Tringalwadi 2007

The first trek of the season and what a trek it was. Well I will refer to it as a hike ‘coz it hardly qualified as a trek. After 2 whole months of no trekking, people had lots of expectations from this trek. Even though the hike itself was not very exciting, the company of people in which I was, made this one of my most memorable trips.

The meeting point was decided upon as CST station, but a few people decided to board the train from the station nearest and convenient to them. I being one such person was going to board the train from Thane. The train was scheduled to reach thane at 9:27pm but I was not pretty sure of the timings and also on which platform it was supposed to arrive. Hence I had stationed myself on the overhead bridge in between platforms 2 and 5 and constantly juggling my head in between the two indicators to see where it would come. After 10mins of waiting, “N 9:27pm” was finally displayed on indicator no 5. What a relief! I went down to the platform hauling my heavy sack on my back.

It was 9:10pm and I was waiting of the platform with several other people waiting for their respective long distance trains. I witnessed the arrival of two long distance trains before the arrival of my Kasara fast. The first being the Mumbai-Kolhapur exp and followed 7mins later by the Howrah mail. “Ok! What a relief! The platform looks empty, I will be able to board it with no diffculty”, I thought. But as soon as I saw the headlights of the train at the distance, I saw a million ladies standing all around me. “Hey! I was alone here 2mins ago. Where did all these ladies come from? Did they pop out of the ground or something”, I grumbled to myself. I decided to prop my bags on my shoulders in front of me, looking a good 20 months pregnant. The train was bursting at the seams and I some how, with great difficulty managed to reach the place where the other moronz girls were seated. “pheww! What a mess”. Janaki, Tanu, Deepti, Preeti and Aru were here with me. Uptill Kalyan I had to stand, after which most of the people had disembarked the train. “Wow! Finally some fresh air to breathe”, I thought. We all kept chit chatting until Ambivali, where some of the other women commuters told us to shift to the gents compartment ‘coz there wont be any women left in the woman’s compartment, who go to Kasara this late. It was 5mins to 11pm and the woman told us we’ll be reaching Kasara only after 12am. “What the F***!” So we called up the guys who were just 1 bogey ahead of us and decided to make the run to their compartment at the very next station. We heard a lot of jubilation as we reached there. And the best part was we reached Kasara at 11:07pm. “Stupid ladies, scaring us for nothing”.

From Kasara we had to go next to Igatpuri. So we decided to take the mail from Kasara to Igatpuri which was scheduled at 11:45pm. We had to travel by the general bogey which is by default always crowded. All of us got in with some difficulty as it was difficult to maneuver our way inside with people strewn all over the floor. Me, Tanu and Vijay were at one end of the bogey with the twins some where in the middle and the rest towards the other end. Here Sandy was trying to say something to his wife, Tanu and was hoping that I did not understand Bengali. But to his utter disappointment I understand every word of Bengali. Tanu was not convinced though, so she was testing my skills by speaking in Bengali and asking me to translate them. She got so flabbergasted that I was able to translate every word of hers correctly. It was fun though.

Igatpuri arrived after just 20mins and it was a relief to get out of there. At Igatpuri station we decided to have dinner as it was already past 12am and we were all very hungry. I was carrying home made khichidi for all, but only Mallik, Tanu, Sandy and I ended up eating. Thankfully my load was a lot lighter with the food gone. After a nice satisfying dinner we decided to make our way to the base village.

We had been told earlier that it is just a 2hr walk to the base village. So we thought nothing about it and decided to make the walk without much 2nd thought. But boy! Were we in for a surprise. We had started the walk with lots of enthusiasm, which was steadily getting stubbed out as it started getting chillier by the minute. I have poor adjustability to outside weather, so I was feeling much colder than any other person around me. Well I know me, so I had come prepared with woolen caps, jackets, shawls, gloves etc and people kept making fun of me saying that I had come prepared for a snowfall. Well I have done winter treks in the Sahyadris before and I know how cold it can get. “Don’t worry u guys, we’ll see who is laughing when the cold properly sets in”, I smiled. Well the walk up to the base village turned out to be a ‘PRETTY LONG ONE’. We kept walking and walking and walking with no sign of the place we were supposed to be going to. We had a few instances of auto rickshaws trying to be formula one drivers and would zoooom past us breaking through the lovely silence of the night.

As it started getting colder and colder, more and more warm clothingstarted coming out of my bag and onto me. Both Tanu and I were some what identically dressed in scarves and jackets. And we had worn the scarf around our faces like a veil, to keep our noses from getting too cold. Others were finding this too funny. Vinay wanted a picture of the two of us like this, so we happily posed for him with nice 100watt smiles and thensuddenly realizing that the smile was of no use coz it wasn’t visible through the veil. Hahaha ….. everybody around was in splits. We then lowered our veils and posed for another picture, again with 100watt smiles. He he he cant let it just go.

After walking for some more time the discussions turned towards Berty’s orkut pictures in which he is holding a snake which looked pretty much alive but it was supposed to be dead. We were all thinking of a word for it when berty came up with “Freshly Dead snake”. Hahahah this was too much to take. All of us were practically down on all fours laughing our heads off.

After walking for about an hour we found ourselves joining up with the main highway and still there was no sign of the LEFT that we had to take to reach the base village. Pretty soon we realized that we were walking on the same highway which 2 months ago we were passing on our bikes on our way to Saputara. We this was a national highway and we were walking on it at the dead of the night. There were no street lights here so we had our torches out. After walking for what felt like eternity we finally found the LEFT that goes to tringalwadi village. It was 2:30am now and we had already walked for more than 2hrs. Everyone was tired and sleepy and up ahead we saw a nice and cozy temple which was providing good shelter from the cold, and all were more than eager to settle down here for the night. But then Mallikaji and Sandyji got into some kinda argument. Mallik wanted to rest for 15mins and then leave right away for the base village, but many of us wanted to rest at this temple and move ahead at around 5 or 6 in the morning. It was already 2:30am and everybody was damn sleepy. But then we didn’t want for the argument to get too hot so we decided to go ahead and walk uptill base village. A lot of us were not too happy by the way things were going with a bunch of people way up ahead and a small bunch walking way behind. And then we decided to have some fun of out own. We had all come here to enjoy and that’s what we were gonna do. Cracking jokes all the way…and Janaki, Bertram and Amey jumping every hay stack that they found along the way. Don’t know whats the obsession with dry grass… but it seemed fun all the same. Tanu and I were walking hand in hand swinging, like 2 kids in a park, wearing close to similar attire and looking like sisters. Amey even commented “These two are walking like inseparable twins, separating only when they see some shit or pot hole on the road.”

After a long nonstop hike a few of us got so pissed off by the planning that included no rest breaks, that we just sat down in the middle of the road refusing to move. I even lied down over there watching the stars. This is what is the best part about far off villages that have no electricity. Every damn star is the sky is visible to the naked eye. So much so that you might have not even know that so many of them existed. The sky was generously sprinkled with stars of all sizes and luminosities. The view was breathtaking and no matter what anyone said, it was a tough job to pull your eyes away from that sight. After a 15mins break we had start moving again.

After walking for some time, up ahead I saw some black shapes in the middle of the road. Large, black round shapes that looked like large boulders lying in the middle of the road like some road block. Only when did someone flash the torch light on them, did I realize that they were our people sitting the middle of the road waiting for us.

All along the road the dogs kept barking nonstop to try and scare away the strangers that were slowly creeping towards their beloved village. Amey even tried to imitate the dog’s bark and to his surprise, the dogs responded with much gusto. It was as though he was giving out mating calls and some dogs were getting really excited listening to it. And to our sheer hilarity he even hoped out aloud that may it be a female dog. We were laughing our heads off for almost 5mins.
By this time we had again lost sight of the bunch of people who were walking ahead with Hemant. Tanu and I had had it with the 5hr walk on the damn tar road. We had already decided that we would not be going to the fort in the morning but would be spending our time instead by the dam. I was really in a mood to throw a tantrum right then sitting down in the middle of the road and bawling at the top of my lungs. Amey and Janaki saw the tantrum coming and were cajoling me like a little baby, “A little more, just some more to go…” and I kept asking “Are we there yet?” I couldn’t make head or tails of whether we were any where even near the base village or not. Then we saw flashes up ahead of us near a lamp post, and safely deduced that we had almost reached base village and that the twins were clicking away to glory.

We reached base village at 5am. By this time the soles of my feet were screaming in agony and my calves were cramping up due to the cold. All I wanted to do was go to sleep peacefully. But I am guessing sleep or rest is something that people had forgotten to include in this plan. I just went to find myself some place coz even before we arrived the other who were ahead of us had already gone off to sleep, comfortable spread out. We had to wake them up to make them shift and create some space for us.

Sleep never came. The ground was sooo cold that even after spreading a bed sheet on it we were still shivering in cold. Mallik had been really kind to give Tanu and me his ‘Rajai’. But we were still shivering in it. We had everything on, our scarves and jackets yet it was damn cold. As it is sleep was refusing to come to us, and then some people decided that they wanted to snore, which scared the poor sleep further away. I was lying down next to Tanu. I don’t remember who was to my other side. Both of us kept twisting and turning trying to get comfortable, the whole 2hrs which was assigned to us for sleep purposes. But sleep never came.
Early morning everybody got up to shivering. My teeth were practically chattering out of control. My fingers and toes were numb with cold. Pali tried to light a small fire but there was hardly any wood around and hence we were reduced to burning hay instead.

After trying to warm ourselves at this meager fire, we saw the sun coming up and spreading its light and warmth around. It felt really good to bask in the sun right now. The sun was most welcome right now. Everyone was really hungry too. So we just had some tit-bits and decided to have a proper breakfast somewhere along the route. Everyone freshened up and relieved themselves. Well its easier for the guys, all they have to do is stand up against some corner. The problem comes about for the girls. We didn’t know what to do or where to go as there was no toilet around at that village. (I never expected it to have one anyway). The only place that we could think of was the small alley sort of place in between two huts. All we the girls would stand guard in a straight line guarding the alley like wall while one girl would go about her business. It was the most hilarious sight actually with all of us trying to make the girl in question nervous by passing comments nonstop, while the guys who were standing a good distance away wondering as to what new mischief were we up to, and why were we standing in a straight line, like a wall and giggling non-stop. Just imagine for a sec and you will know.

We started the trek at about 7am I guess. I had not checked the watch then. At first we climbed up to the dam and the view up there was breathtaking. All of us stopped here to click snaps. I can safely say that there was a sort of clicking competition going on here. Then we kept moving on and a few of us were getting irritated due to the lack of food. So after like a 1/2hrs climb around, 12 of us who were walking behind, stopped for breakfast. ( Berty, Janaki, Mallik, Vijay, Amey, Tanu, Sandy, Ashish, Rutu, Amol, Vinay and me). Well I am estimating that we had a nice, leisurely and hour long breakfast. There was bread n cheese, garlic bread, theplas, cakes, banana chips, apples and sweet limes. It felt really relaxing after a full stomach. So then we slowly packed up and decided to get moving.

Up ahead we saw a fork in our path, one which first went down and then up and the other which straight led us to the plateau above. We took the path which led us directly to the plateau whereas all the others had taken the path going down. It was a gradual climb. Infact it didn’t feel like a slope at all, felt like walking in a garden. The plateau stretched out for acres, almost like 9 full sized football fields merged into one. Even by being almost an hour behind, we had still reached the plateau first and had even finished clicking all kinds of artistic pics suggested by sandy. There was the huddle, the shoe pic, the train, the freak out pic. (Refer picasa albums for visual details :P ) The others arrived after about 1/2hr I guess. After the others arrived we went in to explore the fort. There was nothing much to see around actually, with tall dry grass all around. After a few minutes of wandering we came upon a small water cistern which had “green” water in it. And Hemant told us that this was supposed to be drinking water. “Really !!”, I was astonished. It had a layer of what looked like the early signs of muck floating on it. Plus God knows how many people must have come and washed themselves in this water, which I later saw VJ was doing. No count of howmany Dogs must have peed in it. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! And people were actually drinking this water. “Ewww… I’d rather stay thirsty”, I thought.

There was an isolated temple on top with a big ‘Trishul’ posted in the ground some way ahead of it, which Mallik was all determined to uproot. We had to ultimately bribe him with a smaller replica before he would leave the actual one alone. The dry grass by now had started to itch at various places. We slowly walked towards the other end of the fort to get a view of the other side. The sun was now directly above our heads burning down the back of our necks and there was not a single tree cover anywhere. I specially cant tolerate the sun much and just wanted to flee from that place. Somebody, I don’t know who was assuring us that there was a tree up ahead and we would be sitting down there for lunch. Well I could not spot any tree in the near horizon and was getting exceedingly cranky in the sun. After climbing a small hillock we finally saw a tree providing a welcome cover. We were to stop for lunch here and again out came the bread n cheese, cakes, biscuits, chips, chocolates, apples etc. There was some chocolate doing the rounds that looked like goat droppings, which I refused to touch. But Berty and I were having a good laugh about it. Mallik had found himself a place right next to the tree trunk, and after some time we were all amused to see him standing still hugging the tree. “Is it breeding season for him at this time of the year”, Janaki wondered aloud and all of us were cackling. He was a hilarious sight. Well maybe he was REALLY happy to see a lone green tree in that mass of all dry ones, but then he has a weird way of expressing his emotions.

We sat here for about an hour and then decided to move. We went from a different path this time. It was a steep slope covered entirely in dry grass with no proper defined route. So instead of trying to walk down, which way we would have definitely slipped, we decided to come sliding down on our bums. It was fun at first but we realized the disadvantage soon after, when we found broken fragments of dry grass down our pants and which was itchy as hell. I saw awkward walks everywhere, with people trying to get the grass out. Once down again people went in separate ways, 6 of us went right and rest went to the left taking the same way down. We six, Janaki, Berty, Amey, Hemant, Mallik and me had taken the Chor Darwaza to get down. It was a small walk after which we went and joined up with the others. The walk down was pretty uneventful. All everybody could think of was a nice cool dip in the dam up ahead.

Mallik was trying to inflate his tube while walking down. I was walking very absent mindedly lost in my own thoughts. Then all of a sudden I stepped on an unstable stone which rolled over and I twisted my already busted ankle again. The pain was excruciating and I was close to tears. I was fearing that this time around it must have surely broken or something. But luckily for me the pain subsided in just a few minutes, and I was able to stand up and even walk without a wince. But now I was walking very gingerly and with calculated steps. After a short walk we reached the place where the others were already in the water. I wanted to get in too.

The water looked so welcoming that everybody was eager to jump in right away. But as soon as we stepped into the water… brrrrrrr…. It was so cold that I instantly started shivering and my teeth back to chattering. I stood rigth there, holding my pink float in one hand, covered in goose bumps having the 'n'th thought of whether i should enter the water or not. But then we saw from far away that a bunch of cows had been let loose on us and hence there was no other way out but to jump into the water. Well at this point amey and rutu were fighting over my float doin unmentionables to it, and i was worried about the sanity of my poor float. Mallik had bought a flat bed type float for me...so i inflated that one and calmly rested on it while the rest were fighting over my ring float. Berty was still having problem with his float. It was already time for us to move out of the water and Berty still hadnt even come in. Well guess he got about 10mins in the water.

After changing into dry clothes we walked back to the base village. After the dip in the dam all of us were damn hungry and we were all out of food, except for some tiny tit-bits. So we ordered tea and kaanda poha at a small tea stall. There was this dog who kept following us but we were ourselves scavenging for food to have anything to spare to this dog. At this point Pali had made a nice comment to the dog. "Boy! are u optimistic to be hoping to get some food from hungry people like us". After the kaanda poha our next task was to find a ride to the highway. Walking all the way back again was absolutely out of question. So a few of the guys had managed to convince a sort of a tow truck to drop us till the highway. From the highway we were supposed to go by rickshaws.

The ride back to the highway took about 20mins i guess. When we reached the highway there were no rickshaws around and the ones that were there refused to ply us. So we managed to arrange for a mahindra. Now the difficult part was to fit 17 + 1 driver into the mahindra. So we were 4guys in the front. 7 in the middle and 7 at the back. God! we were all packed like sardines in a can. It was so tightly packed that if u tried to pickup the mahindra and shake it, u wudnt hear it rattle. Oh my God! our legs had gone into sleep mode within the first 10mins itself. Everybody was trying to shift once in a while to keep the blood circulation flowing. During one such shift that VJ was making, Janaki let out a blood curdling screeeeeeem..... We all got so scandalised as to what happened. She was absolutely quiet for the longest time with her eyes closed and her face buried in her palms. It so turned out that while trying to shift VJ had stepped on Janaki's foot with all his might. Well the thin frail thing that she is, her foot must have gotten flattened to a pan cake. Poor thing.

We were more than glad to reach our destination. We had directly come to Kasara station. I was worried whether i would be able to stand up on my legs after i got out of the mahindra, coz i couldnt feel my legs at all. I staggerd a little as i was getting out, but kept my balance. All of the others too staggered out of the mahindra one by one, all of 'em massaging some body part that had gottten squished in there.

We waited for the next train back all the while munching on something. Pali had gotten bananas for us. This is when the banana jokes started. Sandy wasted no time in catching hold of Amey as his next victim. "ooo Amey has his banana in his hands and he is opening it. He is opening the wrapper now. Anddddd it is in someone else's mouth now (this was when Janaki had taken a bite out of Amey's banana). Lolz all of us were laughing so hard and Amey and Janaki were so embarassed, they were practically red in the face. Amey didnt know where to look and Janaki had her face buried in her palms again. Lolz.....

As we got into our train, everyone got sort of scattered to find a place to sit. Amey, Ashish, Janaki, Sandy, Tanu, Aru, Vj, Rutu, Mallik and me were all in one place, some sitting and some standing. Here started of photo viewing sessions. Checking out the photos in everyone's camera, passing comments and relieving the moments. After some time dont remember how but somehow but the topic of discussion shifted towards 'phlegm'. Rutu and Mallik had full frontal decided to take Janaki's case now. They kept asking her stuff like "Have u tasted phlegm?, Have u ever blown a phlegm bubble with your nose??" And when Janaki replied in the negative, they continued to badger her with " How can u be so sure? U may have done it in your chilhood. Remember small kids, when they have the cold and a flowing nose...and their mom's forget to wipe their noses...Thats wen the kids blow nose phlegm bubbles." Hahahahha..... Janaki was getting disgusted by the minute and I dont blame her. Poor thing sitting between Rutu and Mallik and having to listen to their non-sence all though the journey.

Next to me, Amey had happily dosed off and so had the others to the other side of Amey. He was in such deep slumber that even when i clicked a foto of him upclose, he didnt get bothered by the flash, whereas the others next to him woke up with a start. So then Vinay thought of taking a nice closeup micro pic of his nose, which showed all the nose hairs and stuff. Lolz...this flash did wake up Amey and he looked like a cranky little kid all ready to bawl any moment. All were having a good time about this as usual. total paisa vasool.

So here comes the end of our journey. I got down at Thane along with Vinay and the rest continued to their destinations. I was a really good trip after all.