the plan (whatever)
20-Aug-2005
9:30 pm - After a few calls to Sairam and Vishwa, it has been decided to push the trek start time of 6:00 am to 7:00 am. Good for me, I am able to watch the Asia v/s Africa cricket match that is going on. Ashish Nehra has just dropped a catch. Pathetic. Shoaib Akhtar is bowling with passion. Looks like Asia will win. I turn out to be right.
21-Aug-2005
6:15 am - I am in the bath-room, taking a bath. The phone rings. My mom has to pick it up.
6:20 am - I call Vishwa, find out that he is at Dadar, waiting along with IRS, for someone to join him.
6:50 am - I start from home, manage to find a bus going towards Thane Station, before I can get a rickshaw. First time for everything. The bus bangs on every pot-hole and speedbreaker from Ice-Factory till the station. I am on time. Surinder, Rohit, Sairam are waiting for me. Surinder is speaking to Vishwa. They inform him that they are in a Kalyan train at Sion. This means that we will definitely be missing the bus from Thane. I inform the group to buy Kalyan tickets for everybody. We stand in a queue. Rohit manages to sell off his ticket to some poor guy looking for a Mulund return. That poor guy has not realized that he won't be able to travel back from Mulund on that ticket. He is in for a surprise Meanwhile, I reach the window and buy 6 tickets.
7:34 am - A Kalyan local pulls in platform no 1. Vishwa is standing in the second compartment from the engine. Do local trains have an engine?
We get in. Introductions take place. Miss T and Miss IRS Miss IRS is Shraddha Mody. The IRS stands for ir-responsible Shraddha. Miss T has some name which I replaced later with Miss Inner Voice
I flop over at the last seat in the compartment and doze off.
8:10 am - Kalyan station. Someone wakes me up. We go to the Kalyan bus-stand and find out that the next bus is 8:45 am. Thank you very much Miss T. Now that we have missed the bus, we should penalize you. Surinder starts to think about the extra time that he could have slept at his house, instead of hurrying over to Thane station. Well these things happen. Thankfully there is a bus at 8:45 am and I have noticed a hotel next to the bus-stand.
8:20 am - Hotel Deepak. Of all the hotels lined up against the bus-stand, we pick this one. We go to the first floor. It is spacious and vacant. We pick up a seat near the window. Idlis, Dosas and Medu-Wada. The Dosas are good. The Idlis seem to have been taken out from cold-storage and the Medu-wadas are dripping with oil. Thank God, everyone did not order Idlis. I finish mine reluctantly. Then hot coffee. Miss T pays the bill :-)
8:43 am - We rush towards the bus-stop. Vishwa and Sai have gone ahead. Vishwa has stalled the bus for a while. We catch the bus and we are on our way. Miss T feels like throwing up. She gets a window seat, after Vishwa sacrifices his.
9:15 am - We have just reached Bhiwandi bus-stand. I have forgotten my deck of cards. Dumb-charades is the order of the day. Me, Sairam and Vishwa in one team vs the rest of the gang. We win, cos Shraddha is not able to act out one of the movies correctly. Everyone wants to hit Surinder. His movie is named "Darogha babu I love you". I thought that No Home Productions was the rule. Surinder might have noticed the poster of this movie somewhere. Thats my conclusion. Vishwa passes it onto Sairam, who manages to mime it.
11:00 am - We reach the bus-stand at Wada. After distributing Halls ® Lozenges to everybody, me and Sairam drink a cup of hot tea. The vendor advises us to proceed to the rickshaw stand, where we have two opportunities catching the bus or taking a share rickshaw. After some negotiation with the rickshaw-driver, a rate of Rs 10/- per seat is fixed.
We continue the ride and our game of charades.12:00 noon - We reach Waghote. We are glimpsed with the view of the fort. This is only a facade for the real fort. The real fort lies behind this hill. There are some villagers who point out the way to us.
The fort lies behind the walls that you see from Waghote. Sairam has forgotten to bring the printout given to him by Prajakta.I start to wonder, about the number of times we can afford to get lost.The Trek
There are lush green fields, flowing water, small reserviors where women are washing utensils and clothes. IRS goes and asks for directions to the lady washing utensils.
Apparently, there are simply too many trails going up the hills. Also the general directions given by Prajakta indicate that the approach route to the fort is not from the front of the hill, but from behind. We continue to trek. Everyone is in good spirits. Along the way someone sings a song, we click a few photographs. We meet a couple of kids on a cycle, who tell us to turn left. The kid wants to lead us, but our hero Vishwa tells him to get lost in a very polite and nice manner. The kid cycles away. I am sure at that point of time, Vishwa thought it was a good idea to turn the kid away. It was a bad idea. This incident cost us about 4 hours each. 4 * 7 = 28 hours. Plus the extra physical effort. :)We reach a beautiful lake at the base of the hill. A guy has setup a small-scale fishing operation.
Vishwa tries his hand at fishing. I get myself clicked with the fort in the background. We ask for directions once more. This time the guy on the lake is confident that we are going to be slightly astray. We start moving on the trail and take a right. There are beautiful patches of pink flowers between green shrubs.
I request Vishwa and IRS to pose. In the midst of all that greenery. Its a calendar quality snap. Note: calendar quality means good enough to be printed for a calendar. The snap reminds me of Hindi movies in the eighties. Flowers, running around trees were the ubiquitous scenes in those days. We reach a flowing brook, where everybody has some snacks. We keep going around towards the right of the hill till we are below the stones. Now is the right time to change tracks. This trail isn't really leading anywhere. So I get into a brook, go up the hill and start moving towards the left. Everyone does the same. We see some goats grazing. There is a goatherd along with them. He gives us further instructions. We smile and click a few more photos. Then we proceed towards the left of the hill. On the trail, we see a boulder, where we click some pics. 
This particular boulder has a significance. Everyone stands on the top of the boulder to get clicked. Sairam clicks the photo.We proceed on the trail and reach a hump on the hill. This hump is at lower level. The trail seems to have abruptly ended over here. There are some rocks above this hump. Reaching these rocks would require the agility of an ape and the balancing skills of an acrobat. So we decide to abandon the idea. Rohit and Sairam make some futile attempts at trying to traverse the hump. IRS, Surinder and Vishwa start going back. Its almost 2:15 pm and we still haven't figure out a way to reach the top. I am suffering from the Summit Fever syndrome by this time. Note:Summit Fever syndrome is quite common amongst mountaineers. A trek is complete only if you reach the summit. Otherwise its a failed attempt. This phenomenon is purely psychological and prevents the person from enjoying the other aspects of the journey. Ideally trekking should be about enjoying the journey and not reaching the top.
I curse Vishwa for not taking along the guide. I also start to wish for a guide.
I am blessed and my wish comes true.The guide. On our way from that hump to relatively level land, we spot a boy going through the woods. Vishwa shouts, waves frantically and manages to convince him to join us. His name is Umesh. Umesh agrees to come along with us. He leads us back to the boulder where we were clicking photographs. We follow him at his pace. This is slightly difficult, cos the inital trekking has left us slightly exhausted and route is sloping upwards. The thrill of making it to the top has enthused everyone with fresh spirits. We reach the boulder where we clicked some snaps earlier.
We meet the same goatherd we met earlier, who points us to a trail strewn with rocks on the path. The rocks instead of surrounding the trail, are right in its path. Detecting this trail would have been a difficult job. Umesh leads us and we follow. The path keeps going higher and higher. We are finally on the ridge between the hills. This is when we notice the fort. What we had been noticing all this while, was a just a facade.
From the ridge is another 30 minutes. We rest for a while, eat some bananas, apples and amla. Then onto to the trail again. This time, some people do not want to continue. Sairam infuses some energy into them. They consent. Vishwa keeps on saying five minutes more. We finally reach the mandir on a table-land. We still haven't reached the top of the fort. At this point our group splits. The girls decide to stay at the Mandir. Rohit accompanies them. Summit Fever is still raging within the rest of us. We proceed along with Umesh to the top of the fort. Along the way there are water tanks. One of them has clean water. The sky has turned cloudy. There is a very slight drizzle when we reach the top. The view at the top is worth the pain taken to reach it.
There are some stone structures which make a good copy for a photograph. The sky is overcast and the light is not too good. I decide to enhance the snap digitally.
We fill up our empty bottles with water. The water is wonderful. We have our fill and proceed to the temple. At the temple, we have some snacks. IRS gives me some sandwiches, which are filling. I do not want to share them with anyone. After some more snacks, we start our return journey. Umesh accompanies us back till the boulder. Then for a little while and shows us the route.
I lead everybody till the lake. At the lake we enjoy the water. Everyone has a spare change of clothes. The water is refreshing. I am the only person who manages to get underneath the waterfall. I change my shoes to floaters. :) Good idea to pack my floaters in. After a change of clothes, we proceed towards the highway. Sairam manages to mislead us once we are in the fields. It is dark now. Me and Vishwa are the only two people carrying flash-lights. We have to wade through ankle deep mud before reaching the way. The grass is knee high in some places. I mention the possibility of snakes. Someone urges me to think of pleasant thoughts. :) The fire-flies light up the fields. We switch off our torches. We reach the highway.
The Return Journey
The highway is deserted. People are confused about the direction to take. People are dazed due to the amount of energy they have consumed in walking. I point them the correct way to Wada and they want to double check it.We get an empty rickshaw, who charges us 20 bucks to drop us off at the next village. I make a STD call and inform home that its going to be late. It is 8:00 pm. We manage to get a Thane bus.
The bus breaks down. Vishwa's torch is helpful to the bus driver. The bus starts and we reach Wada. The bus is sent for repairs. We go and purchase some mineral water bottles. During this while the bus is repaired. We get into the bus. Miss T feels like throwing up. This time, she does. After that she goes off to sleep. Some rounds of singing ensue. Rohit seems to know quite a few songs. The rest of the group can only act as chorus. We reach Bhiwandi, where Surinder gets off to go home. The others proceed towards Thane. I go to sleep on the last seat. We hit every pothole on the highway at high speeds. Some of them really bad. My shoulder muscle is still reeling under the impact. It is sprained. We reach Thane at 11:00 pm. It has been fun, except for sprained shoulder.
