TRIPOLOGY

Ever since i was married, there was a guilt inside me. The GUILT: no honeymoon yet. Not that i never wished for it, but somehow it never happened. 

This ended on 2nd Aug 2012. . 

And it took a bet which i eventually lost, to plan a trip. Initially, it was planned taking eight people into consideration. But as things turned out finally, we were left with five and an infant.

The first question was When and the next was Where. We all were confused and it was left entirely on me to decide the When part and also the Where part. But it was tough on my part to decide it all alone, coz everyone had their reservation on the dates. So, rather on deciding on the When part, we sat down to finalize where all we can go. Everyone came up with few destination ideas.

I was interested to explore Himachal Pradesh more because one of my very dear friend Srijoy had just visited the place and i liked the scenic views in the snaps he uploaded on Facebook. No one objected but at the same time no one actually said Yes. I took it as a Yes because there were no other place discussed. And so, started working on it. Explored the web for few days to get some in-depth knowledge of the place we may visit. And finally came down with an itinerary. But somehow i was not convinced with the plan as well as the excitement within the group for the place i have finalized. 

Then, from no where, my Big B suggested why not visit the Paradize on Earth (Kashmir) so that we can also cover the long awaited holy shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi. It was like a spark everyone waited for. There was altogether a different energy level within the group when this idea popped up. And immediately i understood, this is THE place we all would like to go.

Sadly, Himachal Pradesh lost 5 tourists for this season.

Now the onus was on for making a proper itinerary as there was an infant with us. My wifey was ALL IN in whatever plan i would make, but surprisingly, she made a brief appearance while i was preparing the blue print. With a very humble and soft voice, she said she wished to visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and i knew "Rab ne bana di Jodi" had lot to thank for this wish of her's. 

So, without a fuss, i agreed. In fact, i agreed Happily because she seldom makes a wish public. Infact, i myself was excited with this addition.

 So, as it turned out, it was Amritsar-VaishnoDevi-Srinagar. 

With so many permutation and combinations, i came up with an itinerary in the same order as i just mentioned above. Amritsar first, then Jammu-Katra-Vaishnodevi and then Srinagar. We didnt have the liberty to take our own time to visit these places. Obviously for Economic reasons as well as for the Leaves granted by our respective employers.

Along with the itinerary, i was also looking at the calender constantly. From 3rd Aug (Friday) to 12th Aug (Sunday) suited best for everyone. As 15th Aug was round the corner, all the three places are prone to some kind of unrest and so the security beefing in these places are at their High during that time. So, it was prudent to schedule a trip which ends before the D-Day.

Leaves were applied well in advance by the people who were really interested. Two from our group were always unsure about their availability at that time but still gave their NOC for the trip with an Asterisks mark on it, indicating Terms and Conditions applied. I somehow knew, they will not make it. They never made it!!

The itinerary was like this:

Reach Amritsar on 5th. Visit all the places. Take a train midnight. Reach Jammu on 6th. From Jammu, straightaway head to Katra. After Dinner, start trekking for Vaishnodevi darshan. Return to Hotel on 7th noon. Take rest. Move to PatniTop. Half-day sight seeing on 8th. Move to Srinagar. 9th-10th-11th in Srinagar. Move back on 11th evening to Jammu from Srinagar. Take a overnight train on 12th Midnight for Delhi. From Delhi take a train by noon and reach Mumbai by late in the night.

First thing first. Train tickets was the first on the To-Do list as train reservations in India is as tough as getting more than one Olympic gold for India. I did exactly that. Booked all the train tickets for all Seven for all the destinations. Mumbai to Amritsar, Amritsar to Jammu,  & Jammu to Delhi and Delhi to Mumbai. Fortunately, got all confirmed tickets for every journey.

Next on the menu was to book Hotels. Explored all the possible travel websites. Compared the prices. Read the hotel reviews. Made calls to many hotels to know the rates they are offering. After grinding my mind for almost a fortnight, selected the hotels. Booked the Amritsar hotel through the travel website but all the other hotels were booked directly by making Token advance payments in their Bank accounts, thanks to online payment gateways. 

Not to forget, my Big B also managed time from his busy office schedule to explore the hotels and places and in fact the Kashmir hotel was finalized on his findings. He in fact did more research than me and it was evident from the research paper he came up with. It had minute details of places to visit in n out of Srinagar.

So, everything was falling on place as it was planned. Train bookings, Hotel Bookings, places to visit, To-Do lists etc. Only thing remained was the SUV booking which we planned to hire from Katra after MataVaishnoDevi darshan. From 7th to 11th. We were a bit skeptical  in booking a SUV so early as we had ample time in Katra as per our itinerary. But then, i wanted it to be a Best Planned trip and this thought helped me decide to not leave anything "To-Be-Done". So, without a second thought, i started calling up the Katra tour operators and finalized one, made a token payment to his bank A/c and that's it...

Even after all these booking, two bookings were intentionally not done. First, the Car or SUV for Amritsar tour and Second, the Houseboat in Srinagar where we intended to stay at least for a Night during the later part of our Srinagar stay. We knew it was not required to be done before hand. 

It was less than a month to go when the two members who gave their NOC with an asterisk mark had the guts to finally say NO....and we simply said Thanks...because it was a no-shocker...we knew it was on cards.

First thing i did was cancelling their Train tickets. Hotel room cancellation was not required as earlier it was planned that the 3 bachelors would share the same room and now the lone bachelor would get the entire double-bed room. It hardly affected the economies too...

One major concerned came up in our mind. The journey from Srinagar to Mumbai was looking to be very very hectic. So, we were compelled to look for some other option. Flight journey looked the best one. So, there was a change in the plan...just a bit...towards the later part of our journey.

Instead of taking train from Jammu on 11th midnight...we extended our stay in Srinagar for one more day and booked flight tickets from Srinagar to Mumbai..thankfully a direct flight within our budget was readily available. So, without wasting any time, we completed the flight bookings too.

Now we had a 4 night stay in Srinagar, two nights in the pre-booked hotel and two nights for the Housboat-to-be-booked.

This new plan looked more comfortable and more pleasing for everyone.

We waited for 3rd Aug eagerly. Everyone was busy in packing bags, which meant lots of shopping too...n with SALE everywhere, it was like a carnival. Super excited everyone.

We were ready with the luggage. Total 5 of them plus 3 hand bags. We were ready to burst....

Amritsar-VaishnoDevi-Srinagar was calling................here we come!!

*The second part of the Tripology to be posted soon!!

Kyunki Dard Mujhe Bhi..........

Kisi ki yaad barbas chali aati hai...
muskaan uski ab bhi dil ko behlaati hai..
par behten hain ashruu mere aaj bhi...
Kyunki dard mujhe bhi hota hai!!!!!

Chhuaa tha dil ko usne bade kareeb se..
ho gaya tha dil ka dhani main bilkul gareeb se....
par ab to sirf tadap reh gayee hai baanki...
Kyunki dard mujhe bhi hota hai!!!

Ho gaye hain dhumil ab woh saare kisse...
kho gaye mere dil ke na jaane kitne hisse...
aur chubhte hai yeh tukde aur nikalti hai ek aah....
Kyunki dard mujhe bhi hota hai!!!

Kho gayee na jaane kahan woh iss sansaar me...
ho gayee hai aankhen patthar uske intezaar me...
fir bhi rota hoon, chillata hoon, karaahta hoon.....
Kyunki dard mujhe bhi hota hai!!!!!

Now a bit of me!!

My last post was certainly unlike me...people who know me well will agree on it without any doubt. So, i thought y not write something nostalgic and what i m very gud at....hey, these are not my words, people keep repeating it, n then, i never stop them....well, y shud i? infact, who the hell in this world wud stop people saying something great about them....if that's the only gud thing they speak. atleast not me.

Here, i m free to express my views...but then, its a waste of my ability here, no one cares to read my views, infact no one is interested. but a part of my heart still wants people to visit my blog and comment on it. i m planning to market my blog by attaching free gifts to all who visits n then comments something about it. but again there's a problem, people now hardly believe on such offers. My curses will always be with them who claim to gift something n never really fulfill their promise.....i say, such portals shud be banned. i myself have been a victim few times. i still remember the names of those portals....for security reasons, i m not able to mention them...... Security reasons??? Damn security reasons..Infact the truth is that i dont want to mention their name coz i still believe (dont ask on what basis) that someday i'll be getting a call from them to collect my free gift...no wonder, why people say me GREEDY.....and sometimes, too optimistic.

So, lets start with something here. Few of my old pals, by OLD....i really mean OLD. at 25-26 u just cant call them YOUNG, but then, there are always few exceptions....like, like.....like....oh yes, Ofcourse Me. Hmmm... i was telling about my old frens. Few of my old frens once planned to go for a Movie.......a classic movie, how classic...u'll get to understand if i mention who directed it.....KARAN JOHAR......now, u know . Anyways, the movie was Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai, and mind you, this is the only movie which i liked from Karana Johar production n i watched it for 8 times...though about the last 6 times, no one ever knew...actually, when u bunk classes, u always have a feeling that u may be exposed someday if more n more ppl get to know abt it. So, the planning was that 10 of our friends will be going for the movie...we, particulary me, were very excited about this idea.....the sole reason being "few chicks" in that list. but i never called them "chicks"........infact i called "babe" to one of them. none will disagree that she was not a babe....she was. And no prize to my male friends in that 10 for guessing whom i m referring to....n for those, who didnt belong to that 10, i'll not take much of ur intelligence....i m referring to one called "Prot*ma". For those who dont know her, i can promise that she was too hot to handle, so didnt get much opportunity to handle her in my entire lifetime of my school days. And the current status of that BABE is that she is married to one Mr Himadri. I m sorry to him if he finds himself in an embarassing situation to read such things abt his beautiful wife...but he shud feel proud that even she was so popular bcoz of her looks n "other" things....she was always a decent gal....n that was her USP. .....anyways, i was talking abt that movie.

Once shy, once "she".....once shheeeehhhhhh......Mr Sutanu, my longtime friend, promised that he will get us Balcony tickets on print price..ie. for Rs 25 each although the tickets were sold on black for an astronomical amount of Rs 100 each... astronomical in the sense that most of us used to get a maximum of Rs 100 per month as our pocket money that time....n sometimes, we used to "manage" few bucks also...n u know, HOW??? We decided that we wud be going for the Matinee show...and on the D-Day we also had our classes, so the plan was to mass bunk that day after the lunch time n reach the "Priya" Hall before 3 pm...the show time. But as it always happens, those "chicks" including my "babe" showed their inability to make it that day....infact, what i feel now, that they must have read our minds, n for the safety of thier "dignity", they changed their minds. anyways, that was not to be n so didnt get materialise.

Now, since they refused, no way the boys gang cud think of watching it all alone....coz we really had some other plans.....infact, not really. i mean at that age...sitting with them was a big ocassion....an ocassion to celebrate. i remember, the male gang saying "Khhooch Khhooch Hota Hai" after the plan flopped. The biggest problem was that the tickets were already booked, and no way that cud be cancelled and the money being refunded and Rs 25 being a gud amount to lose without actually using it. So, i came up wid an idea....i casually suggested to "BLACK' those tickets ourselves and then divide the money equally amongst we 10 after deducting the cost of travelling to-n-from the cinema hall and back to school. Though, it was just a casual suggestion, it was agreed by the majority, n y not....as i told u....Rs 25 was not a small amount for everyone.

now the question was...who'll do that? since i suggested, i was the unanimous choice. n i was offered Rs 50 extra or any amount that i'll be getting above the print price....and, as i just mentioned somewhere in this post, that i was a bit greedy...i simply cud not not say NO. infact, i was excited wid the idea that i'll be doing something very adventurous. I agreed on the idea, but i was a bit worried abt me going all alone...i wanted someone to be wid me as my partner in crime. Sattu agreed to volunteer, without asking for his share in the profit....so, it was all my gain. As soon as the lunch bell rang at 12.20 pm, we both rushed towards the Taxi stand...it was so amazing to be in the taxi and not paying anything from our own pocket. we reached there in the cinema hall in exactly 15 minutes at about 12.40.

The hall was less populated then bcoz of the noon show was ON. and only few Blackiers were there, but obviously not in the school dress...hehehehe. anyways, we waited..waited...and waited. infact we were at some distance from those professional Blackiers...otherwise, they cud have kicked us from that site. we were there to snatch their Bread and Butter, so it was always on cards.

after half an hour, we saw our first "bakda"...n he was wid 5 of his friends...we approached him b4 he cud come closer to those professionals. we told them abt our problem...infact, only a bit of it was right. we told that we grabbed 10 tickets from these Blackiers for Rs 100 each n we hv cancelled the plan bcoz of some big problem. We acted so innocently that he had to belive us, and moreover, we offerd them the tickets on half the price we bought...hey, not Rs 12.50...but for Rs 50. We acted helpless in incurring Rs 50 loss per ticket, and that guy was luking so happy as though he has just won the world. now we already had Rs 300...ie Rs50 more than what we spent actually for that. We planned to sell the remaining 4 tickets for any amount we'll get. We were reminded in our conscience that too much of greed is bad for health, so we were ready to sell it in any amount we can get. After about another 15 minuts, we saw 2 persons coming towards us....n we were sure that we are going to be kicked on our ass now. they were those Blackiers. They came to us n shouted on us. Thankfully our ass was safe. They asked us the reason to be there n doing what we were doing. We acted innocently once again...me doing the main role and Sattu doing the guest appearance ( special thanks to him---though he just missed the nomination for supporting actor at Oscars). anyways, they were convinced and allowed us to sell those 4 tickets and leave ASAP. we exactly did that as we got our next customer...

we had a total of Rs 450 wid us. But when we reached our school back, we just had to give the account for Rs 250....n me along wid Sattu gave all the vague figures, so that we were left wid only Rs 100, and as promised i got Rs25 + Rs 50 extra= Rs75 and Sattu his share of Rs 25...

What happened to rest of the money....is History. But one thing is sure, the blackier world just missed two of their brightest stars.

That incident is still fresh in my mind. and i m proud, i cud do that.

My First Post

Life is beautiful.....these are the words people often say when you ask them about all the good things about life. But wait....It isn't. I mean, it really isn't. It can't be beautiful just because you have found it so. But yes, Life is Beautiful......for those who have seen the other part of life. When you have seen the worst, be happy that it happened....and now, it can't get worst than that. Life gives you the pain....but only then, you understand how beautiful was to be without pain, life snatches someone very close...but only then you realize how much you loved that person. And indeed....Life is Beautiful. I have seen it closely.... i hated it, but now i adore it. And i can promise you all...its not that bad.

"I want to go to heaven....but hey, wait a second, i certainly dont want to die"