Yesterday, I along with three of my colleagues had to travel to Pune late in the evening to attend a workshop scheduled for today afternoon. Normally, I prefer to travel early in the morning and return back on the same day, however yesterday, I decided to tag along with my colleagues. We left office at about 9:15pm and decided to have lunch at this restaurant (Inside China) at Kharghar. As the name mentions, it serves Chinese cuisine. The food at this place is simply awesome and I would recommend anyone who goes to Kharghar to have dinner there. We reached this place around 10:45pm and finished dinner around 11:55pm. The Chocolate Mousse was simply awesome and we just kept ordering for the same one after another. Post dinner, we left for Pune.

We crossed the Khalapur toll gate and had just entered the Khandala ghat when we got stuck in a massive jam on the Expressway. I had read about the traffic jams on the Pune – Mumbai Expressway and knew that they are of the worst category and sometimes take upto 3-5 hours to clear. We were parked on the shoulder on the left side of the road and waited there patiently for the traffic to clear. After waiting for almost an hour, we moved a little ahead and were stalled again for another 30 mins. By this time however, some truck drivers had moved all the way to the right side of the road and had created an opening big enough for an SUV to pass and get on the road going in the opposite direction. We drove on the shoulder on the left side and reached the opening where we asked the driver, if we should drive against the traffic going towards to Mumbai. At first, the thought seemed pretty entertaining but we decided against doing the same and turned around to head towards Mumbai.

We decided to take the old highway to Khopoli and head to Pune using the old Mum – Pune highway. The old highway was relatively empty and free of traffic and we reached Khandala ghat in no time. We were constantly praying and hoping that we don’t end up stuck in the traffic jam again. As luck would have it, we had crossed the traffic jam and merged with the moving traffic towards Pune. In all this, it was already 1:45am. By the time we reached our hotel rooms in Pune it was around 3:00am.

The entire experience left me thinking that while we have such good highways, we need to have a good way to inform people of the traffic conditions on the road ahead. In the US, while traveling there used to be warning sign boards on the road informing people of the traffic condition of the road ahead and whether any diversion can be used to avoid the traffic. I believe a similar system needs to be set up so that people don’t get stuck in traffic when there are alternate routes available. I hope such boards are set up soon on the highways.

I am sure a lot of you have gone through the rickshaw blues, where the auto drivers simply refuse to take you where you want to go. I experienced such a thing today near Andheri east railway station today. I wanted to go a client’s place near the International Airport today and no rickshaw would take me there. I waited for almost 40 mins and must have asked atleast 10-12 auto drivers to take me there. Initially, I decided to board the bus and head for the meeting but when I reached the bus stop, there was a really long queue to board the bus and I realised it was going to be futile waiting here. After waiting for the bus for a few mins, I started to walk ahead so as to get an auto. However, no rickshaw would stop. In fact, a lot of them were slowing just enough to hear and destination and would then speed off so that I could not board the rick. This, I believe is a common tactic of these guys.  A lot of these guys just simply wait for a passenger for long distance. However, I do not understand why they run empty rickshaws when they could be making some money with a shorter distance fare. Anyways, so I kept walking further and further in hope that I would be able to get an empty rick near a junction. However, after crossing 3 junctions I was still not able to get a rick. Finally near the highway, a rickshaw stopped and I just boarded the rick without telling him the destination. He asked me where I wanted to go, I told him near the airport. Even though he didnt say anything, I did see a wee bit of frustration on his face for accepting a shorter fare.

In the morning when I had left for the meeting I felt I had left a bit early, however looking at the events this morning I think it paid off :).

Yesterday I traveled to Pune to attend a couple of meetings and was seriously thinking of doing the bike trip. However, I was advised by a couple of colleagues, to avoid the road trip as it could rain and thus chances of the bike skidding on the highway were high. Therefore, I decided to drop the bike trip plan and booked myself a train ticket to Pune. I then called my friends, S and N, who stay in Pune and informed that I will be coming in the morning and if we can meet up for breakfast. The train journey was pretty much uneventful. I reached Pune at 915am and met S and N and then headed towards Pune Club. One thing I noticed about Pune was the weather, it was nice and cool in the morning compared to Mumbai. Also not many shops are open at 10 am.

We had breakfast, which consisted of Misal Pav and Tea and discussed from bikes to my purpose of my visit to Pune. It was really nice to meet them and also give me mangoes that they had got from Ratnagiri. After meeting them, I had to attend my official meeting. Sometimes meetings can be eye openers. I got to know a lot of work related issues that the customer was facing (w/o being involved in any of it) and was happy to help them with some solutions to reduce their pain. It was a very fruitful meeting and hopeful the one coming up by the end of this week should bear some results.

My next meeting was in Bavdhan, which is at the opposite end of the city. I boarded a rick and after 45 mins of sitting in the rick and going around the city was dropped in a place which was about a 1km away from where I had to be. This place is on Mumbai-Bangalore highway and this was the first time I was actually walking on the highway in a different city. I finally got another rick and made it to the place of my meeting. The first thought that hit me once I reached there was, how do I get to Mumbai from this place. The meeting lasted a bit longer than I expected it to last, however, was given a drop by the people whom I had just met. They dropped me at the bus stop from where I could get the bus to Mumbai. After waiting for 20 mins or so, I boarded a bus to Mumbai. In the bus, I watched my first ever Marathi movie. I didnt take down the name of the movie, but it was about a villager who takes advantage of 2 fighting politicians and gets a seat for his constituency. The movie is full of witty dialogues, though some of it I couldnt understand. It is a shame that even after living in this city for more than 20 years, I dont understand the local language, Marathi, properly.

It took me almost 4.5 hours to get home from Pune, out of which 2.5 hours were spent in Mumbai itself. This is probably one of the reasons why I prefer the maddening rush of the crowd in the trains as compared to the ride in polluted streets. The time saved while traveling in the train is precious and also results in a stress free journey. So I finally reached home at around 11:15pm in the evening, dead tired. It was an eventful journey and hopefully the meetings would result in a favorable response for my organization.

The last few days have been hectic in terms for workload. Well I have had a few days of vacation too in between, but overall I have been tied up with a lot of things professionally. We, the whole family, recently went out for vacation to Agra, Manali, Shimla, and Chandigarh for 10 days and really enjoyed a lot. While Agra and Chandigarh were hot, Manali and Shimla were equally cold. To be very honest, I didn’t expect Manali to be this cold in the month of April. What made matters even worst was we didnt carry proper winter clothes and it was raining in Manali, which made the weather even colder. We enjoyed skiing in the Solan Valley, but I really wanted to see the Rohtang pass which was closed to the tourists since it still 25-30 feet of snow. The pass would be opened only in the end of May and June. I was really hoping to go there.

From Manali, we went to Shimla. The roads in the North are pretty good except for a few stretches where driving gets a bit tricky. We had actually hired a SUV from Agra for the entire journey and all our luggage was tied up on the roof. Before entering Shimla, we encountered heavy hailstorm. For the 1st time, I felt good sitting in an SUV because for it’s All Wheel Drive, however, all our clothes got wet and Geeta lost a couple of her dresses due to mixing of light clothes with the darker ones. With the weather being cold, drying the clothes was a problem, however, the next day was sunny and it helped us dry out most of our clothes. In Shimla, we went to the Mall Road. It was just like going to an open air mall which has all the latest fashion stores and accessories. There are two markets there, Upper and Lower. On inquiring, we were told both of them cater to the local population. There were a couple of shops which we really liked, one of which was Emerge. The shop had some really cool t-shirts and accessories and is worth checking out. There are a couple of pastry shops which are also worth checking out. After Shimla, we left for Chandigarh.

On our way to Chandigarh, near Kalka, we went to Timber Trail resort and rode a cable car on the way up to the resort. The scenery from the cable car was really beautiful, however it would have been awesome if it would have been raining. In Chandigarh, the Rock Garden is worth checking out. The entire garden is made out of waste and it is really was really awesome. The local government and people also have supported the project a lot. After the Rock Garden, we visited the Pinjore Gardens. We didnt know that the gardens were under going renovation. They would really good once the renovation work is over. We did get to see the glimpses of what the garden would look like after the work is done. The next on the agenda was Sukhna Lake. Since we went there pretty late, we didn’t get to see much in the dark. However, it seems to be a very popular hangout for the local people.

The entire trip was really awesome. Looking forward for the next trip, which is going to be in the month of October/ November. I am planning a bike trip to Goa or a trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh. But the trip is definitely on.

I was in Chennai for a system roll-out on Thursday and Friday along with RK. The system roll-out went well and everything was going smoothly until our time for departure from Chennai. Our flight to Mumbai was at 19:55pm and hence the cab was arranged for 17:30pm. We managed to finish our work by that time and the only thing left was taking out cash from the ATM. There are 3 ATM’s outside the office all in the proximity of 5 mins. We went to the first ATM and were informed that it was not functioning, so we went to the 2nd one and it turns out the same was also out-of-order. Finally we turned to the 3rd ATM and found ourselves waiting for 10 mins before we could finally withdraw cash. It was already around 18:00 pm when we finally started for the airport. We felt that we were running late since it took approx. 1 hr to get to Chennai airport and counters closed 45 mins before flight departure.

RK wanted to go AAVIN and get some milk products before leaving for Mumbai. We were in two minds: to go or not to go. We looked at the watch and decided let’s go for it. We still had 2 hours for the actual flight departure and decided to take our chance. So we went in the opp. direction to the airport and drive for about 10 mins until we reached the shop only to find out that they were out of stock. We gave up and decided it is best to head straight for the airport. Chennai traffic can get really bad especially with the Metro rail work going on in some parts of the city. There were a lot of intersections where we were just crawling through the traffic. At first, I was very hopeful that we will reach within time. However as time went on, my hopefulness was turning into despair. One eye was constantly on the watch observing the time very closely, counting every minute. Finally at around 19:15 we reached the airport. RK had already signed the receipt for the car driver and a few precious seconds were saved.

As soon as we got down from our cab, we started running towards the terminal. As anyone who is aware with the Chennai airport, there are two departure gates and terminal entry is right in between the two gates. So we saw were the  Spice jet counters were and started running towards that direction. We entered the terminal, and headed straight for the counter. We were probably amongst the last few people to check-in. While the airline person was preparing the boarding pass, he informed me that the boarding for the flight had already started. This was probably the only time when I have been so late without actually missing the flight. After collecting our boarding passes we were extremely relieved as there was no way we were going to miss the flight.

Security checking at the Chennai airport is a very cumbersome process. The CISF personnel, who are in charge of airport security, are extremely slow. There was a very long line for security checking. While waiting for our turn to come, we heard the final boarding call for our flight to Mumbai. I nearly panicked, I was like when will this line move forward. Finally, I put my luggage in the scanning machine and went through the security check. Before that, I could see RK arguing with the security personnel and I was like “Oh no.. something has happened”. I went through the security check and found RK standing near departure gate. I asked him what had happened, and why he was arguing with the security personnel. It turns out, his baggage tag fell down somewhere in scanning machine and he was explaining to the security personnel that there was no way he was going back to get the tag and go through the security procedure again. Well the security personnel heard him out, took another tag, stamped it and asked him to proceed further. In the meanwhile our bus, which took us to the plane, arrived. We looked at each other and had a hearty laugh about the whole thing.