"Dude wake up...its 5 o'clock"! was the first thing I said when I called my friend at 5 in the morning. It was the day when the 4 of us were to leave for Mahabaleshwar. And if I had woken up at 5...the other 3 just can't keep sleeping!
Yeah man...am up...he said.
Has saras woken up too?
Yeah
Cool...Rev and I will see you at 6:30 under your building...be ready!
We reach Jal Vayu vihar at 6:45 and are waiting for the other couple. Saras comes down first with a HUUUGE bag. I emphasize that we are going for "only 2 days", and she passed a typical pass-on-the blame comment, "well its your friend who occupies the maximum space in the bag". Dums was carrying sweaters, mufflers, monkeycap, windcheaters, shawl...! Guess he wanted to cheat himself by believing he was on a mission to Everest. Or may be since it was my new car...he wanted to make full use of its boot space. Not sure why his tendencies to optimize stuff comes, when the means happen to belong to me. This is very typical of the Dhamdheres. I noticed this mean streak yet again...when he was flying the Honda at 150 kmph! In his Suzuki (want to make it sound more Japanese...) he doesnt let me go past 100kmph...says he wants to enjoy the drive and not be under duress. Not sure what happenned to his "tension" when he over shot the speed that I touch in his Suzuki by more than 50 kmph in my Honda!
Honestly ,the car was smooth so even I didnt realize the speed at which it was traversing ... till I glanced at the speedometer. And when I asked him, the typical Dhamdhere is "Oh really? Kya baat kar raha hai"...I didnt realize!"
Anyways, we depart at sharp 7 am from Powai...and I feel a sense of security when at one of the ATMs in Powai, my friend gets down to withdraw cash...phew!
I drive till the start of express highway and though I would have loved to continue driving, suddenly a sense of kinship...camaraderie struck me. I thought...well I drive this car daily, let my friend enjoy the drive. Till date I am wondering how on earth did I let that happen? What happenned to our motto "your loss is my gain"!
And I thought that Mrs Dhamdhere would continue sitting at the rear...but to my surprise before I could shift seats, she got out and sat in front....and made the transition look so smooth...really! This gave me the opportunity to kiss n cuddle up with Mrs Deshpande in the rear (I mean the rear - seat)!
First stop happenned at CCD on the expressway. Had breakfast there. And when the time to pay the bill came, our fat friend comes up with the most strategic idea! Jay...you pay all the bills and then we will do the "hisab" later! In front of my wife and his wife I couldnt even protest, let alone abuse. Well played mate!
Kitna khaya saalon ne.
Its 11 am and we reach Pune. Had to take a small detour to meet respective grandparents. You know...it all changes when people get married. I mean it all changes for the Men! Earlier, we never used to even think of our relatives even if they happenned to stay in the same location of our roadtrip. But with wives around.....(am exasperating) you end up meeting relatives you didnt even knew existed.
At 2 pm after some amount of searching, we reach Mayfair hotel at Mahabaleshwar. Dump our luggage in the adjacent (separated by a wall) rooms given to the newly married couples. We head straight to the dining area.
WHAT FOOD...absolutely brilliant, scintillating...really! None of us have had such brilliant Parsi food ever! The staff was superb and they pampered us with the varied Parsi cuisines (non veg and veg) daily. In fact we just couldnt think of having any of our meals outside. Such was the food. From mutton kheema cutlets, mutton curry, dhansak and brown rice, chicken biriyani, salli boti, mutton beri cutlets, egg-potato cutlets
To some of the best lychee icecreams, banana fritters and caramel custard. BURP...this is presented with thanks to the new member in the familty - Saras Dhamdhere. We relished the food because she knew the owners! Here you go again Saras ... BURP!
The rooms were not that great though...since it was raining and misty, the linens were damp, laced with fungus, bathroom water was so clean that you couldnt see the bottom of the bucket! This made both Dums and Saras a little under the weather.
On both the evenings, sitting together at night in the balcony, when it was pitch dark outside and raining heavily was fun. And the fun multiplied when we started playing uno. But the icing on the cake was playing pictionary with Rev and Saras in one team and Dums and I in the other. As usual the boys team won and of course, we didnt cheat.
Nights used to be fun...a pin drop sound in one room could be heard in the other room with amazing clarity. Yes there was a wall in between but it worked perfectly well for an imaginary one. Imagine the other noises, sounds et al that would be heard by the 2 parties!
The day came when we had to leave for Mumbai and we departed after a sumptuous breakfast including poha, egg bhurji and omlette.
At an average speed of 120 kmph, we reached Mumbai within 5 hours...which unfortunately was a bit too early!
Jaydeep Deshpande
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