Pune Ganpatipule

Onward Route: Pune-Tamhini Ghat-Nizampur-Mangaon-Mahad-Chiplun-Niveli Phata-GanpatiPule
Return Route: Ganpatipule-Guhagar-Chiplun-Mahad-Mangaon-Nagothane-Pen-Khopoli-Lonavala-Pune

Start time : 5.30am
End time : 9.30pm

Distance :734Km

The pics are at -
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/sachink.vertex/Ganpatipule#

The long weekend was approaching fast and I did not have a plan for it
With two days to go before the holidays began on Friday, I shortlisted two plans 1. Ashtavinayak and 2. Ganpatipule
After a lot of deliberations Ganpatipule won out and I decided to do the Ashtavinayak at a later date.

On Thursday, I packed my bag for a 2 day trip and also made sure the bike is in good condition.
I was also "camera ready" and rearing to go. (I do hope to be actually camera ready some day)

Started early at 5.30am because wanted to do most of the riding before it got really hot.
Surprisingly, it was pretty chilly until I reached Tamini Ghat.
The sun had started to rise when I was around Mulshi lake. I stopped for a while to witness the night make way
for the day. In most of my rides so far, I've always ridden into a sunrise and no matter from where I witness it it always fills me with a sense of unfathomable calm.

Soon I could hear the chirping of the birds and except for that there was no other sound. It was very very scenic and serene. After a couple of snaps I was on my way. The road thro Tamini ghat was under construction in many places and bad in other places. From there till Mangaon via Nizampur the roads were pretty good.

The ride on NH17 from Mangaon to Niveli phata was awesome with more than one ghat sections. Parshuram ghat and the section between the Ratnagiri-Pune border, especially, was full of twists and turns and I enjoyed them every bit. Mahad-Khed-Chiplun were covered in no time and soon I turned at Niveli phata towards Ganpatipule. From this point on the landscape was barren and the soil was dark except near the edges of the road, the earth was red. It looked as if the roads were laid on a red carpet.

Luckily I reached in time for the Arati and was the last person in the temple before the gates were locked. I clicked some snaps of the temple and then had prasad: Rice, boondi and pickels. Very tasty.
I lingered on the beach for some time and then decided to head back instead of staying on for a day. The "short-cut" to Guhagar from Ganpatipule was deserted and devoid of any sign boards.
One could easily get lost in the maze of roads in that area. Luckily for me I ran into a motorcyclist, and trucker and two village kids at all the points where I had to decide which route to take.
Also, these were the only people I saw on the entire 50km stretch.
I was expecting to ride by the ocean at least at some places on this route, but nothing like that happened. Instead it was a narrow road thru the forest and hills.

Thing did no go as per the original plan of visiting Srivardhan via Dapoli camp from Guhagar. There was a petrol bunk some place before Ganpatipule, but I had not tanked up there. Now, I was on the verge of switching to reserve and I could not locate even a single petrol station.
On enquiring with a passing motorcyclist, I learnt that there are none in the area and that petrol is sold illegally in some shops. Also that I would have to pay a very high price since I was not a local.

This was my crap out point and I decided to head back to NH17 intersecting at Chiplun. There were two petrol bunks at a town called Neli (I think). I tanked up and headed to Chiplun.
All this petrol shortage etc turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I was treated to one of the most beautiful roads ever. It was wide, well marked, and had sparse traffic. Riding to Neli to Chiplun was awasome.

I took a long break at 5.00pm and decided against taking the route thro Tamini Ghat home. The other route, that I knew, was via Panvel. I was around 170Km+ short of Panvel and from there my place would be another 100km or so. It was going to be a long ride back home. Next stop was at Mangaon for a wadapav and I was almost tempted to go home via Nizampur.
But it was already getting dark and the stories of dacoits and ghosts on the Tamini ghat kept me going straight ahead.

I crossed Nagothane after sunset and was 75km short of Panvel when I saw a way to Khopoli via Pen. Kohpoli was only 48km or so from here. Without a second thought I turned. The route up to Pen was good but from then on it was a nightmare. Mostly the roads were under construction and had only the gravel laid out. Riding on the gravel was worse than riding on bad roads.
I entered Khopoli via Shil Gaon and was looking at the final approach. By time I was seriously tired and aching all over.

I reached Pune (Aundh) at 9.30pm, had food and crashed at around 11.00pm.

neat eh?

First Flight

7th 2006 August marked the beginning of my professional life.
I was out of my house with a truck-load of degrees and now a "working" software professional. Thankfully I am still working.
Even though the first job was nowhere near what I had expected it to be, a job is a job after all. I was rather unsure about it from the beginning but was in because my father had insisted that I take it up. And if I were to "connect the dots" now, 3 years hence, I think being at Skyscape was one of the best things that happened to me.

Traveling by train was, and continues to be, super boring for me.
But I choose to endure the boredom rather than the guilt that would become a part of my life had I spent my dad's hard earned money on air tickets.
Coimbatore is 32 hours by rail, and a mere 1.5 hours by air, from Mumbai.
Now, since I was working and financially independent (well almost) and had the "power", however little, I vowed that I would always fly home. And more so, because I had flown only once before and that was before I could walk or talk.
On completing 3 months with the organization, along with the confirmation letter I received a "joining bonus". This bonus added to my "power" and just enabled me to get the cheapest air tickets I could find.

Even though booking air tickets is not inherently a complex process, I involved many of my colleagues in it. There was a lot of advice given on ticket prices on various web sites, agents who could get tickets at a lower cost, hackers who continually monitor the websites and who have brought tickets for as low as Rs.60, the time of the flight and its influence on ticket fares, fraudulent websites, etc etc.
The funny thing is none of them ever mentioned anything about the integrity of the airline even once. Am unaware of its reputation now, but back then Air Deccan meant cancelled/delayed flights, third rate service and virtually no guarantee that a having a ticket meant a ride in the sky.

Once the tickets were booked I made even more friends in the office.
Anyone and everyone who heard that I had an Air Deccan booking would come up to me
and narrate the terrible experiences they or their friend, or friends of their friends had had with the airline. One of them even advised me to have a back up railways booking, just in case. Thanks sir, your advice is greatly appreciated!!

I was set to fly on a Saturday morning at 7.20 am. Since I lived far from the airport and did not want to spend even more money on a early morning taxi, I decided to spend Friday night at my aunts place which is very close to the airport. After a light dinner I retired to bed at 11.00pm that night praying that nothing goes wrong with the flight plan. At 1.00am I was woken up by the beep of an incoming SMS.
I was wide awake instantly and knew something was wrong.
The message, after the headers and all, read something like "This is to inform you that your flight XXX from Mumbai to Coimbatore departing at XXX' some text missing....".
And so it dawned upon me, first hand, how Air Deccan got its reputation.
The missing part of the message arrived a few minutes later and said that " has been preponed by one hour."
Yeah! God is indeed great.
Soon after the message, there was a call from the airlines representative also informing me of the change in
departure timings. Neat.

I checked in at 5.20 am on Saturday morning and soon there was an announcement or something like that which told me that the flight had been delayed by an hour due to technical difficulties. Perhaps I had spoken too soon about God being great.
After waiting for 2 hours, I thought we were finally ready.
All of us boarded the flight and I was surprised to see that the interior of the "Airplane" looked like that of a "Asiad" bus. Just one big block of seats packed together. I was expecting to board the flight with a lot important looking executives, geeks who could not take their hands of a laptop, a picnic group with lots of beautiful girls, some cute couples and a flirt who on trying to get fresh
with the stewardess gets kicked off the before take-off.
Perhaps I could also throw in a son taking his aging father on a trip. (I watch a lot of movies.)

That whole image was blown to smithereens when I saw that there was a mad rush to occupy the best seats in the plane.
Families were literally rushing in their younger members with handbags and handkerchiefs, so that seats could be booked. What the *&^%!! These kind of scenes were common on State Transport buses, but I had never imagined it on anything else but a "lal dabba". Once all were seated and ready and the pilot appeared and announced that there will be a further delay because the another technical problem has cropped up. A failed unit test case I thought. I just hoped the airplane unit testing is not carried out the way I do it. If some code fails some test, I just delete the test from the test suite. And then magically all code passes all the tests.

If the mad rush for a good seat was not enough, soon after taking off, the air hostess appeared carting along a trolley full of eatables and water.
For a moment I thought she is going to start hocking Chinese pens with a torch or a "disco mala"!!

I was soon asleep and was woken up when the pilot was describing Ooty to our right and instructing us to put on the seat belts.

"What do you do on weekends?"

"What do you do on weekends?", asked Rohit.
I said "I read books, clean my room, and sleep".
"How interesting", said Rohit but the look in his eye told me that he thought it was going to be a boring lunch with me. After all, what is "interesting" about reading books, cleaning and sleeping? Nothing. And upon reflecting about the answer I gave, I too started having doubts about my "interestingness".

But then, serious adventurers are known to have a very high co-efficient of excitation. In English, it means that unless there’s something really really wild to do, they'll be engaged in the kind of "interesting" acts listed above. Only a very whacky idea gets them going and that was exactly what got me going last weekend.

I had slept enough for a day, also had had a very heavy lunch and also read a lot. So, going by the norms, I was being myself on this particular day. In the evening I decided to go to my uncle’s place, in Kothrud Pune, like I do on most weekends. So I packed for an overnight stay and started. Since the bike was almost dry I decided to tank up. While waiting in the line to get fuel, I noticed a guy up ahead of me all suited up, gloves, scarf’s, bags tied to the rear seat with bungee cords etc. Wow! a real biker, I thought. On closer inspection I realized that he was a vacuum cleaner sales man. All that gear was on because he probably had to do a lot of calls during the day. It had nothing to do with riding out, but that switched something in me to "ON". The next thing I am doing is withdrawing cash from an ATM and calling my uncle to tell him that there has been a change in plan.

Nagpur is almost 800Km from Pune. I decided to ride to Nagpur thro the night!!
Why? for 3 reasons -
1. My parents were there for some days and this would be a good chance to meet them.
2. My mother was unwell and thus, it would be good if I could be there to offer some support. Later she would be sicker on learning that I rode thru the night to be with her!!
3. I had nothing else to do.
I was on my way by around 7.00pm. I only had a very faint idea about the route, meaning I knew I am starting from Pune and had to reach Nagpur and that there’s a town called Ahmednagar en route. That’s about it!!

I reach Ahmednagar by 9.45pm because the weekend traffic was heavy and the roads were dug up and also because I was riding slowly. Stopped at a petrol bunk and filled petrol for Rs.50. I was already almost full but did not want to take any chances.
The road after Ahmednagar was excellent, except for some craters, that would have tested a T90 (an army tank) to the limits, and I reach Aurangabad at 11.00pm.
The guys at a petrol bunk in Aurangabad bunk didn’t know what to say, when I told them that am riding to Nagpur. Here I filled petrol for Rs.150.

I must admit that I was mighty apprehensive about the whole plan right from the start. I had never done anything close to this distance ever. Leave alone riding at night. All along, up to this point I was telling myself, there’s nothing to worry and that I can back out anytime. I had the money, and if things went really bad I could check into a hotel anywhere and forget about the journey. Anyways I had not shared this with anyone, so no one would know that I failed a solo attempt and thus the ego damage would be minimal.

The ride from Aurangabad to Jalna was the most difficult part of the journey. I was starting to get sleepy, a bit, I thought I was getting hungry, cause I had not had anything since lunch, and most importantly the "me" part of the trinity "I, me and myself" which forms me as a whole was beginning to make my life difficult. "I" was always having this argument with "me" right from the start about the whole thing with "myself" playing referee and offering suggestions and contingency plans.

Now at 12.00 midnight, I was reaching the PNR and things had to be settled. And so they did. “Myself” offered his last plan and all three of us merged seamlessly back into a single entity and continued riding. There were no more doubts or fears about anything. There was only one thing to do, ride. The night was clear and cruising at 90kmph, the only sound I could hear was that of my engine, and see the road only up to the point where the high-beam disappeared into the darkness.

I drifted off the highway at around 1.00am and rode into some town. Thankfully, I was guided back on track by a localite. From this point on the journey was very very loney and sometimes it would be 20 minutes before I could spot a truck or a car. It was getting cold and I had to put on my other tee shirt. I also tied a handkerchief around my neck to try and keep it warm. Thankfully I always carried a pair of gloves with me.
I took a break at 2.00am when I spotted two men hunched over a small campfire. They were very kind to me and directed me further, with a bit of advise: not to tell anyone that I've come from Pune and going to Nagpur. They said if I have to stop and speak to anyone all I should be telling is that am from some town nearby. They also quickly gave me plenty of reasons why one should not be travelling alone. That part of the state had supposedly a higher number of dacoits etc.

After a 10 min break I started again and lost my way again after an hour or so. Not that I was nervous, but I couldn’t help imagining a female running next to my bike. This was from a ghost story I had heard from my friend Ashwini. Apparently, while travelling late in the night, bikers used to come across a young female trying to get a lift. If they stopped, she disappeared, but if they did not, she ran along with them for some distance! What had happened was that this couple was riding late in the night and had an accident. The guy was killed or almost killed while the girl tried her best to get some help. Since no one stopped, she too succumbed to her injuries, died and became a ghost. How convenient! That was near Indore though. I freak easily so I just tried my best to imagine a beautiful ghost instead of an injured one. This time I had to flag down a car since there was no one in sight. Well, it was 3.00am. The people in the car were helpful and I followed them for another hour or so until I had to change direction.

At 4.00 am I stopped for tea at a dhaba and was around 250km short of reaching my destination. The dhaba was actually closed but the dhabawala was kind enough to make some strong-sweet tea for me. I enquired about a petrol bunk nearby and he told me that all of them would open only at 7.00am.
When I restarted I was low on fuel and had to cruise at 50km-60km to save fuel. This part of the journey was very tiring. I was chilled to the bone, low on fuel, my shoulders were aching, and my right hand was going numb from time to time. I rode like this for almost 3 hours and also encountered a dead body in the middle of the road. I was already slow and had to slow down further to maneuver past it. It looked like a hit and run case, or whatever but I did not have it in me to stop and investigate! And it was sometime since it was lying there since there was this foul odor emanating from it. I know about the odors of dead bodies because I had volunteered in the Gujrat Earthquake Relief operations and had dug out several bodies that had been trapped in debris for more than a week.

The sunrise at 6.30am was beautiful because it brought with a promise of much needed warmth. I don’t remember ever waiting for the sun to rise like I did on this particular night. I realized that I had been riding for almost 12 hours now. At around 6.45am I spotted a petrol bunk at a town called Pulgaon refilled for Rs.100 and was on my way again.

I reached my home at around 8.00am and surprised everyone. It took them the better part of the day to come to terms with what I had done. As expected, I was not allowed to ride back to Pune and the bike was sent by train. I took a bus back home 2 days later.

So that was it. That was what I did on this particular weekend. I am after all “interesting”.

I Shouldn’t Be Alive

Its been almost 2 months into my new job and I have enjoyed every day of it.
Although there hasn’t been single day when I have not compared it to my previous job,
it has not been the routine kind of comparison that one tends to make after a switch.
The comparisons have led me to mail my previous bosses and colleagues, thanking them for contributing towards my professional and personal growth.
(No, its not because I thought I should try insure myself against the economic meltdown and the obvious effects on the IT sector.)
So, here I was, having a sumptuous meal in the spacious eighth floor canteen with my team member and ex-team members and as is the natural order of things, after sometime, the conversation settled down on the obvious.
Now, all of us have some kinds of, to be a little technical, a hashmap, which defines a key, value pair. These hashmaps are numerous for all the kinds of experiences, people, relationships, "you-name-it-you-got-it", etc that we encounter, meet and have.
In the context of our professional experiences one of the maps we might have is the one describing the relationship between the designation a person has and the roles and responsibilities that need to be carried out.
Coming back to the obvious discussion that was in progress, all of us started dumping our hash maps w.r.t the one person that was in everyone’s map.
The key in this case was obviously the same in every case but the values were all pretty different. While some of them had a very philosophical view towards the value in their map and some of them had straight away attributed it to the I.Q, still others were blaming themselves for having had to insert such a key-value pair in the first place. I thought I was going a step further (or rather backwards) when I was querying as to who would have created such a key-values pair in the first place, when one of the ex-team member stumped all of us with what he had to offer.
Apparently, he did not stop at analyzing the value but went ahead and shared with us the effect of the key that he was experiencing. Towards the end of the meal, all we had for him was sympathy.
For the key-value pair that he had in his map, all he had to say was "I shouldn’t be alive".

And you think your boss makes your life miserable?

Look before you leap

"Be careful for what you wish, your prayers might just be answered", is my new and improved version of the famous idiom. Back then I could have never imagined that things can go so horribly wrong. Its been more than a decade since the classic "break off" and I find myself unable to move on completely. Now is such a thing so difficult after all? Maybe, maybe not. Although one might be tempted to say that its not so difficult, given the time, and all, to really make an educated guess (I wonder who would want to quantify such a thing, but this just seems the effect of the process documents I'm reading at the new job!) about the difficulty level, one needs to know what went into the relationship rather than what caused it to crumble. In my case, one thing; one powerful thing; a prayer. Yes, I used to pray a lot back then and only for one thing - to keep us, the happy couple, together forever. Unfortunately the prayers have been answered. So even now, after almost everything we tend to be attached in some way.
Although I am not praying otherwise, if anyone knows an "undo prayer" technique please let me know.

Kidnap

Arun, born 13th October, 1981, in Gods own Country, could have never imagined what lay in store for him.

The place where I work at, Skyscape, brought an AMC from one of India's reputed organizations. Arun was chosen the resident engineer and was to be "on-site", in our company, maintaining our machines, so that we could continue to produce world-class software for the millions of medical professionals around the world who are also our loyal customers. Incidentally, Arun and me happened to stay in the same locality and soon were good friends. Or so he thought.

We would ride home each evening on my bike and sometimes hang out on weekends. On the 3rd of October, Friday, I was supposed to go shopping for my b'day gift. My b'day is on 6th Oct and if I was able to produce the bill of the purchase, my company would reimburse me.

No points for guessing that Arun accompanied me to the store. After a lot of window-shopping we decided to go for the real thing. Soon, it was closing time at the mall and a t-shirt with a hood (if that’s what it is called) was selected and we were on our way out. having nothing better to do after that Arun suggested that we watch the movie Kidnap, because althought the reviews were poor, the lead actress was supposed to be doing some hot numbers. I had a better idea.

I told him that we would play the age old game "kidnapper- kidnapee", just like "chor-police". "WHAT?" was his response. Anyways, I could not sell him the idea but still wanted to do something that I was planning for quite sometime now; Ride thro the Khandala-Lonavala ghat in the dead of the night. So I put on my jacket and helmet and off we were. The time was 10.30 pm.

The whole thing was pretty insane and frankly I was scared to do it alone. The "bakra" was sitting behind me. Now there’s a rule of my bike. The pillion rider has to keep singing. Its almost as if the bike accelerates because of the song rather than the fuel. We reached our destination at around 12.15, not because it was so far off, but because we went along at a slow and steady pace, enjoying the chilly night and wide open roads. We literally too a u-turn at the center of the town and headed back, stopping only for a small post midnight snack: 2 aanda bhurjis, one omelet, two cuttings and a cream cone. The small meal cost us Rs.80. On a normal day in Mumbai, all things considered, that would have cost me no more than Rs.40. But that is different story.

One the way down, I cheerfully asked Arun if he was enjoying the "midnight adventure". This was the chance he was looking for and screamed at the top of his voice "You're riding like a fool, have a helmet and a jacket and are comfortable protected against the cold, I have nothing and you ask me if I am enjoying the whole thing?”. Needless to say, I did not have any more questions for him, but I must admit that he had a point there.

I guess he was feeling "kidnapped" after all.

See you soon..

On Sunday, 21st September, I received a sms stating that my friend's, Ashutosh, also my colleague, mother had passed away. She had been battling a fatal disease for sometime now and this was the day when the fight was over.

I was unable to make it to his place on the same day, but was there following day with the rest of my colleagues. Upon entering his house we found his father sitting on a mat with several relatives. He invited us all in and exhibited no trace of sorrow or anguish. We were briefed on the happenings of the past few months up to the time of the tragedy. Ashutosh's father then showed us a family album. Amidst all this, Ashutosh, who had gone to select a frame for his mothers picture called me and instructed all of us to leave the house and wait for him near the entrance of the building. Reason? His father, a heart patient, was advised not to talk too much.

Two things struck me at once. First, Ashutosh, instead of being at home and mourning the loss, was up and performing his duties. And second, he was fully aware of his father’s condition and had the presence of mind to call and instruct us about what we should be doing.

Following his orders, we went out of the house, towards the gate and waited for him. Ashutosh arrived shortly and met us. Of all the things he said, that which I will never forget is -

"On Saturday, I had my mother. On Sunday all I have is a memory."

Makes me wonder about the things we really need to look forward to and cherish.

[This post is dedicated to Ashutosh and the courage he displayed in testing times.]