Almost Branson

Well, a quick honest confession. My fixation with the gigantic figure, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson has pushed me to pen down my experience to enrich (may be not) my blog.
It was 15th of August a public holiday when I had to travel from Pune to Mumbai back home. I reached the bus stop and to my surprise saw a see of people waiting for the same bus that I had thought of boarding. It was simply impossible to even try, with six bags on my shoulders. Yes you heard me right, I was carrying six bags. To rejuvenate all my drained energy I decided to stop by the juice shop and sip a glass of juice. It then occurred to me to redo what the legend had once done. Richard had to fly to Puerto Rico on holiday and when he reached the airport, it so happened that the fight had got cancelled. So he charted a plane and divided the money among the people to incur the cost of flying. The story of how the Virgin Atlantic came into being was vivid and clear.
I decided to hire a cab which seemed a plane then, and after some discussions with the cab guy I struck a deal with him. All I had to do was search for 3 more guys who would share the expense with me. The share came to be double the usual, but then I had no choice and had to reach Mumbai that day at any cost. I somehow managed to convince 2 more guys and while searching for the 3rd share, out of the blue a guy came up to me and asked if I wanted the bus ticket to Mumbai. Disappointing Branson I boarded the bus. :( :)

Split Personality

I wonder do I have split personality??

Why am I forced to give it a thought??

I at times think that I am the most lazy person in the world. People who know me well wud second that.
Lazy to the extent of not getting up to drink water myself even when I might die of thirst the very next moment. Lazy to the extent of sleeping for insanely humongous hours at a stretch.

But then when I am on any kind of adventure (seems an over used word) or doing something freaky, my energy levels are at their peak. I can run a zillion miles; I can be awake for an epoch, yet not even slightly drop my eyelids.


Is it really the split personality syndrome??

But then again a thought…. I think that wud be true with anybody… how n y??
When u are doing something u love and is insanely passionate about… I think one gets some weird kind of never ending energy and power, one can do any god damn thing wid that kind of mountain of energy.

Here I go again all philosophical about my life…. I soooo think that I shud do something I am insanely passionate about, life wud be bliss then. Everyday wud be soooo fulfilling.
The idea of starting your own thing, your idea, and your brain child excites me to the core. If I get into manufacturing something, the idea of creation, bringing live an inanimate object, sooooooooooper thrills me.Steve Jobs says, look for your calling, do something that is your passion and you would automatically be brilliant at it.

Alright may be this cry tells that I am not happy deep inside, I am madly looking for my calling. Come my callin come…come on to me…a desp call there…lol

Slainte!!!

The Motorcycle Diaries, A tribute to Ernesto Guevara…..Okie whom am I kidding

“This is not a tale of impressive deeds, it’s a piece of his life when he was cruising along a given path with the same identity of aspirations and dreams”. These would be the introductory lines when a movie would be made on me and my ulti weird adventures. Alright a mini confession, these ain’t my lines. This is what The Motorcycle Diaries the movie says, which made me all enthu to do a similar feat. If Ernesto Guevara can tour the whole of Latin America on his motorcycle, so can I travel, if not the whole of India, if not the whole of Maharashtra, if not the whole of Pune, then atleast some parts in the outskirts of Pune.
So after a mundane office day, I sooooo wanted to do something which would rejuvenate every lil’ cell in my body. After some brain squeezing session a brilliant idea took birth. Night drive from Pune to Lonavala on Ducati!!!!! okie you caught me, so what if it wasn’t Ducati, in my mind all along the way I was cruising on the Superbike.
Our voyage started at 11 in the night, and we hadn’t gone far, that our adventure started. I would definitely call it an adventure, may be an ulti stooooopid idea of adventure in the world’s eye. The tyre got punctured in the middle of the highway, dragged Ducati for at least 2 kms where we found a puncture repair shop. What a brilliant start!!!!
Alright this might sound a lil’ crazy but this is how it is. I have got an imaginary adventure resume in my head. Now the question comes what the hell can an adventure resume be. Its like, it holds all the adventures I have ever been on and a wish list of freakish adventures I hope to be on one day. Whenever I am upto doing something loony, I imagine myself writing on my resume all the weird adventurous feats. And my resume reciprocates by always smiling back at me with immense joy and a sense of accomplishment. That’s the power of adventure, it can put life into an inanimate object, it can make a piece of paper smile.
So there we were, back on track. With a brilliant start I was all charged up. Riding the Ducati at mind clenching speed, on the soooooperbly built twisty curvy roads which looked more like a race track. I thought to my self, this ride is definitely better than what Ernesto Guevara had. Basically it was all about out doing Ernesto. Okie… whom am I fooling.
It must be around 1 o’clock owl’s hour, a full moon day had lighted up the road well. There were occasional thunderclaps which acted as supplement to pump up our already high energy. Wind gushing up to my face, distending the skin and the eyes, felt as if I was all high. The mountains looked pitch black, this made it look even more mammoth and perilous. There were some occasional harmless stunts on the bike, trying to redo the Sholay magic.
When I am out on an adventure its kinda rule for me to go insanely demented. An ulti weird idea struck. How about taking off the t-shirt and ride bare chest. Brilliant!!!!!! So there we were speeding at hundred, chilling wind gushing and goose bumps all over my body, what a feeeeeeel!!!! It then started raining, making the wind even more unbearable. But it never occurred to the demented me to put on the t-shirt.
Around 1:30 owl’s hour we took our first munching break at one of the trucker’s joint, then moved on to explore Lonaval. Our next stop was the Lonavala lake. The lake looked amazingly beautiful at this point of the hour, with the moon light sparkling all over the water. Appeared as if there were a zillion diamonds floating in the lake. We sat by the lake gazing it for long, enjoying the freshness in the air, appreciating the calm serene environment way away from our mundane stooooooopid city life. Just can’t stop myself from saying, umm wait for it, its coming…….. Brilliant!!!!!!
We then moved on from the lake to the Bushi dam, if one goes during normal human hour the place would seem like just another famous picnic spot. But it was the owl’s hour, and the gates were locked. The obvious solution was to jump over the gates, and that’s exactly what we did. How adventurous!!!! We went in and explored the dam; we could hear the sound of the water gushing, which was music to my ears. It’s an extraordinary bliss to hear water gushing; one must experience to know what I am talking about.
By now we were a lil’ tired, so decided to lie down next to the water body. The water was just a feet away from where we rested our buttocks. The view was breathtaking, the water body distended endlessly. The mountains were all covered by the clouds. It looked picture perfect, gazing and appreciating nature’s beauty, we were off to sleep. No kidding, we were actually sleeping under the open sky, open air, closest one can get to nature. So far the best sleep I have EVER got. After a while I woke up and saw from between my legs that the water body had disappeared. I thought to myself, I definitely am in a dream world. OMG!!!!! This is unbelievable, I shouted. We were surrounded by clouds; the visibility had drastically gone down. My craziness had no bounds; it felt I was in heaven. What a feeeeeeeeeeeel!!!!!!!!!!!
The dawn was about to break, we decided to move on. Our next destination was the Lions point which is at a great altitude. To reach there, we had to take the Amby valley road, which is an experience by itself at 5 o’ clock cock’s hour. As the altimeter reading escalated, I realized that we were again swimming in the clouds. The cloud cover was so dense that I was unable to see the tail light of my friend’s bike. What a feeeeeeel again!!!!!!!
On the way back from the Lions point we came across a huge waterfall. Parked our bikes at the side of the road and ran towards it like crazy. Stripped (well almost) immediately and plunged into it, the water was ice cold. Every drop that fell recharged all my drained batteries; I could sense every tiny miniscule atom in my body dancing with joy. Oh dancing with joy is soooooooper subtle; they were actually up with tribal dance, sheer crazy excitement. What a feel yet again!!!!!!
After all the exploration in Lonaval, we were on our way back to Pune. This time the mountains had changed their attire, clothed in a zillion different shades of green. The adventure streak had not come to an end yet, after being awake for more than 24 hours, we had to report for work.

Adventure Trail to Korigadh

Before I start writing my first blog, let me just tell u one thing in advance. My favourite words are, brilliant, soooooper (that’s superlative of super and pronounced as the spelling is), but why this caution?? I might oops not might, will use these words a lil’ too often, so please excuse. After reading this people might come to a conclusion as to I am insane. But I would say insane is still a euphemism, coz when it comes to adventure I go bizarrely demented.The adventure plan was born on the Friday evening when some more adventure freaks like me finalized the destination, and it was Korigadh a fort made by Shivaji on the ranges of Shayadri. It’s around 20 km from Lonavala near Amby Valley.During the planning session (which happens quite often irrespective of the plan getting materialized) another sooooper weird idea took birth. We all thought of playing Ludo, Snakes & Ladder sitting right at the top of the hill. It was already late at night but I had to buy the game, for the insanely crazy I am. Mind you we are all 22 years young and in the world’s eye with a pretty decent IQ. With pretty decent IQ I mean, an IQ not of a 10 year old.The plan was to meet at Pune station at 7:30 am to board the 7:45 Lonavala train. Alarm at 6:45…snooze…6:50….snooze again….6:55….snooze yet again….7:00 o’ clock…expression on my face….Oh my goodness!!!! What the hell I am late.Some how I reached the station just on time, bought some snack to munch and boarded the train. The train had lots of empty seats but sitting in an empty local is strictly against the rules. There can’t be a better place than the footboard, so we all grabbed our lil’ space. It was around 8 in the morning the weather was good. Standing at the footboard I was enjoying the cool pristine breeze, a zillion different shades of green, a zillion micro waterfalls and occasional big ones and the whole feel of a brilliant morning just charged all my drained batteries.After an hour and a half’s traveling we reached Lonavala. Our destination was still 20 kms away. We were walking on the road searching for a transport. The adventure was about to start and a brilliant thing happened. A mini truck driver saw us and asked where we were going. We all encored Korigadh, thanks to our ulti luck, that he was also going the same way. He asked us to enter from the open rear end. The truck was carrying bags containing cement on which we rested our asses. The whole hitch-hike feel gave an outta the world high. I have been wanting to do this for sooooo long (superlative again…saying real long) and finally I got the opportunity to hitch-hike my way to my destination.The road to Korigadh was brilliant with all the zig-zag curves and me gaping the breathtaking view of the water body flowing through the mammoth mountains.We got off the truck and saw a hand pump at the corner of the road. It was a small village. We quenched our thirst drawing water from the hand pump. More than quenching thirst the idea of drinking water from the hand pump was a brilliant feeling.Finally we were there at the foothills of Korigadh. The hill looked sooooper steep with around 70 degree inclination. The trek looked almost next to impossible. We went ahead passing some mini streams but still hadn’t found a way to trek up. After exploring a lil’ more we all shouted in unison, this way!!! Pointing to the way which we hoped will lead to the top.Finally we were above the planes, the plane had taken off. The whole fort feel had already started as we came across caves carved in the mountain. There were brilliantly flowing waterfalls all along the way. We were actually walking on the stream for some part of the trek. We had reached two third of our way where we took our first stop. The view from this place actually compelled us to take a halt. The world looked sooooooper tiny from here, overlooking the lake dodging its way through the Herculean mountains, and just cant tell u enough the zillion different shades of green, the soooooper refreshing breeze. The whole view looked picture perfect, I could have gazed it for hours together. After half an hour more of the trek we were finally at the top. There was this huge plane land at the top covered by the lushest(of course superlative of lush…origin Rishabh’s world) greenest grass ever. Walked ahead and saw two big ponds and my craziness had no bounds. What an amazingly outta the world reward, trek all the way to the top and to shoo away the fatigue you get two brilliant ponds waiting for you to dive in. Without wasting much time we stripped (waitin did I say strip… partially of course) and swooped into the water body. There was this miniature island kinda formation in the middle of the pond, and decided to conquer that. Swam all the way to the island and for a minute thought that I had actually defeated Shivaji. I was the uncrowned king for that moment. After getting exhausted with the water fights, swimming, and other stoooooopid water play we decided to tour the rest of the fort. Now that I was the King of the fort, I owned it, I had to go out on inspection as to see if everything was in place. We started walking on the periphery of the fort, one slip and straight down the hill. It actually wasn’t that scary as I am sounding. We reached a place to which I named the panorama point. The panoramic view from there was breathtaking. By now the black clouds were approaching us. Just then we got to see an amazingly brilliant thing. The clouds came rushing, banged against the mountain and changing its course. What a scene!!!! Surrounded by the clouds it felt like we were floating with them. It all seemed sooooo surreal.By now we were all sooooooper hungry, hogged whatever we had. The black clouds showed their magic, because of the rain it became even more chilly. After lazing there for long we started our tour of the fort again, walking at the periphery all around the mountain. There came a place where we could see the whole of the Amby valley, all the bungalows, swimming pools, golf course, lakes, brilliant curvy roads, even Sahara’s runway strip.It was getting dark, so we decided to trek down. This time the route was different, excitement of the unknown was still alive. Finally we reached the hand pump where we had started from. A brilliantly crazy idea struck us, brilliant in my eyes, may be ulti stoooooopid in the world’s eye. I had to play snakes n ladders sitting on the main road. So there we were all friends almost lying on the main road playing snakes n ladders. Isn’t that a oh my goodness!!!! experience? It sure is. That’s one my most satisfying freakish act I must admit. I sooooooo hope that the freakish demented side of me never subsides.Time for a clichéd, as all great things come to an end so did my sooooooooper eventful n exciting day, full of ulti stooooopid activities ended.