One thing that i love the most about my country is that wherever u go, u will always get to celebrate so many occations across the year. Its the same with Mumbai. The festival time kicked off with Id celebrations on 9th Sept across Mumbai with great fervour closely followed by Ganesh utsav the very next day. The tempo soon build up and has been un-relenting since then.
Having been in Delhi for most part of my life, i am bound to compare the 2 cities. Ganesh utsav is more comparable to Diwali in Delhi except that Mumbai is densier that Delhi and thus the festival is more 'closer' to you. So you have all the 'main roads' too lined up with hoardings, welcomes and my fav item 'lights'. the sight of entire steets converted into a shamiyana is most peacefull. Add to it the uncountable Ganesh pandals visible in every nook and corner of the city. i took the opportunity to visit a few nearby pandals one day and it was such a satisfactory experience. The prayers are all loud, the bands are near you and u r in the middle of it always.
One specific thing is worth mentioning here. Communities are so close in Mumbai - i live surrounded by majority of muslim population, nevertheless right from Ganesh festival to chritsmas to id every festival is celebrated with same gusto. more so, the Ganesh pandal is erected right next to the church where chritmas mass is conducted and right opposite to the mosque where people offer namaz and celebrate id!!!
Offcourse, with the good things of the festivity comes the real practical issues of bad traffic jams, crowd etc etc and sometimes it gets real uncomfortable. However, i found police arrangement with the traffic much better than expected but one needs to take precautions and cause minimal inconvinience to the day to day life.
Its not all, the festival season is all but over and i am really looking forward to all the happenings with great enthusiam in the coming weeks :)
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Bhandardhara
10-12 Sept was a rare long weekend for me and i was despo to make it count...but my big boss was all ready to play spoil sport. Finally, I managed to work on 1 holiday and save the rest 2 for my big plans.
After days of planning we finally (on the last night) decided to visit this small village called Bhandardhara, some 185 kms from Mumbai. I booked the cab, sent invites but kept the hotel booking open.
We left early @7:30 to avoid traffic and were glad to find the roads empty.the feeling was good and it was all building up when after only bout 30 mins driver stopped on mid highway to inform us that his tank is empty!!! but we were lucky enough to stop right in front of the sole petrol pump for some distance and needed to push the cab just across the road...
after taking a 15-20 min break we were on our way again acroos the beautiful lush green western ghats. after bout 2.5 hrs of more driving we finally reached the village at around 11ish.
Looking for a place to stay, we were lucky enough (yet again) to be informed that there is a provision for camping by the lake side + camp fire. w/o much doubts we finalized it, caught a glimpse of the breathtaking view of the lake, hired a guide and left off to cover the points.
After a couple of points we reached the highlight of the trip..the spillway..always knew their is a provision in dams to drain excess water once the reservoir is full. but never knew that this provision is so accessible and so beautiful. we immeditely tacitly decided to jump into the water w/o caring for the rest of the day. the view of an entire reserviour at yr eye level and u at the edge of the overflowing it. we enjoyed for some 1-1.5 hrs. i was yet again lucky when i dropped my specs in running water but thanks to madhu whose keen eyes located it..the trip would have been a disaster w/o my eyes.
rest of the points were pretty routine though the sight of greenest hills and bluest water kept us in awe all the time. we returned to our tent location by 4:30. saboo and i decided to shop for tent essentials like coil, oil etc and also bought utensils to cook tea and maggi among other things.
post the erection of tents and dinner we lighted the bon fire and cooked tea. after a few rounds of antakshari it was poker time in one of the tents.
Its very rare when u wake up with a view of clean blue sea and green hills in front of u and one would like to capture the sight and the feeling for a long time. the next morning was truly refreshing. we cooked maggi on the bonfire as breakfast and went for boating in the lake. thanks to my rowing skills learned at mahabaleswar trip i enjoyed rowing the boat and surprized everyone with it!!
post that we again went to the spillway for second round of madness. we were soon exhausted but never less appretiative of the view the place provided.
finally, we left back for home by 2 pm. i was happy to be my old self after a long while and truly missed the place the next morning while travelling throught the madenning streets of mumbai!!
After days of planning we finally (on the last night) decided to visit this small village called Bhandardhara, some 185 kms from Mumbai. I booked the cab, sent invites but kept the hotel booking open.
We left early @7:30 to avoid traffic and were glad to find the roads empty.the feeling was good and it was all building up when after only bout 30 mins driver stopped on mid highway to inform us that his tank is empty!!! but we were lucky enough to stop right in front of the sole petrol pump for some distance and needed to push the cab just across the road...
after taking a 15-20 min break we were on our way again acroos the beautiful lush green western ghats. after bout 2.5 hrs of more driving we finally reached the village at around 11ish.
Looking for a place to stay, we were lucky enough (yet again) to be informed that there is a provision for camping by the lake side + camp fire. w/o much doubts we finalized it, caught a glimpse of the breathtaking view of the lake, hired a guide and left off to cover the points.
After a couple of points we reached the highlight of the trip..the spillway..always knew their is a provision in dams to drain excess water once the reservoir is full. but never knew that this provision is so accessible and so beautiful. we immeditely tacitly decided to jump into the water w/o caring for the rest of the day. the view of an entire reserviour at yr eye level and u at the edge of the overflowing it. we enjoyed for some 1-1.5 hrs. i was yet again lucky when i dropped my specs in running water but thanks to madhu whose keen eyes located it..the trip would have been a disaster w/o my eyes.
rest of the points were pretty routine though the sight of greenest hills and bluest water kept us in awe all the time. we returned to our tent location by 4:30. saboo and i decided to shop for tent essentials like coil, oil etc and also bought utensils to cook tea and maggi among other things.
post the erection of tents and dinner we lighted the bon fire and cooked tea. after a few rounds of antakshari it was poker time in one of the tents.
Its very rare when u wake up with a view of clean blue sea and green hills in front of u and one would like to capture the sight and the feeling for a long time. the next morning was truly refreshing. we cooked maggi on the bonfire as breakfast and went for boating in the lake. thanks to my rowing skills learned at mahabaleswar trip i enjoyed rowing the boat and surprized everyone with it!!
post that we again went to the spillway for second round of madness. we were soon exhausted but never less appretiative of the view the place provided.
finally, we left back for home by 2 pm. i was happy to be my old self after a long while and truly missed the place the next morning while travelling throught the madenning streets of mumbai!!
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