My Vacation!!

The advantages of traveling in a train over taking a flight are numerous. You get to wallow in the languid comfort curled up with a book as the scenic kaleidoscope passes you by. In those lazy hours you get to do a lot of people gazing. People boarding and alighting. Proud parents traveling to join their newly employed son, stationed in a city they are traveling for the first time to, perhaps. Patients, leisure travelers, routine travelers, people with hope gleaming from their eyes, people harried by the hardships of life, people longing to meet their loved ones, people who have seen their loved ones off on a long journey out of home. The bedlam, the whiffs of sweat, the smell of fresh paint on the platform walls concoct a heady brew that reminds you that you are finally free and on a journey that takes you back to life.

I dont think there is any body in this world who would not be happier if certain thinngs shape up in a better way than they are presently. And I guess there will be only rare few who are entirely happy with the state of affaires at hand.

But the muslim muftis have made a profession of whipping up each single inconvenience as huge injustice to the whole community and inseminate hatred by portraying smallest of issues as a instutionalized pogrom against the kaum.... Thats what I sensed when I travelled with this deoband mufti for 30 hours...

Indi Go

There are low cost air lines. And then there is Indigo. They make you clean your seat. That too they wake you up midway in the flight to clean up your seat.

Indigo.... Think twice before go...

Lohgarh Fort

Of late I have been going on a lot many trips and treks to see nature and feel life. There are only a few things one can do when staying in Mumbai all alone. Go to a movie (or malls) with friends, booze or go out on treks. The location of Mumbai on the geographical map of india is very well suited for the last. The other two ofcourse are there because of Mumbai's rank in the Indian economical map. Contrary to popular belief that Mumbaites dont have any time and lead really busy lives, you can see hordes of Mumbaites going out on trips and treks over the weekend. Infact the routes leading out of Mumbai become jammed on Saturday's owing to the mass exodus.

My last trip was a trek to the Lohgarh Fort. On the top of a hill in a place about 15 kms from Lonavala, this beautiful fort was built by Shivaji and was considered to be impregnable in its time. Now I know why.

The trip was organized by Soni, the head instrutor at the gym my friend Shashank goes to. Shashank and I have been going on such treks for about 3-4 months now. Our first trip together was a night trek to the hill which looked like a thumb. The view from the top of the hill was amazing in the early morning sun. Sadly we did not have a camera to capture the beauty. Anyways, this time we were prepared. Shashank's new moto razr can take really good pics.
We had to reach the gym early morning at 6:15 on Sunday. I stayed over at Shashank's place saturday night so that we could reach the gym early. Even with our best efforts we could manage to reach the place at around 6:40. But to our surprise only half the people had come till then. I met 3 gym instructors. Soni, the main instructor, with a pefectly built body was very stylish. He had his wife and cute little daughter coming in as well. Deepak was a dark bull kind of a guy. He came with another lady (forgot her name) say lady of deepak. She had a different kind of a face but was very bubbly and street smart. The third instructor was lanky and had a girl friend stowed in as well which I came to find out later. His girl friend was small and dark, but with a deadly figure and walk.

Other than these people there were 3 more guys and 2 more girls. One was a fatty (motu) who had a car of his own, which was used along with the Tavera for transportation. Motu had a huge bag of his own stowed away in his car which had almost everything, including a huge umbrella. Then there was one guy who is doing hotel management somewhere in cochin and is here in Mumbai on a training. Dont know much about the third guy, because he was hardly noticeable. But found out towards mid of the journey that he also could be charming. So lets call him Mr Charming. Now out of the two remaining ladies one was a perfect match for motu (Moti) except for her colour which was atleast 4 shades darker than motu. But later we find out that dark or light doesn't matter much when you have comparable weights. The last lady was a slim girl who kept giving glances to me. I found out towards the end of the journey that she has been doing this with Shashank as well. Lets call her Miss Glance.

So we started on our journey in the Tavera and the Zen, after a long wait and a cup of tea, at around 8:30. There were just one too many people to fit into these two vehicles, but somehow we managed. Moti, Deepak and Lady of Deepak cramped into the back cabin, with Moti occupying one full seat and Deepak and his lady sharing what was meant for only two buttocks by somehow keeping three. As the journey started, Moti who was later rechristened as Radio Mirchi started abusing our ears using her mouth. And slowly everyone joined in in the masti. Looking at the enthusiasm in the crowd and the way they all mixed up, it was difficult for me to grasp the limit of dearthness of my societal skills. Shashank probably would come in a close second after me if we were to be ranked according to our pathetic societal skills inside the Tavera.

So after much hullabaloo we finally managed to reach a place midway where we were allowed to rest our lower abdomens and give some work to the upper abdomens. I mean we halted at a petrol pump cum food court. Took some snaps, talked to near and dear ones and then restarted on our journey.

Trying out color

This is the image that inspired me to take my next trip..

No, I am not going to talk about the trip here, because it was a sort of wash-out.

And no, I am not talking about the model here, 'cause the sketch does not speak true. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental :), not due to the best effort of mine.

All I wanted to say was,now trying my hand at crayons n oil pastels for the first time. Mmm, first time since class 3 maybe. And it is so so difficult ! No wonder all those drawings kids make in prep classes are ssso on the messy side. All those colors, they just dont appear where you want them to .. they start overlapping everywhere ! And then there are no erasers to rub them off; at least I didnt have any..
So the first time I tried an experimental A for Apple, it looked like a blob of red, but thats it. Then i moved on to a B for beach ball. I am pretty sure when I did this stuff way back in class 3 I did better :D

ok so I improved a bit, ;) now I am on H for holiday, which is this pic .. but then theres a lot of way to cover .. so if u know any really really good websites for this, then do tell me !

n do you know, a small pack of wax crayons from faber-castell costs only rs 5 !