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.