Every year, on a beautiful day in september (usually) there is a dept trek organised by the CSEA (Computer Science and Engineering Association) guys. This year too was no different. This year it was fixed on Sept 21st and that was 2 weeks before. The place was called Duke's nose point in Lonavla, near Pune. As usual the week was jam-packed with all the crap assignments and quizzes (in fact the next day there was to be a quiz).
But since I had already sorted out my priorities (and u can see assignments and quizzes at the bottom of the list) it was not much difficult for me to make a choice whether to go or not. But for some others, who are striving day and night to keep up the good name of IIT bombay as the technological leader, they had their assignments to complete.
And then the D-day arrived. We were asked to report at KResit (name of a bldg inside the campus) at 5 am (Why does it always have to be sooo early :(...). Since I have this very good habbit of not waking up early, my friends were planning to break my room door down at 4:30 am (Highly placed soures confirmed to me that the order for a new door had already been placed the previous day). But somehow I did manage to get up at 4:30 am that day. The guys from Hostel-6 (H6) where I stay, are the guys who were most enthu about going for the trip, especially the guys in the wing where I am staying. At around 5:30 am (we guys are very punctual :D ) we somehow managed to reach Kresit. But then we saw we were really one of the first few to have come. The students from other departments were also arriving in small groups. This went on till 7 am. But even after 7 am, our class rep (CR) Aadi hadn't come. (Actually he had a very good reason not to come which he told me later). everyone in our class was shouting, "abee CR bhag gaya kyaaa". People who had registered for the trek had to pay Rs.100 and this money was collected by Aadi. Rumours were flying thick and fast as to why our CR hadn't come yet. "Abee dar gaya hoga trek ke naam sunke".."Nehi re paisa lekhar goa gaya hoga"...
At 7 we all had a great filling bkfast...2 idlis :'(......At around 7:30 we proceeded towards our destination. There were around 150+ people in total. It started raining soon after we started. But still it could not down our spirits. The journey to Duke's point was through Mumbai-Pune express Highway. The landscape was beautiful and people were busy taking photos. In between Ithe journey, I saw my roomie Sheiku, busy rubbing his phone on his pants. I thought the poor guy's mobile may have got wet. After an 1 hour or so the big boy was still doing the same thing.
Me : abee sheiku, kya hua re
Sheiku : mobile ke andar pani gaya yaar..kitna bhi wipe karu, pani jaa nehi raha hei
Me : oo lemme see..after seeing his mobile...oye bhudhu, pani mobile ke andar nehi, tu pani ka photo liya hei
Sheiku : Oooo....tho mei teek hi bola na...pani mobile ka andar hi hei na
Me : @#%$^&#@*@!
We reached the place around 9:30 am. We had another round of wonderful breakfast there...this time 2 dosas....but this time it was a wonderful sight..all the 150+ people standing on the roadside and having dosas.
We were given our lunch beforehand..in case we felt hungry during the trek...even now when I think of that lunch, my mouth starts watering...1 biscuit packet and 2 bananas....
Finally we started our climb
It was such a terrific weather, the likes of which reminds me of shimla and Kashmir (where I am yet to go by the way). All the guys/gals started climbing with gr8 spirits, but midway through the slopes started getting steeper and going was slow. There was a particular path where everyone was climbing in a line...maybe the first time where college folks maintained a line!!! On top of that I was also carrying a heavy bag on my back..imagine climbing almost 90 degrees with 10kg on your back...one guy falls, all the ones below that guy are dead ducks.
+
But despite these odds, or rather thrills, we managed to reach the top in one piece. But when we reach the top what do we see....our 50+ year young professor Ranade has already reached the top along with his wife and with his granddaughter who would not be more than 8 years old have managed to "beat" us to the top..hats off to you sir!!!
As soon as we reached there it started showering like anything...with no umbrellas and a don't-care attitude most of us enjoyed the glorious treat of nature in all it's glory...though it got too cold afterwards with the rains and the cold weather and occasional breeze, it was a lifetime experience, after spenting around half an hour at the top of the hill, we started our descend. The descent was surprisingly simpler than we had thought. And in matter of around around 20 minutes we were back on the ground in one piece :). We had a lot of photo session after reaching the ground, just to convince ourselves that we did reach back in one piece.
After this wonderful trekking we got into the bus and got going god-knows-where. At some point the bus stopped. Even after 5 minutes the bus didn't move. As I was wondering what was happening, I happened to see a small waterfall and the students in the front bus started getting down from the bus and moving towards the waterfall. I too got out from the bus. As I approached the waterfall some of them started jumping into the waterfall. Suddenly I too was seized with an urge to do something crazy and without thinking anything just jumped into the waterfall without changing the dress or even removing the shoes...and I must say it does feel good to do crazy things at times :)
After some 1 hour or so I had decided that the next day it's going to be me and fever for companionship. Since that meant skipping the tension of writing the quiz scheduled for the next day, the prospect of being down with fever was actually sounding good :). But unfortunately nothing of the sort happened and the next day I ended up screwing up the quiz as best as anyone could. :D
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