Bajpai’s B’day bash

It was a shame to not meet Saksham and Bhala for 2 months even when they lived like a couple hours away. Life, please stop being so hard.

Bajpai was a week old in Bharuch, a dull city (more of a town) that I never wanted to visit but always craved for the famous Bharuch ke singg daane. But his b’day changed it all. Me, Saksham and Bhala decided to be there for his 24th.

I was so excited to meet my best pals that my strenuous day at work seemed nothing. Like they say One must have a purpose for the day, this was my purpose – to meet them. I reached home from my work at 6:40 pm and hurried myself for the 8:30 pm train.

It was my first train journey experience in a while and I could get those typical train journey vibes and it felt nice. My first mythological-genre book 7 secrets of Vishnu-Devdutt Pattnaik kept me busy in my journey and I was there at my destination in no time.

It felt good to hug my friends. It was a stress burster. Saksham was buying chocolates for Bajpai. He bought for me as well in advance. He’s a kind ass when it comes to giving gifts. Bharuch was so small a city that you walk 200m in any direction and get whatever you’re looking for. So we went to Domino’s for the sake of our eternal love for pizza.

We gossiped and one thing I hated, we didn’t fight for the last slice of pizza like the college times.

Okay so these niggas didn’t ever taste Gujarat’s famous Cold Coco (not Cold Coffee). So it tastes like melted cadbury chocolate which is refrigerated. Everybody did a bottoms up then. This is how we Gujaratis get high.

Then we reached our room and ranted a lot about our monotonous lives and bragged about our choices. Dixi, Nikita and Maulshree video called who couldn’t make it up. Then it was about 12 and the cake was awfully terrible so only thing we could do with it was deliver it to every part of his body imaginable.

18+ audio content, play at your own risk

Even though we were together for very short time, all of it was totally worth it. The walks, talks all of it reminded us of Doon. This Life is so beautiful it’s meant to be cherished. Life becomes even more beautiful with friends like these. Prakhar’s a joyous soul, a true friend, someone who’d be there for you to help you succeed and I’ve learnt so much from him.

Didn’t sleep the night and filled our room with harsh realities. Had to start early in the morning again because duty calls Maybe this is what people call work-life balancing. It’s tough, but we’re all coping. Are we alive or just breathing?

Breathing the clouds…

Yeah yeah, trip with friends and family is fun. But, aren’t solo expeditions cool? You get to be yourself throughout the trip. You can do whatever you want to. You can get some “me time”. Well, it was always on my bucket list. I used to tell myself “some day”. Now that monotonicity had been hitting me for a few weeks now I decided “today” should be that “some day”. Not that I had planned this one a week or a month ago but just two days ago. But then I asked myself “Wait where do I go there are a lot of places where I can be?”

But then being a bloke who has to work for six days in a week, I could not travel far off from my place. It was monsoon, rainforests were the best places where one can be. Then I had decided to go to “Saputara” which was a 200km far away mini “Ooty” lying on the borders of Gujarat-Maharashtra. It had a rich “Dang” tribal culture. The place had lake, museum, sunrise and sunset points, a few hill top temples, paragliding and ropeway shit too.

It was Saturday night, the bed was cozy, my favorite show was playing on the telly, it was tough to get everything together and go for a trip when your body seriously needed some rest after a tiring week at work. But this continuing streak of repetitiveness had to be broken. I packed my bag and went to catch the midnight bus.

And the bus was 2 hours late :)) What a way to start the trip, eh? It was 3’o clock in the early hours of Sunday and the bus had arrived. I slipped into my midnight slumber no sooner I stepped onto my berth. Physically, I was asleep but mentally I could feel the bus moving on a flat highway and after a while the bus took so many turns and the terrain was rough. I could feel that I’m close to the destination then with my sleep deprived eyes I peek-a-booed out of the window to see absolute beautiful lush greenery to the horizon and felt so happy to see such a place after so long time. It reminded me of Doon. I jumped out of my berth and took a seat and watched the whole pathway through the window like a kid who gets the window seat after fighting with his sibling. A small stream of river was fast flowing reminded me of Jhelum.

And it was 7:00 am Sunday the bus had dropped me at Saputara bus stand which didn’t even look like one. I barely could see anything 10ft away. “Chaaro taraf kohra hi kohra tha“. I hadn’t planned my iterative for the day. I didn’t know where to go. F*ck Jio! Zero signals. I could only imagine how terrible the day was going to be without the internet. I walked out of the bus stand. I saw a tea stall, had a strong “adrak wali chai“. “Chacha ne chai ke saath ghapp bhi diya“. He told me the places I could visit.

Then I started walking on the cloud filled lonely road. Next task up was to find a phone (as Jio duped me) and call my mom and tell her that I’ve reached and am safe otherwise y’all know what Moms assume.

I walk a lonely road…The only one that I have never known

I walked up the dense foggy road, didn’t know where it lead to. I asked a teenage guy riding his bike about this road. He just pointed into the nothingness and said there is the Valley Point, Do you need a lift? I politely declined his offer and told him that I’d prefer walking. I walked, walked and walked and soon I realized that it was a shitty decision to not take a lift. I had reached to The Sunrise Point a signboard said. There was fog all over, I could here my heart beating, I could feel the wind rustling over my ear turns. I walked into the beautiful garden and there was a long and culry stairway to nothingness into the clouds. I took it. I stepped up. I reached the pinnacle of the mountain. It was FRIGGIN’ DANGEROUS. I could only see a well built fence and the valley was not visible due to the fog. The air was thin. There was dead silence. I asked myself am I the only one who travelled to the place here? Then luckily at this point I had got some phone signals so I could video call a dozen of my friends to show the view from up there. I took a bench facing this valley and started reading a new book Ikigai: The Japanese secret of long and happy life which I had heard from a friend. This place was serene and calm. The clouds were passing me by, I was breathing them. After a while I got down this mountain and took a road travelled by the villagers which lead to a beautiful scenery.

Ikigai and chill
Stairway to Heaven

Fed up of walking on the roads now, I took my shoes off and started walking in the grassy terrain and it felt awesome. I didn’t feel this way in a long time. There came a small stream of water flowing which looked clear to me as it was trickling from up the mountain. I made a decision to drink from it just the way Bear Grylls does it. The water was so pure and sweet that I had gulped down a few ounces, Okay, Hush! Don’t tell my Mom. There was this cow churning the grass and staring at me so I clicked it.

Milky bar

On my way I met a small kid who built a catapult by himself and I took a few stones and tried it myself. Great job! Kiddo. I showed him Snapchat filters, he was very happy to see them. As I walked past this small village I saw that the people here are quite simple, their homes were simple, they lived a happy and peaceful life. They were quite contented with whatever they had, whatever business or profession they were involved in. I saw a few kids doing something in a field but not sure what they were doing. The point is everybody worked from kids to the eldest of the family. I wonder what would it like be to grow in the nature’s arms in a secluded place.

I went to the Dang tribal museum which had a very good collection of the Dang tribe. But the museum is really in a very poor shape, there’s water seepage all over the walls. The authorities were least concerned. I went to an aquarium where I found Nemo. I sat by the lake and watched the ripples and small waves. I watched the ducks. It was so peaceful.

At a maggi point met this cute ass pup.

So with a very few time left now I went to the Paragliding zone and started reading my book again.

Some more moments that I caught on my phone.

This trip was rejuvenating in many ways and there are many key takeaways. I walked about 29k steps today. Can you imagine? I don’t feel my legs anymore. But after all this why do I feel the Monday blues coming? :/