleagues and managers from office might read this someday :P ). Have just come after writing the 1st paper of the final trimester and discovered that the next paper isn’t very interesting too, so might as well do a bit of blogging...

Anyways, to begin with, if you consider my prior qualifications, then that certainly will make you ponder more why I am in this noble field ( I call it noble as no matter how much ever you work in HR, ops will never be satisfied and will claim “HR never works”.. just for the record, i have been in office for almost 12 hours a day for the past 3 weeks or so.. ). So after my SSC, I decided I needed to get into the earning mode asap; so my best bet was to do a course that would suffice to find a decent job. So I did my diploma in Digital Electronics (as I had my elder sis and a cousin having done the same were making good in those times) and did not care to study much in the final yr as I never had aspirations to do my graduation. Somehow got a 67% in the final year and merrily applied for a couple of jobs. The very 1st call I got, I was offered Rs. 2500/- as the monthly salary and was told that that was all they could pay me even though they knew I was worth more. After that one interview, I realised a degree was needed to make a decent living and hence decided to go for B.E. But then it was too late, I had not studied well enough and I could only get an admission in Pune. Due to some reasons, going to Pune was not an option for me so I decided to give the final yr exams another shot and this time I scored a decent 71%. Had I scored this the prev year; I would have got in to one of the better colleges in Mumbai, but as luck would have it, some quota system was introduced and lot of seats were eaten away in reservations. I had filled up a 100 colleges in the admission form, and luckily I got through to a college I had entered in the 96th position. So what if the college was in New Panvel - 2 hours of train travel from my home, I was not gonna give up. So then I joined Pillai’s to do my engg in electronics and the 3 years passed by. Luckily, got placed in Infosys on campus (from electronics to IT) and that was the turning point in my life. What followed was almost a dream come true with the Mysore training happening. It was a firsthand experience of paradise on earth.... Will skip the details here as I’m sure you are wondering where is the answer to “Why HR” in all this ;) .. so going forward, post training was posted to Bangalore, but luckily by God’s grace got an immediate swap to Pune and I could come home every weekends. It was an irony that I was in the same city which I had refused to go 4 years back but then destiny had its own plans. I was trained on Mainframes and was working on a project for a US healthcare major. The work was mostly related to maintenance and somehow neither did it interest me nor was I cut out for it. It was during my stint there that I took a fancy to the role of HR. The only set of people who were known as the face of the organisation to the outside world as well as the face of management to the employees and vice versa. Some people would argue that there is less intellect involved in that role but then I felt otherwise. However I also used to crib and complain abt HR while I was a soft ware engg. Now I never had a plan to do an MBA. The very fact that I wanted to start earning even after a diploma says it all. But then in order to make it big and save big time in IT, there is one phase that you need to undergo. People call it ”Onsite” and it is the most sought after thing ever since a graduate joins an IT company. Somehow, again due to some reasons, it was not an option for me and hence I was never attracted towards it. So I decided the job profile + the no-onsite thingy meant I had to look at something else. So then came the thought of an MBA and HR was the choice. Although I was big time into stock markets, I somehow despised finance and as you will find many HRs are, I too am a bit weak with number crunching.

Now come some of the other reasons that compelled me to take up HR. I am not exactly a social butterfly and you can even classify me as a kind of a loner. This was not what I wanted but somehow it is that way... So here was one way wherein I could interact with thousands of people including the top guys of a firm as well as the person working on the floor... I thought interacting with people and solving people issues would be much more interesting than interacting with a mainframe server and debugging 30 year old codes. Besides, I thought there would be greater satisfaction in making lives of people at work better at the same time contributing to the firm success in a different way. Now I know most finance and marketing people would jump saying they are the ones who bring in the moolah, but then we are the ones who bring them in!! And we are the ones who ensure that their lives are made simpler... essentially being the support system of the organisation. Now you may call it “just a support system” or “An important and strategic support system”.. thats a perspective which is debatable. Attracting, nurturing and retaining talent can be as important as bidding, winning and servicing a client contract.... Having just entered the role, I am sure I am missing out many other things about this cool role and I will definitely get back to this post as and when I find more... but ya.. one thing that I always hear from my friends is that the only cool thing they find about HR is the ladies :P ... well... no arguments on that, but then I guess you do need some respite from the constant criticism and pressure from the ops and so you do have the ladies who are high on EQ and at times GQ (Glamour Quotient if I may coin it that way) but then as goes the old saying... there are 2 sides of every coin.. wouldnt talk about the other side here as most of my classmates and colleagues are of the fairer sex and I don’t want to be bashed up in college or office.... Chalo time to wind up this post as the PDFs and PPTs on Knowledge Management are waiting for me and I gotta pump in some gas into my system to let it off in the paper tomorrow... Adios!

Jaago Grahak Jaago?? ;)

Yesterday evening when i came back from office, Mom said the geyser had stopped working! Now that was scary news for me as i just cant bathe in cold water!! But there was no way i cud have got an electrician at that hour and hence decided will call one the next morning. In the mean time, being an electronics engg, and having that curiosity to open up any electrical/electronic gadget i get to, i thought i'll give it a try and see of i can replace it. ( Normally i am the in-house electrical consultant cum toilet flush consultant cum electrician cum repairman that my mom has! ) So i took a screw driver in hand and went about opening my main board as the main switch appeared to be the problem. After 2 screws and a close look at the high voltage area i decided it would be better managing Human Resources than managing 240 Volts of electricity, that too at a place where one goof up could blow up all the circuits of my home. So then i gave it up.
Today morning somehow i gathered courage and poured a bucket of cold water on my body, followed by a second one and slowly managed to take a quick and shivering bath! Then i called up an electrician and he told me he will be there later. So i told mom about it and left for college where i was eager to attend the HR Faculty feedback session! On my way to college, me being a rash rider, i managed to run over an area on the road which was almost a bed of nails! So i managed to get one in my tyre and voila! had my 2nd puncture in as many months :|. Some how managed to drag the bike to a mechanic and got my tyre tube replaced. The cost when i enquired was 200 bucks! Now only last month i had got it done for 170 bucks! Now my frnds know how cranky i am when comes to being overcharged! So i tried to argue but then the mechanic managed to get the 200 out of me after lot of arguments. I had no MRP to look at so i could not argue much and so i gave it up as i had already missed the college session and din wanna be late to office.
When i come back home later in the day, i am glad to see a new switch that was fit to solve the geyser matter. I asked mom what was the charge and how much he took for the spare part and the service. So mom said its Rs. 150! 110 for the switch and 40 for the Majuri ( as they say ). Now its understood that these fellows, be it electricians, service guys, mechanics or whoever, they try to overcharge you and specially when they see a lady they know they can overcharge for electrical stuff! So i asked mom for the empty box which contained the replacement switch, and as expected, the MRP tag was scratched off! Now after having faced a similar situation in the morning this put me off! So i took the box and hurried to a shop to enquire about its MRP. As expected, it was not 110 but Rs. 70. So then i went to the shop from where the electrician had come and got an opportunity to let my steam off! ( Its no secret that i only need a small trigger to verbally blast people :P ) So after a lot of arguments and calls to that electrician finally the shop owner gave in and told me that they sold it for 85 and hence they can only gimme Rs. 25/- as refund for the switch!
The whole episode reminded me of the regular "Jaago Grahak Jaago" ads that keep coming on the TV and i handed over that 25 bucks to my mom as if i had won 25,000/- from somewhere!

But the moral of the story, no matter how much my frnds call me a miser, but i always say that its not that and its more about value for money and about not being cheated! In the past many times it has happened that a ppl have overcharged me, or more so when mom's alone as ladies are soft targets for these thugs and they get away with it. The matter is not of Rs. 25/- but teaching the guy a lesson and trying to do your bit to do away with such practices. I am sure next time that electrician will think twice before overcharging. I know that its nothing great that i've done, but what the hell.....

An Evening to Rememer....

Last Friday, after attending lectures I had gone to see my nephew and niece’s dance performance in a program organised to showcase dance performances by kids aged 2-10 years. Me being lazy did not want to go but then did not want to disappoint my sis and kids, and at the same time the thought of seein ‘em dance made me go. When the show started, it was amazing to see the first performance by kids aged 2-4 years. The song playing was one of the songs from Bhool Bhulaiya and all the tiny tots on the stage facing a huge audience were merrily shakin their tiny hips and bums with huge smiles on their faces... and some of ‘em running into others in excitement while dancing. Now people who know me well know that I am as dumb as a dodo when it comes to dancing. I just can’t move a leg! So here I was wishing, if I could also have had this talent that these tiny tots already had at this age. Moving on, there were many nice performances on the stage thereafter and I was enjoying it along with my family and other relatives. Suddenly I feel someone tapping my shoulder in the dark! I look back and I see no one!! Thinking it as a fragment of my imagination I continued admiring the kids on stage. Again in a few seconds I feel one more tap on my shoulders, but this time it was less of a tap and more like someone hitting me to move. Again I look back, but this time I look a bit downwards as I turned...and there I see a little gal (probably 2 yrs of age) showing me her cute little teeth and as I saw her she ran back 2 rows to where apparently her momma sat. She was probably a kid of my jiju’s friend who had come along with her mom to watch the show. So I ignored her and turned back my focus on the main event. But again in a few seconds I felt a tap on by back. But this time I knew who it was so I ignored it. This process continued for about 5 mins. As people who know me well know how short tempered I am, I got a bit annoyed after 5 mins. And I decided this was not ON! How could she bother me like that in the midst of a nice performance! But the very next moment I felt ashamed of myself for having that last thought. How could I get annoyed at a 2 yr old kid who was probably not much interested in seeing other kids ( who were probably grown-ups considering her age :P ) in the dark and was just tryin to have some fun. So when she came to tap me once more, I was ready to catch hold of her hand. And so I did! I smiled at her and asked her ( in gujju ) “kem mane maare che”, but the response I got was only a sharp giggle. The poor thing in the mean time was tryin hard to get her tiny wrist out of my hand, so I told her I would let her go only if she promises not to hit me again. She immediately nodded her head like a saint and agreed. So I let her go. Now what happened next is hardly surprising. We have been told not to do things when we get caught doing them and we agree but do exactly the same thing again, and she was just a kid, so she continued her strikes on me! So I took it in my stride and continued smiling at her whenever I spotted her doing it. Later on after half an hour or so the tapping had stopped and suddenly after a few mins the kid came and sat in my lap! She also probably was tired of her new found game and wanted some rest and so she probably found a comfortable place to sit. I recon kids have their own logic which is much more complicated than that of us grown-ups. Then somehow as if I had to get an introduction from some hot chick babe, I hesitantly asked her name and started talking to her. It was no surprise that she did most of the talking thereafter (like most gals irrespective of their age seem to do) and I was the listener, she enlightened me on how she loved eating popcorn and liked chocolates but her mom would not let her have many. In between she would hop down and start dancing on the steps besides the seats when her fav number was played and then she would come back in my lap with that trademark innocent smile. The show ended in the next 30mins or so and by that time I had made a new chirpy friend named Palak! Later I realised a couple of things when I reflected back. One, how my already short temper had grown shorter, so much so that I was initially annoyed at a kid and two, if you let go of tiny troubles/discomfort early on, then there is mostly always something more beautiful and comforting that follows which is worth the wait.

Do U Think Your Life's A Complete Mess And A Struggle!!

Well... If U think so, then here's an experience i had once... its an old story.. abt 4-5 Yrs old. I was travellin in a local train on my way to a frnd's place. It was a sunny afternoon.. i boarded a train and as is my habit.. i was hangin out on the door clinging on to the rod. Now there's one think abt the men travelling in the general compartment... the moment they spot a gal in the compartment they jus have to check her out.. and if she is half as decent thn we do give more thn a couple of looks ;) So here i was jus movin my eyes thru the compartment from the door and voila! i managed to see sumthin interestin. There were a bunch of youngsters abt a door away... abt 3-4 Gals and 4-5 Guys. The Gals were all really pretty ;) and the guys werent bad either... so wid nothin much to see outside the train i glanced over a few times ( dun ask me to see wat :P )... So there at a distance i managed to see the guys n gals movin their hands all around and havin fun... i cudnt hear em or see their lip movements becoz of the crowd standin in the way but managed to get a glimpse every now n thn... All of em were dressed up pretty well and carried thmselves really well.. jus like most college goers... trendy clothes and apparel.
So i kept glancin over for a few mins wen i noticed all of em jus get up and walk towards the door i was standing... perhaps to alight at the next station. So i thought i cud now chk em out at a closer distance ;) But wen they came closer, i was stunned! These great lookin people who looked like u n me ( infact even better :P ) with all those fancy clothes and ear rings n stuff, were actually using sign language to communicate! As it turned out, all of em were children of a lesser God and were unable to speak. They were moving their hands frantically yet beautifully to convey wat they wanted to say and even as the were standin alongside me, they were havin fun and smilin and gigglin abt sumthin which they had been communicatin abt and only they cud understand :)
They all looked very excited and happy as they stood there for the few seconds before they finally got down at the next station. This incident had me thinkin for a few days that here were people who did not have the basic ability of communicating via spoken words yet they were so happy. Their smiles were as beautiful as any and their dressing sense perhaps was much better than most. They din seem to care abt the on lookers who stared at thm as if they were aliens from another planet and seemed as though their palms and fingers were more efficient in communication than most people's tongues are.
How many of us every now and thn think tht our life is a mess and we are incapable of a lot of things.. some of us blame The Almighty for not having given us enough as compared to others and blame others for our failures. How many of us would have the courage to walk around with our heads high wen ppl around wud look at u with derogatory looks even wen u know u r as good if not better than most people around u except the little few privileges that they have... I for one am criibing most times for things that i "think" are beyond my control and feel "God Made Me This Way" :P "and so i cant do much"... but the fact is, as my blog name suggests, i am too lazy and ignorant and much like an ostrich. I close my eyes often wen i realise my mistakes and bad habits thinkin tht wen i close my eyes i wont be able to see my bad habits and so wat u dun see is non existent, but little may i know that bad habits havent closed their eyes and are eyein me with monstrous grins on their faces.
So i guess the best thing to do wen u r in trouble or bugged up with ur self, is to think abt millions of such ppl in the world, who lack the basic necessities in their life but still manage to rise in their life like a phoenix rises thru the ashes and put up a great picture for all to see though deep down they might be fighting a battle and are on verge of losing but manage to hold on to the glorious flag called Life. I know all these incidents and stories just have a short term effect on me and most people but then every now and then reminding urself to look below at ppl livin in shanties instead of ppl living on top floors of Colaba n Pali hill and other bungalows which makes u realise that u r lucky enuf to manage to live on a 2nd floor flat in a decent area and have decent food to eat and all kinds of electronic gadgets at ur disposal. So all in all, there are more things to cheer in life and next time u think u r unfortunate, just visit a telephone booth run by a handicap person and in his/her eyes u will see all the luxuries ur parents and God have bestowed upon u...