Ganpatipule...Curtains

It was yet again a much needed sleep and we must have got a lot of blessings from our bodies specially the arse for this long sleep after torturing them brutally throughout the journey. Yet again we were planning to catch the sunset and yet again we missed the simple trick that getting up from the bed is pre-requisite to see the show! I woke up when all the friends were well dressed to visit the Ganpati temple on the beach. As an atheist, I was not too much inclined to go all the way to temple so I asked them to go ahead and convince them that I will follow soon. It was the time to hit the bed again but to my dismay this fellow Anurag got ready within no time (after his nth bath) and then forced me to follow the suit. 15 minutes later, we were moving leisurely to the temple. Somehow I always find it difficult to watch all the rituals there so I entered the temple and duly came to its verandah within no time. This time anurag sacrificed his 25 bucks there (to my surprise as he is also a non believer in god).

At this time, all got dispersed. Some were interested in ‘parikrama’ so they went ahead with it. Some were into their own zone, so we didn’t disturb them, while for us, it was ‘wading time’ again! This time another friend of mine gave us company. Another walk in the ankle deep see water, another stroll under the glittering sky or in short..another heavenly and unforgettable experience! 45 minutes and a round of coconut water later all were back from their respective zones and we finally halted at MTDC restaurant (I guess we two had every single breakfast, lunch and dinner at this place only and I enjoyed fresh lime water soda every time. No applause for MTDC required as you don’t need to have a mastery over this drink as soda is all that you need to make it!). Now we had plenty of time to kill, the whole night to be precise, and nobody was in mood to sleep early. We took atleast 25 minutes to select the dishes and the waiter took his own half an hour to serve. Still nobody complained. We ate till everybody’s stomach was filled to the throat. Now it was the time to go on beach again err..yet again.

Some of us were hell bent on having a bon fire there on the beach itself just to add to that ‘chill’ mood although the weather was not at all conducive for the fire thingie. The bonfire was as oddly placed as a 10-year-old kid in a Mumbai dance bar! Now somebody cried for the guitar. But as Anurag put it “...but I guess both rathore's and my prowess with the guitar was rather disappointing for the audience..so they continued with there dumb C”. Now, I am not at all a fan of Dumb C still just to extract some life out of it for myself…I came up with some imaginary movie names and left them all puzzled. One of them was “Hamlavaron ki toli aur raniyon ka mela!!”

After a lot of deliberation and persuasion, we dropped the idea of going to Ratnagiri as we have to come back all the way to Bombay and we didn’t want to ride during the daytime. Next day, Anurag was insisting on leaving as at 5:00 while I wanted to catch some sleep. Somehow I stretched the time to 6:15 am, the time at which we finally left for Bombay. Again no jacket and again the time for me to convert into an ice cream. This is one lesson I have learnt from this trip. Always go with a jacket even if u are heading towards the sun. By 7, I was totally frozen while he was having the cover of his newly bought jacket, which was again dropping temperature for me by 5 more degrees! At this time, we stopped for refueling and I snapped this opportunity to insert two ‘cuttin’ into my veins just to raise the temperature a bit. We rode on appreciating the black carpets of Maharashtra maintaining a speed of not less than 85 at anytime and in fact touched 107 at a particular instant! (But it was safe). Second stop was Chiplun where we had a ‘local’ burger but the guy charged handsomely for it. By 9’O Clock the markets were buzzed with activities and every now and then we were intercepting one of them. Now our sore asses started to give us trouble. Another halt to have bhajiya and chai. By 10 O’clock, sun was showing its true colors and with our helmets on, the conditions became all the more sapping. From there onwards, it was a continuous struggle with heat and thirst. Two more halts followed just to add substantial quantities of cold drinks and neebu-paani. We were exhausted by the time we were just 3 kms away from Panvel but our adventurist souls were still at large. We took a left turn in order to discover a new road hoping that it will take us to the beauty of Palm Beach road. We were horribly wrong. We were totally lost at 1:30 pm! After an aimless drive of 20 minutes (which at least I didn’t enjoy) we took a kuccha road and it infact took us to palm beach road but added another needless 10 kms and 20 minutes to our journey.

Finally we reached the flat at 2:00 pm sharp with a bottle of chilled water and another coke. The distance meter showed a whopping 815 kms of journey! He ended up with his sun burnt legs in cold-water bucket while I went off to sleeping mode sipping cola and watching the match!

Thus ended our 4th and most probably the last trip of the season….