The Most Awesome Family Trip

“On a trip, a good company can compensate for the bad location”

I have been to numerous family trips with my parents and relatives (esp. mausi) and all of them have been gratifying. But my last family trip was exceptional. It was much more gratifying and pleasurable to the point of Euphoria than the earlier ones.

Reason: This time, the family trip included the family of one of my very close friends, Federer. His family included his parents and his sister, Jyoti apart from him. And what a company to hang out with, I must say! Together, our laughter must have produced/burnt so much of energy in 4 days which would be enough to light a bulb for 2 months! It had moments of satisfaction, pleasure, pain, adventure, fun, and  Bollywood.

This blog is a dedication to the trip by capturing all those moments in the form of writing in chronological order:

a)      On Aug-10: Parents arrived at station..we had lassi there.. we came home took rest and went to FC road to have chocolate toast. After that we celebrated papa’s b’day over ICC roof top..Here, while we were in lift, Jyoti was hiding cake and papa thought that she was imitating him.. :P.. We also celebrated Uncle-aunty’s marriage anniversary on the same cake..;-)

Then we came back home & had that special ice-cream and played guitar, tabla and flute, sang some songs (including Kumar Vishwas’s shayari), with aunty dancing a little bit and uncle dedicating a song to her!!

Mera apna tajurba hai, tumhe batla raha hun main....koi lab chhu gaya tha tab, ke ab tak ga raha hun main..

Bichhudkar tumse ab kaise jiya jaaye bina tapde….jo main khud hi nahi samjha, wohi samha raha hun main..

Federer and I also dedicated the song ‘phoolon ka taaron ka’ to our respective sisters!!

We clicked few pics with Jyoti’s camera HTC One S and I found that the camera of that phone was simply superb! Ek yeh din tha, ek aaj ka din hai..meri ab bhi is phone pe nazar hai.. :P

b)      On Aug-11: Federer’s parents learnt new terminologies which I founded during school days: CL and BL. CL means Chhota Laahur(No.1) and BL means Bada Laahur (No.2). Ek who din tha..aur ek aaj ka din hai… They are using these words even more than I do! :P.

One thing I noted in the morning was that uncle was the first one to get ready and fully dressed like Amitabh Bachchan in Baghban.. J

Firstly, we went to Infosys Darshan, to Phase-2 where papa, Neha, Jyoti and uncle had the time of their lives by driving bicycles! Jyoti had to wear Aunty’s chunni to cover her hands as roaming in sleeveless tops is in banned in Infy campus!!

After that, we went to phase-1. There, Jyoti almost left uncle on road as she started driving the car even before uncle was able to sit in the back seat!!..I died laughing after seeing uncle’s reaction. We went to Guest house then and had beautiful pics there of the swimming pool and tennis court..After having Thali in canteen, we left for home and then to Sinhgad fort.

While in cab, I was shaking hand out of the car window. Aunty asked me to keep my hands inside. I said, "Very nice...nice idea".. :)

c)   Sinhagad fort was an amazing place..Went to Wind point, then saw many water-kunds in which virtual Rani(s) used to take bath (:P)..We dedicated each Kund to a different class of Rani depending on the area and beauty of the Kund.:P.. then we saw Green Chutney (Algae, :P) and Mittal’s BL point (& mittal too!! :P)..We also had Pithli Bhakri and corns there amidst extremely heavy rain..then we went back to parking and had Kaanda bhaaji and tea.

I said to papa and uncle, ”Lijiye kapoor sahib..sweets lijiye bhai..gupta jee…lijiye” :P

Imagine how would you feel having Pyaz ke pakore and ginger tea in a wet weather on hill.. Amazing experience.. :-) Suddenly, Neha asked me, ‘bhaiya CL jana hai..’ I replied, ‘meri kya dukaan hai CL ki..’ :P :P

d)    Everyone was very happy with the choice of place.. so I told them a story.. A story, which I have never ever dared to tell any one.. Normally what happens is since a child is born and till the age of 27, he must have spoken almost 1 million lines.. listened to almost 1 million lines.. must have seen almost thousands of places.. must have heard lakhs of songs..etc.. But out of all those, 80% of them would have been on negative side.. means he must have spoken only 0.2 million lines truthfully, listened to almost 0.2 million truthful lines.. must have seen only 0.2X1000 GOOD places.. must have heard 0.2 X 1lakh GOOD songs..etc..BUT in my case.. “maine toh jee aap yeh samajh lo ki na hi galat kaam kiya hai, na hi dekha hai, na hi suna hai, na hi galat gaane sune hain..kyun…because meri adaat hi nahi hai”.. :P :P :P x 1000...

e)    On the way and while coming back, I told them about NjoyTV and it’s policies.. :P :P and we had several tests to find whether to recruit Jyoti into NjoyTV or not.. whether she had acumen to identify the movie names of “dialogues” or not.. She answered almost 50% of the questions that day.. so recruitment process continued till next day. ;-). Neha and federer were keen to expel me out of the company whenever I was not able to tell a movie name..so, I made the dialogue, “Meri umar mein ek jhatke mein pata chal jaat hai ki ladke-ladki ke beech kya chal raha hai..”.

f)    On each day, a little discussion took place on the marriage too. Esp. Federer’s marriage and my marriage. I told them about an incident [censored to maintain privacy]..And they said in Punjabi, ‘Arey yeh toh rola pai gaya..’ :P.. Meanwhile Neha tried to crack a PJ.. No one laughed and I said, ‘Ispar main kal subah 11.10am pe hasunga..’ :P..Neha ka chehra dekhne layak tha ;-) ..Then she asked me about the latest affair and federer said, ‘Iske jawaabon ka sawaal do..’ :P

Jyoti’s camera was awesome today also..my eyes stocked on it! :P In fact, I had started calling it “my mobile”.. :P

g)     Next day, on Aug-12, we went to Mahabaleshwar, the summer capital of Bombay during British Raj. The cab was congested at the back so we folded chairs and sat on the cab-floor (we=me, federer, jyoti, neha). We started playing cards to pass the time. I asked Federer to show us the magic of finding 4 ‘selected’ cards out of 52. And believe me, it was fun to watch him present. Though I caught the trick in his first attempt but same was not the case with the girls!! 

    

    ‘Ho sakta hai ki main sheher waalon ki tarah smart nahi hun..but aankhein hain meri..dekh sakta hun’..

And later when they came to know the trick, their reaction was as if they were short of “common sense” that how could they not get it.. We made them fool by telling them that the contour of each of the 52 cards is different..and Neha even believed that shit.. J

It was such a fun I tell you... Then these girls presented the same trick to the 2 moms sitting in middle row in the car and finally they ended up saying, “Galti ho gayi maa, maaf karooo” after bearing the over-detective nature of our moms in card games!! :P

The road to Mahabaleshwar was awesome. Aunty said, ‘it resembles silky hair’ and I started touching my Hair trying to find out how would a road feel like a Hair.. :P :P..Suddenly Neha said, ‘try karna chahiyein.. what do u say’.. :P.. Federer replied, ‘U need a psychiatrist’.. J

Then we laughed at above 50%.. J Aunty said, “ek kaam karo, tum chaaro ki ek saath shaadi karwa dete hain.. fir ikkaththe rehna.. at least haste toh rahoge”.

We first stopped at Panchgani..clicked the most beautiful snaps of the trip..We continued further..bought some rain-suits from a place just before Mapro.. We halted at Mapro few Kms before Mahabaleshwar. We had the best Sandwich of our lives there with some coffee and soup!! We also had some freely available mocktails, shakes and candies.

After doing CL, we moved on and reached Mahabaleshwar.. Uncle asked me, ‘Hey Rahul, you were to laugh at 11.10 today.. what happened’..I told him “Signal Problem”.. :P

Mahabaleshwar – I don’t know what was the name of the spot we covered first becoz of extremely heavy rainfall and fog with 2 mtr visiblity..but one incident worth noting there was that my mom kept on laughing laughing and laughing as if she had smelled laughing gas. Reason for laughter: Aunty made one dialogue..she said, “Jab tak yeh log ghoom kar aate hain, itne hum log chalo CL karte hain”.. :P J :P :P

After having Corns there, we went to the old temple Panchganga in which water from 5 different rivers meet:  Koyna, Krishna, Venna, Savitri and Gayatri.. Awesome temple where you get little taste of 5000 year-old civilization!

On way back, the cab driver stopped the car at petrol pump where we had Prasad of a new shop opening function. After that we went to the Balaji Temple at Naraynpur. Extremely beautiful from inside.. Amazing carvings, beautifully painted walls and breath-taking views of the architecture..

Meanwhile, Jyoti’s recruitment to NjoyTV still continued throughout the day..However, it kept getting worse and worse with each new movie dialogue! Finally she herself started saying, ‘mere se mat poochhna’ :P Also, she was little surprised by the company policy of taking salary from its employees.. :P i.e. the more you work, the more you pay to the company.. :P ;)

We came back to Pune and had dinner at Hotel GreenPark on Baner Road. Here, Aunty paid Rs 100/- to a pandit to know when will Federer get married.. :P :P.. He told, ‘This guy has lot of potential but it’s not coming out of him.."Yeh tanaav mein rehta hai thoda.." he needs to wear some stone..worth only Rs 5000/-‘ :P..  I said to Federer, "Agar tanaav mein rehne ke baad itna haste hain toh bina tanaav ke kya hoga.. :P"

Finally, We also clicked a mittal’s pic there in which he looks like his original super-natural yet horrible avatar!

Mahabaleshwar was not as good as per our expectations but because of the company we had, it looked like an awesome place to visit!

h)    Next morning, on Aug-13, when I was filling rent receipt, Jyoti came to our room (our=federer and me) and asked something related to trip. Me and Federer, as usual, made a movie dialogue out of it and started doing our work..:P :P

Jyoti’s reaction was, “Excuse me..helloooooo…mere ques. ka jawaab toh do..” :P

Then we were on our way to Shirdi.. While in the cab, aunty told us about the incident when Federer slept in BL.. :P :P ..yes u read it correctly..He slept in the BL that too Indian..:P In return, my mom also told them that I used to keep my “new” footwear on the bed..then I said, ‘Main har nayi cheez ko bed pe hi rakhta hun..’ :P :P

Then I made the dialogue, “Yeh jo time hai na yaar, yeh jo hum kaat rahe hain..yeh bahut achchha time hai..tum dekhna, aage jaakar hum isse yaad karenge aur bahut hasenge”.. J

We stopped to have breakfast on a restaurant where a bus containing almost 50 villagers also halted. Aunty asked me about a village girl, “Rahul, kaisi lag rahi hai yeh..features achchhe hai na?” I told her the funda of rating girls:

·         Excellent – very beautiful

·         Good - average

·         Bad – below average

Then aunty discovered a 4^th category: Very Excellent!! : P :P Ek who din tha, ek aaj ka din hai.. Aunty is the only one on this Earth who uses this word ‘Very excellent’ to show her taste for anything which is good!

Before continuing the journey, I went to BL after picking up the tissue paper from the table and saying, “Yeh le jaata hun main bas..” imitating SRK of ‘beer in London’ scene from DDLJ.. Federer said, ‘Chai peekar BL aagayi..that means it was BL-able Tea’ :P :P

i)     We continued our journey further towards Shirdi. During the journey, whenever Federer said the word “peechhe”.. I always started looking at my back.. :P This made the other 3 NjoyTV workers laugh like hell!! :D

At the same time, Jyoti, who was not even confirmed as a NjoyTV employee, resigned from the company sighting reasons that she doesn’t want to work in such an ‘unfriendly’ company. Federer said, ‘when people start criticizing you that means you are progressing. She must be jealous of NjoyTV..that’s why she resigned..’.. Neha said, ‘Milte hain Market mein’.. :P :P.

It was as if the whole Bollywood was residing in that cab only.. :)

Meanwhile, Jyoti wanted to buy something from the market but Neha opposed her saying, ’kya fayda, aunty toh khareedne nahi dengi’.. then Aunty made the best dialogue of the trip: “Munni badnaam hui”..:P I laughed at 75% on it.

j)     Shirdi was nice but we had to remain in queue for a long time (arnd 3 hrs)! Aunty asked Jyoti to restrict her shopping. Jyoti said “aap itni tokaa-taaki mat kiya karoo”. Neha told me about this. I went to aunty after few minutes and said politely, “Aunty, waise toh sab badhiya hai but mujhe pata chala hai ki aap kaafi tokaa-taaki kar rahi ho bachiyon ke saath” :P Aunty laughed like anything saying, ‘fir se munni badnam ho gayi’..:P

The line kept on moving slowly, “Badhte rahiye bhaiya, hum log new Bombay se aaye hain.. “ and we completed darshan by 3pm. After that Lunch, little shopping and ice-cream and all the way to Shani-Shingnapur.

This place is awesome. You have to be here to practically experience the aura of this place. Here, everybody speaks truth.. no-body ditches anybody at least in matters involving money. Here, everybody gives importance to the work and not the money involved in it. Both me and Federer felt that it was a dangerous place for Mittal.. :P

We had coconut water there first of all to satiate our thirst. Then darshan and Aarty.

Federer said that this kind of mandir should be there in each city so that there would be more places without corruption! I said:

“Oo jee, hum kaun hote hain mandir banana waale… hum toh bas eet paththar lagate hain and jahan ishwar ki kripa hoti hai mandir bann jata hai..”

Note: In shanishingnapur, CL was charged only for ladies. For gents, it was free.

On way back to Pune, the driver stopped the car for mending the tyre-puncture. While he was doing so, we had so much fun.. I can’t tell you..We played with truck tyre, clicked funny pics on it.. me and federer went over the roof of the car and clicked pics.. then Neha and Jyoti clicked few pics..most funny was in which Jyoti was tightening the brain-screw of Neha.. :P

All these pics were taken from Jyoti’s camera..my eyes were still on it.. :P

As we were quite a bit late in reaching Pune so we went to the roof-top restaurant, “Sky Garage”. Parents were quite surprised by the “young” girls were coming to the restaurant at 1.00 am in hot pants.. It was funny to see their reaction.. ;-)

k)     Next day, Aug-14, we left for Mumbai (though a bit late becoz of Cab mismanagement issues). Jyoti and Neha were quite excited with the idea of seeing Salman Khan and Katrina on the sets of Jhalak Dikhlaja at 6.00pm in the evening. We left at 1.30pm.

There was a little debate b/w Jyoti and Federer on the lyrics of certain songs like, ‘Agar tum mil jao, zamana chod denge hum’. Jyoti said, ‘Agar zamana chhod diya toh milkar kya karega’.. Federer said, ‘This is an exaggeration of expression of love and nothing else’..and so on…

I will skip the journey part. Only one thing was that we were not able to reach Filmistan on time and we missed Jhalak Dikhalaja and hence the lone chance of seeing sallu and kattie. So, we directly went to Goregaon (after taking keys from Chat) to stay at Thakur’s rented flat.

l)      Mobile incident: The cab driver dropped us outside the society and left. We counted the number of bags and started moving inside the society thinking where would we go next.. Suddenly a voice pierced through my ears: ‘I can’t find my mobile’. Jyoti was not able to find her Rs 33k mobile phone in her pocket. She said, “it’s probably left in the cab. Plz call him asap before he even identifies that there’s mobile in his cab”. I felt the pain of losing her mobile on her face (After all, it had virtually became my mobile too.. :P). Meanwhile, federer tried to call cab driver but all in vain as he didn’t pick up. Jyoti said, “haan ab kyun phone uthaega woh”. :-(

My heart pounded heavily after listening to this as she had lost all hopes and this incident had the potential to spoil the whole trip. Also, in India there is a concept of “nazar”. Everybody would have said that “Rahul ki nazar lag gayi phone ko, isiliye we lost it”. I tried to remain calm, went outside and started searching for the mobile. The issue was multiplied by low light and presence of wet mud on the road periphery. Wet mud is dark in color and hence it is even more difficult to spot black colored mobile phone in it. Not for me, Luckily though! I spotted something “mobile-like” black colored device half submerged in mud just 10 metres ahead of the society gate. And Voila!! IT WAS THE MOBILE we were searching for. Oh my god…I jumped with joy, “mil gaya..mil gaya”.. :D :D.. Obviously, Jyoti’s happiness had no bounds! And everybody was again as happy as nothing had happened. But I was happy as if I had found a gold mine!! :D

Though I am still trying to find out why did she give its credit to my mom and not to me.. :P

We had dinner at pratap-da-dhaba that night.

After coming back home, Neha went to BL. She said, “BL ekdum bakwaas experience tha because sprinkler mein se keede nikal rahe the”. Federer and I smiled at each other. Later federer told me that he was smiling because he now knew that why is Thakur’s ***** had keeda..:P.. I laughed at 61%.

j) Next day, Aug-15 was not a day to be remembered except for 3 things:

1 - We roamed here and there and wasted lot of time just to meet few people who were like us few years ago but are now big stars! ;)

2 - We visited Sea-Link, Sidhdhivinayak Temple.

3 - Neha making a senti dialogue to federer, “I am more imp. Or Beach?”.. :P :P. This was because Neha was super-hungry and didn’t want to roam on beach while federer wanted to cover beach first and eat later. After this dialogue I said to federer, ‘I hate girls’.. :P

When we were having lunch then suddenly we started talking on Jyoti’s mobile incident and she again thanked my mom. I said, ‘I hate girls…but not all of them’ (after seeing a beautifully dressed girl besides our table)..:P

Surprisingly, Jyoti made one out-of-the-box movie dialogue here. I said, “hum apne har ex-employee ko achchhe se training dete hain..” :P :P

We left for Station and gave them a see-off…

***

So, this was it. An awesomely wonderful trip came to an end. I realized, the best part of the trip was compatibility between 2 families and extremely good humour of the members! That is why, even when we had few hiccups in the original plan, the overall mood was still in "Euphoria". :)