By now especially all who live in big cities have realized
that we are prisoners of time. Here every nanosecond counts. We have to travel
home-office-home, complete deadlines, work 8/9 hours in office and pay
bills in time. We are so busy now a day that we don’t
even have time for signal to turn green. Don’t know how we all became captive of
time.
In midst’s of this time crunch while googling
some thing in office, we come across some beautiful vacation picture. We pause
a while try to live in that picture, then sigh with disappointingly and resume our
work. Even I followed the suite, but this
time I shared those pictures with my cubicle mate Sandeep.
Sandeep is senior to me, works on Java technology. He keeps
interest in Politics, Finance, Online shopping, Cricket and almost everything
in world. He is no non sense guy, you
tell him something on some topic and he will correct you to the decimal points
of the numbers. Sometimes I wonder
how this person know so much and this leads me to making fun of him by saying
if he says to his senior (who is in other state) in afternoon that its night in Pune they will
blindly believe him.
Coming back to sharing pictures with Sandeep. Now the idea of visiting such scenic places started brewing in our heads. We read some blogs and
planed to Prison break, yes prison break of time. This time we just did not want to day dream. So we got in action and did some online shopping, got ourselves a tent and sleeping bags and decided to go for camping. But the question was where will we go and
when. No matter how much I boast about Prison break of time and blah blah…we
were still time captives, so after some brain storming camping out skirts of city for a night on weekends
was final.
Though we both have cruiser bike we decided to ride in his
car (Chevy beat). We planned to go towards Mulshi dam and find a place to camp.
I told my fiancée about me going camping, she was a sport and listed me things
I might need there. And so I asked Sandeep what all things he is bringing and
surprisingly we was geared with all the things in my list. Only the thing I
carried was my camera, sleeping bag and water.
Rendezvous was my place on Saturday afternoon. I was ready
with my bags and soon Sandeep arrived at by 4 pm in his champagne gold Chevy
Beat. We loaded my bags and were off to endeavor our camping experience. I must say Sandeep has good driving skills and he does manoeuvre his car with
ease in heavy traffic.Soon we were on Pune Mumbai highway heading to Mulshi
dam, on our way we clicked few pictures with car. We saw sky was getting
covered by clouds and that too in month of Feb. I guess the rain Gods were not happy with us. The day before it rained in Mumbai
(a neighboring metro city). Rains made me little Skeptical about our camping
night.
On reaching the spot, I had in my mind; I was shocked to see
that it was being excavated by 2 yellow backhoes. The place was littered by
empty alcohol bottles and chips packets. But the view from edge of the hill was
splendid. Nestled in mountains it was a lush green carpet with
beautiful blue Mulshi river cutting across vivid designs laid on mother earth. And
the clouds which I thought will play a spoil sport, added to the beauty. They were
looking amazing in pink and blue shades caused by descending Sun in Mulshi dam
behind us.
This scenery was worth capturing so I sprung out my camera
and started clicking the pictures. Where ever I clicked, the picture was post
card quality image. I was devouring the nature’s beauty in my camera. After clicking 15
to 20 pictures from the same spot, still my appetite was craving for more of
it. To enjoy the beauty I stood still, for few seconds I felt, I am in some European country side but soon my dream
was broken when I saw a plastic chip bag blown in air with gush of wind. That
brought me back on ground. Soon I realized Sandeep was with me. So I started looking around and
saw him clicking pictures with his camera.
He was in love with that spot and wished to pitch our tent
there. But I was not feeling safe after looking at the alcohol garbage around
us. So we decided to explore the place around quickly and if we don’t
find any other safe spot we will pitch our tent there. We drove few kilometers
and were out of luck so we were heading back to square one. On our way back we
asked a watchman of a under construction property to let us stay there for a
night. But he refused and tipped us with some places around. Following his tips we found a safest place, it
was safe to hide car, no one bothers to look on that side and on top of it, it
was narrow way to woods. On one side we could see the sunrise and on the other
side sunset in Mulshi dam. As we went deeper in woods to our amaze even that
spot so called safe was not new to alcohol and plastic garbage. There were some
remains of previous camping groups.
Sun was about to retire in Mulshi dam water, we both again
clicked few pics and stared at the beauty of descending sun. It was just like
God painting sky in shades of red and blue. Those clouds were now cotton
bunnies and in reddish and blue. This was what we use to dream sitting in
office cubicle. But this time it was real no air conditioned air but a real
fresh cool breeze from Mulshi dam waving our hair. Wow it was refreshing.
As the sun went down I realized about collecting fire wood
and setting up tent. I alarmed Sandeep about time crunch. We quickly gathered
fire wood and first time in life I was happy to find cow dung (dry). Sandeep
got the tent out of bag and we set up tent in less than 10 minutes. No Sooner
our camp fire was lit and I tried to make Maggi in with the help of torch. It
was pitch dark and I was not sure how much Maggi and its masala I was adding. Sandeep
was chopping onions for egg bhurji. Later we dropped the plan of cooking bhurji
and added chopping onions in Maggi. Waiting for our dinner to get cooked we
saw a pale yellow ball rising from farthest mountains. Ladies and Gentlemen behold
it was the Moon…I was excited to see that scene. Few minutes ago we witnessed
setting Sun, a greater light which governed the day and her was rising Moon made
to govern the night.
Our Maggi was cooked and it had aroma of being cooked on
campfire. Sandeep added tomato sauce which made Maggi yummier. Guys, I rarely
do cook Maggi but this was the most delicious Maggi I have every cooked. We
enjoyed our dinner watching the moon playing hide and seek some times in clouds
and sometimes in woods surrounding us. After dinner we went on edge of the hill, to see the Mulshi River and small village surrounding it at night. This
time the scene was no less than a fairy tale. Blue hue all around and river
like shining silver flowing from the villages, distant vehicle light beams
imitated of moving starts. And above all this sky was painted in bright white
and with shades blue with few bright stars peeping from the clouds. We tried to
capture all this in 0’s and 1’s but that experience neither can be
captured nor can be described. Later we sat silently gazing at that scenic
silver river and enjoyed the moon bath with cool breeze. Yes it was kind of
moon bath, as the moon light was so strong we felt that someone has switched on
tube light. We were even able to see our tent which was 10-15 meters away.
It was 9 p m and we were in our tent trying our new sleeping
bags and doing all that we can to feel cozy on rocky ground. Isn’t
it oxymoron on one hand we want to experience the primitive life and on other
we want it to be less painful with tent, sleeping bags and woodland shoes.
We both feared of thieves so for safety Sandeep started
fishing for knife in his bag which he used for cutting onions. But all his
efforts were in vain, so he got a fork instead and kept it near his
pillow. With that I recollected a Hindi
movie “Ghanchakkar” where the male protagonist uses fork to
kill the villain. We had a little laugh on that. I am an introvert person don’t
think I will start conversation and surprisingly Sandeep was introvert too. For
few minutes we didn’t had any lively conversation. Then to
kill the time we listened to retro Hindi film gazals. Yes this is one more thing
common between us. He imparted some knowledge about Urdu language poems and
gazals and the poets. We realized we need an extrovert and fun loving group for
camping.
As the time passed my eyes became heavy and I dozed off. But
little I knew the fear of thieves was still haunting me in back of my mind. In
few minutes I woke up, I recollected one prayer I use to pray as a child asking
God to keep me safe from scorpions, snakes, thorns, lions and tigers. Then I
used to be in safest place on earth for me and it was none other than my cozy
bedroom. I never needed that kind of prayer then but now I definitely needed it.
I again dozed off and this time I woke up in morning with three dreams in my
head where I was always disturbed in tent.
With all fatigue of night I opened the tent door and welcomed
the morning light with cold weather and chirping sound of sparrows. I was
amazed to see the view outside; I rushed out and beckon sandeep. It was as if
our hill has grown taller over night or my nightmare has come true, we both
were dead and watching down from heaven. I rubbed my eyes vigorously to make
sure I was not dreaming. The view was as if clouds have descended and swallowed
river and village. As the time passed
and sun was climbing the mountains back, the fog covering the village got
denser. And yet again it was a marvelous sight to witness. Golden light getting
brighter from back of the mountains, a small village and its river still in
deep sleep, tucked under the chilly fog blanket.
Without missing and minute we greedily captured those shades
of morning in out camera. As we packed our belongings and were off to our
respective homes, I thanked God for keeping us safe and also for the entire
nature’s treat He served these two prisoners of time in span of few
hours.
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