Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Bombay Blues: Part I

This week and the weekend has been particularly too hectic for me.
The one sport that I can really say m good at is, badminton n I resumed playing badminton after a gap of around 6 months. This vacation I had particularly gained too much weight so wanted to get back into shape.
And since I was playing after long I knew my body will be stiff so I had decided I will play only a game or two, but once m in the game, I loose track of everything, n ended up playing 8 games. So obviously till I reached home I was ok, but once the body cooled down, every inch of my muscles were aching n crying. But still I went the next day n the body pain is slowly going away. Feels good to test the limits of your body.

Then on Saturday it was A’s birthday, so we had to plan something good.
I had bought her a Card, a box of chocolates and a formal bag. Then we had planned to go to Kobe’s sizzlers for a mega lunch. I loved the pepper chicken although it was too much for a single person to finish. She had ordered an ice tea which tasted delicious. After the lunch we had planned to go to the Gateway of India n go to a nice ferry ride, n since it was a good 30 Kms from Bandra we went by car so that we could have a long drive also.

The first month of the year is celebrated as the Mumbai Festival over here and there are events taking place all over India. At gateway of India Two warships were anchored, INS GODAVARI and INS BEAS. We thought of going over there but there was already a huge queue for that. So we chucked that idea and decided to go to Elephanta Caves. It is a pretty famous tourist spot n although of living my entire life in Bombay I had never been there so neither of us had any idea what we were expecting. When we asked the ticket vendor as in how much time will the total journey take, he said 40 mins. We thought ok not bad, n bought the tickets.

The ride on the ferry was superb, cool breeze blowing in ur hair n face, the calm n soothing sea, the seagulls that were following our boat. I wish I had a camera, the seagulls were literally gliding in the air drift of our boat. And of course the paranomic impressive view of the entire surroundings, it was really breathtaking. The ride went on n on for about 30 mins , n v both were wondering that when we would reach n after reaching would they just take a entire turn around the caves or are we supposed to get down.

After about 45 mins, we were nearing a huge island and there were some settlements on that island. I still wonder how these people live in oblivion like this. When we reached near the island the boat docked and everyone started getting out. We too followed and then we reached the steps and not knowing of what to except we kept climbing until neither of us could take another step. It was a steep climb with road dwellers on both sides of steps and there was a considerable crowd of mainly foreigners and monks from Tibet I guess.

When we reached the top we bought the tickets and we had a look around. The caves mainly consisted of statues in semi nude

positions and some stunning figurines. All this while A was worried lets hurry along cuz what if the boat goes and we are stranded over here, lol. So anyways we hurried and we got back on the cruiser and this time we took the upper birth. More than the caves the most amazing part was the ride, simply awesome. While coming back we saw a couple of ships decorated with lights and when it became dark only the silhouette of the ship was visible cuz of the lights, u can only imagine how beautiful that would look in the night sky.

While coming back, one of my friend called me to inform me that we would be going to Karnala Fort. Although we had already bought the night show tickets for 15 PARK AVENUE of the same day, I agreed. The movie was good but I guess I was not in the mood for it so I couldn’t follow it properly. All the time my mind was what time would I reach home and how many hours will I get to sleep before leaving the next day. Aparna sen’s acting n all was good but I thought the ending was simply stupid and i was like wot a waste of a good script. I reached home by around 2 and I couldn’t get sleep till 3 I guess cuz of the excitement of leaving early before the sunrise and that too on bikes.

To be continued….