Diveagar Trip....... Once again

“Memory is a child walking along seashore. You never can tell what small pebble
it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.” ~Pierce Harriss

“The Pillar of memories is never eroded by the sands of time”. On an early Saturday morning, like a rainbow on the darkest night we planned for an untimely and surprised day out. Ideas flew from all of us; Names of places were flowing like monsoon rains and finally we unanimously decided on visiting Diveagar. It was a long awaited trip for us and we had been planning this trip for a long time now. Everything happened so fast that day, we are still wondering if we are the same bunch of guys who used to plan, plan and plan but ultimately used to scrap everything. We called up the travel agent for a car to start our adventurous trip to Diveagar. It normally takes around 4 hours to reach this beautiful place but we resorted to the longer route. We compromised on a long tiresome car ride but could not miss out on an opportunity to embrace the wondrous sight of sun rays playing in the laps of the Western Ghats. Nature on that day was at its best. Trees swayed in the cool air as if they were dancing and the greenery all along the road seemed to welcome us. After a long drive we decided to make our first stop at a hotel which at first sight did not look too encouraging but we had our options cut out. But to our surprise the food served there was beyond our wildest expectations. We pounced on the food and in no time we started back on our journey to Diveagar.
Diveagar seemed a lifetime away and after a long tiresome journey we finally reached the scenic pageant on the brink of nightfall. We decided to spend the night at Nazir’s Guest house and the location of this guest house added to our excitement as the beach was so near that we just needed to blink a couple of times and you would feel the cool sea waters kissing your feet. After such a long journey we could not resist the temptation of taking some cool beverages and rest, but leisure was not written in our destiny that day. We could not wait any longer and after securing our luggage in the room just rushed towards the beach. It was already getting dark and we were walking through the forest to reach the beach before nightfall. The experience was so thrilling that even as I write I can feel goose pimples on my body. The feeble evening light was hardly making its way through the thick forest canopy, we did not have any torches with us, the only hope that we had, was the roaring sound of the sea which sounded nearer and nearer. Finally the moment was here and we could see the curling waves in the dwindling light but our minds sailed long into the sea where our eyes could not set its sight upon. We did not want the day to end but we do not have the right to flirt with the laws of nature.
We returned back to the guest house and decided to have a musical evening. I think the sound of our voices and our thrills had faded the roaring sound of the sea. Before coming here to Diveagar we had heard a lot about the Konkan Delicacies. We just could not wait to taste them. We were served Surmai (A Sea Fish) Fry and Bhangra (A Sea Fish) Curry. It had been a longtime since we had tasted such delicious food. My words will never do justice to the taste of the dishes. So after stuffing ourselves with the cuisines we decided to sign off for the day.
Sunday, the day we had planned so many adventures for had finally arrived. We got up early in the morning to see the early sun rays riding the waves. We were spell bound to see the early sea waves washing the shore as if to wipe off the sea shore to make way for a new story to be written on a new day.
We captured some of these moments in camera. Arka and Sourav couldn’t trouble themselves to miss the sweet morning sleep as we tucked ourselves inside our blanket to shy away from the fresh sun rays. But ultimately we got up from our sleep, got freshened up and after having our breakfast set out to capture the sea.
As we reached the sea we did not waste any time and rushed to the cool waters. Splashing and dashing are the words that came to our minds at that time. We just drifted ourselves on the mercy of the calm waters as if we were pleading the sea to take us away to a place where we would be cut off from all tensions of life that cripple us every day. We captured all the moments we possibly could so that we can relish the time we spent, playing in the lap of nature. As each wave hurled in new hope and as they rolled back to eternity, they took away all the curses that spell doom to humanity. Each soul present there were crying out to the waves to wash their minds with joy and happiness not knowing if they would be provided with a chance to unite with nature in such a liaison. My words are less to express the bliss that we felt during those golden moments. But good things don’t last for a lifetime and we had to return back to our room.
After such a dazzling experience we had our typical Konkani cuisines for lunch and with a heavy heart we bid adieu to Diveagar and headed towards Harihareshwar. About 35 kilometers from Diveagar we reached Harihareshwar at around 2 PM on Sunday. The scenery there was breath taking, the sea was surrounded by hills on three sides but the sea extended its freedom to eternity on the other. We decided to explore the coastline on a boat. We were wrapped with Life Jackets and it seemed we were going on a long sailing adventure. The cool sea breeze kissed our face and the green waters tumbling up and down as if to have a glimpse of the visitors.

With a heavy heart we started our journey back to Pune. The people we met there, the sounds of the waves splashing on the seashore, the delicious food and the addictive beauty of Mother Nature left a deep impact on our minds. We will never forget this trip which was not planned at all to go so smooth. On a gloomy Sunday evening we returned to Pune and to our lives, with each one of us left with his saga to narrate.


A few important contact details
Nazir Guest House: 02147-224316
Poonam Tours and Travels: 9970803928

Biswakarma, The God of Architecture

The festival of the God of Architecture and engineering, Biswakarma, is celebrated in September by industrial houses, artists, craftsmen, and weavers. According to mythology it is he who created the entire universe as well as the heaven and the earth. Bishwakarma is also credited for creating the missiles used in the mythological era, including the Vajra the sacred weapon of Lord Indra, from the bones of sage Dadhichi. He is regarded as the supreme worker, the very essence of excellence and quality in craftsmanship.
Normally 17th day of the month of Septemeber it is celebrated. The workers worship all their machineries as symbol of the God Biswakarma. Throughout the day colourful kites are flown. The sky fills up with all shades and colors. Chadials, Mombattis, Chowrangees, Petkattas, Mayurpankhis, Baggas fly high to establish the skills of the fliers. The sky becomes a war zone with the discarded kites dropping every now and then with the cry of "Bho-Kattaaa" from the distant roofs or parks.

Futchka in Pune

Do you know FUTCHKA? Apart from the guys from Kolkata, people may not be aware of futhcka. You must know Panipuri at least. Here in the western part of India, it is really popular. But I don’t like panipuri. I think people who tasted futchka they will never ever like panipuri. Futchka is a special preparation in Bengal, which is also known as Golgappa in northern side. From the time I am here in Pune, never had futchka. But a week ago my sister told me that she found a futchka stall in Pune!!! I rushed to that place with my sister and found the stall with the same old funnel shaped basket full of futchkassssss……. When I had the first bite on that, really did not able to distinguish that with Kolkata’s futhcka. Now that became our favorite weekend (even weekdays) spot.
Wanna have some futchka??? Looking for the location????
Just go to Kalyani Nagar Gold Adlabs and there you will find the stall just opposite of Lifestyle showroom. Have a blast with futchka….

An evening in Disha

This Saturday I experienced a different angle of life which was out of my daily schedule and I will remember this for my entire life. My elder sister is also in Pune working for Syntel. On Friday night she told me that next day evening she will be going to attend an activity called Disha formed by her colleagues for teaching some children and this is a part of their organizational level event SPrayas. They teach those children who can not afford to go to school for their financial condition as well as availability of a proper school. The nearest municipality school is three km away.
On that day I went there with my sister. The exact location was a slum near Bhelchowk in Nigdi. There they already had a group who are working for this, Abhishekh, Sania, Praveen, Mallikarjun, Niraj, Ruchi, Prem and some more. I just joined them. When we were entering into the slum the children welcome us with shake hand. When I realized that they were doing this not just for a manner or a good gesture which they learned, they were doing this from bottom of their heart, I was really overwhelmed. Children are always copycat, what they asked to follow they do that. But here I could read the emotion on their little faces, they were really happy to have us within them.
There were children of age group 4-10. When the teaching session started the entire room went alive with roaring sounds of A for Apple.. Apple mane sheb………. B for ………. This magical sound took me to my childhood, to my KG class room. I remember we all used to shout more loudly than all others to prove ourselves better than the others to the teacher. On those early days our respected teachers were God, sometimes more than God for us. Getting a little pat on the back from the teachers used to make us feel proud and there I realized the emotions behind those shake hands which we received in the slum.
We were there almost for two hours. It was really a great experience to teach them. I was not ready, so there was no format of teaching at least from my side. I just shared my General Knowledge with them which might help them. One thing really embarrassed me when they asked me that whether I am coming on to next session or not, because they saw a lot many sir/madam who just came once and never came back again. The day ended again with hand shakes. Each and everyone said bye to us. I came back to my home with a desire to go there again and again. Hats off to those guys, who are organizing these kind of activities.

Hirak Rajar Deshe - Film Review

In the continuation of my last post I could not resist myself to publish this one. This is a critic’s review for the film "Hirak Rajar Deshe" and published in Anandabazar Patrika just after the film is released. The review was published in a poem format. But it is written in Bengali so sorry for the guys who do not understand Bengali.

Hirak Rajar Deshe filim dekhe adyopanto,
satti katha khulei boli legechhe durdanto.
mil miliye kathabarta, chhorar chhorachhori,
gan er opor gaan jomechhe, ushul gant er kori.
jemni sur temni katha, raag er ki bahar,
Robi babur porei Manik sreshtho surokar.
Upen babur nati tini, tata babur chhele,
Hirar sange Manik jole, koti te ak mele.
Gugababar porer ongsho, sei Bagha sei Gupi,
Satyajit er mathay uthlo ar akkhana tupi.
Shundi rajar double jamai, ghumay o khay day,
haram bole araam chhere baire jete chay.
bhut babajir bor e baray jakhon jethay mon,
kakhono sagar, kakhono pahar, kakhono gobhir bon.
dhol bajiye, gan shuniye nana rakom beshe,
hatath ese hajir holo Hirak rajar desh e.
Hirak raja jabor raja, Karen magoj dholai,
beyadop er jonno ache dholai ghor ta kholai.
mukh e rajar madhu jhore, kaj e dakhan kola,
majur more, chashi more, more gaan er gola.
mantrira sab kol er putul, ghar ta nerei khushi,
rajar jonno korma-polao, projar jonno ghushi.
boi puriye school guriye metan moner sadhm,
Udayan naam gurumoshai janan protibad.
bari chhere palan tini pahare jungle e,
majur-chashi khepiye baran, khepan chhatro dole.
Udayan er sange takhon dakha gugababar,
tin jonete shola kore rajay kore kabar.
harek rakom fondi fikir sesh e oder jit,
nijer murti nije bhangen, rajamoshai chit.
rajji jure baddi baje, aar thakena bhoy,
raja-proja sab akakar, gugababar joy.
Tapen-Rabi darun juti, gaan e Anup babu,
golay-dhol e maat korechhe, amra sabai kabu.
ekti gaan e Amar Pal er gola proshongshar,
sei gaan e besh thot melalen Robin Majumder.
jano koshai raja moshai, Duttaja Utpal,
abhinoyer tulona nei, bakko onorgol.
santri-montri bidushak aar kobi ganotkar,
saaj-poshak e cholay feray baroi chamotkar.
set er bahaduri ache, darun rong er sense,
swapnopuri hajir kare Soumendu er lense.
raja badsha nimontriter make-up dakhar moto,
jamon nagra tamon pagri, gof er kayda kato.
sampadona fastokelas, nodir moto goti,
shabdo grohon nichuman er hoini ko ak roti.
toshakhanar chabi anar drisshhe bajimaat,
bagh er sange chokher lorai, bhoy e atkay baat.
khub shabhabik ese gache hindu musalman,
bangali j kebol hindu sei tatto khan khan.
Fantasy aar reality milechhe ak thai,
taye taye millo kina setao dacha chai.
gurumoshai gurutaro ramgarur er chhana,
Soumitra ke dekhte pelei fantasy hoi kana.
biggani ar shundi raja aki bekti kano ?
Feludar sei jatayu ke dacha galo jano !!
ato baro raja kano matir murti gore?
tan marle paye fatol, gulti te nak pore !!
Gugababa dorbar jei dhuklo kopal thuke,
takhon kano thamlo chhora, Hirak rajar mukhe?
khujle pore aro du-char dhorte pari khut,
eito jamon kobir bachon hoini tamon jut.
tobe esab chhotto ekti, tucchho sunischoy,
bhalor sankha akanobboi, mondo dosh ki noy.
magoj dholai, bosti safai, rajar bherar pal,
khujte gele icchhe moton paben parallel.
keu bolben emergency kimba communisty,
Stalin, Amin noi Hitler – naam er lamba listi.
kintu osab gouno bapar, mouno thakai shreyo,
hajar hajar khabar ache, chorbo chosshho peyo.
osab holo taderi kaaj, chhidro khojen jara,
sthhan o kaal atke rekhe, ros k tipe mara.
borong ami thik korechhi kat te jabo fite,
shat hopta purno hole HIRAK JAYANTI te.

Satyajit Ray's short stories

Born: May 2, 1921
Died: April 23, 1992

Satyajit Ray was India's first internationally recognized film-maker and, several years after his death, still remains the most well-known Indian director on the world stage. As a filmmaker he made a mark all over the world and Honored with Lifetime Achievement Oscar Award & Bharat Ratna. Here is the list of his directed film:Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) Aparajito (The Unvanquished) Parash Pathar (The Philosopher's Stone) Jalsaghar (The Music Room) Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) Devi (The Goddess) Teen Kanya (Three Daughters) Rabindranath Tagore, Documentary Kanchenjungha Abhijan (The Expedition) Mahanagar (The Big City) Charulata (The Lonely Wife) Two, Short Kapurush - O – Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man) Nayak (The Hero) Chiriyakhana (The Zoo) Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (Adventures of Goopy and Bagha) Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) Pratidwandi (The Adversary) Seemabaddha (Company Limited) Sikkim, Documentary The Inner Eye, Documentary Asani Sanket (Distant Thunder) Sonar Kella (The Fortress) Jana Aranya (The Middleman) Bala, Documentary Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) Joi Baba Felunath (The Elephant God) Hirak Rajar Deshe (Kingdom of Diamonds) Pikoo (Pikoo's Day), Short Sadgati (The Deliverance) Ghare-Baire (Home and the World) Sukumar Ray, Documentary Ganashatru (Enemy of the People) Shakha Prashakha (Branches of the Tree) Agantuk (The Stranger)

As a film maker we all know him very well. Apart from film making he was a great author, painter, poet and sculpturist also. He wrote quite a few limerics. He was born in an intellectual and affluent family in Calcutta. His father Sukumar Ray was a Bengali humorous poet, story writer and playwrighter. As perhaps the most famous Indian practitioner of literary nonsense, he is often compared to Lewis Carroll. His grandfather Upendrakishore Ray was a distinguished writer, painter, a violin player and a composer. He was also a pioneer in half-tone block making and founded one of the finest presses in the country - U. Ray & Sons. in 1880s. When Satyajit was only 2-years-old his father died and he had to move out of their spacious house with his mother. He joined Ballygaunge Govt High School at the age of eight. This is where I feel really proud of my school. I did my schooling also from that school. In many articles I found him talking about his school experience and most of the experience was on some small thinks like the Banyan tree, the big school gate, the ground which eventually may not connect others. But as I am from the same school, believe me those feelings always touch me whenever I read them. It seems I am reading my own memories.

While talking about his short stories I must start with two remarkable characters created by him, Feluda and Professor Shanku. Feluda is a character of young detective whose original name is Pradosh Mitra. The full Feluda series consists of hundreds short stories. There are one more bold character in this series is Jatayu, who is an author. The whole series was written targeting the young people only; however it is similarly popular in kids and adults also. Satyajit Ray himself made two films out of this Feluda series, Sonar Kella and Jay baba felunath. His son Sandip Ray recently filmed two other stories "Bombaier Bombete" and "Koilash e Kelenkari". The essence of these thrillers is the way of solving the mysteries. Feluda never use any technology to solve his case. Its only his "Magojastro" (Brain Power). The other renowned character is Professor Shanku. This series is of science fictions. Shanku is a great scientist who invented some outstanding products like "Botica Indica" (homoeopathy globule sized tablets to fill stomach), "Annihilin pistol" (A pistol that annihilates), "Omniscope" (an instrument which is a microscope, telescope and x-ray machine in one) etc. The stories are about his adventures with these incredible inventions. There is one story I remember named "Nakul babu o El-Dorado". In that story first I came to know about the giant African snake anaconda. One good thing about his stories is the content. In the prologue of each story he put historical, geographical, scientific facts and figures. In my childhood I learned a lot many things from his stories. These two series are the most popular. There are some more stories which I like most. I have his full short story collection, and most surprisingly each story out them is different from the others.

Barin Bhowmiker Baram (Barin Bhowmik’s Disease) is about a profound singer’s story, who had Kleptomania in his early days.

Khagom is a story about a snake. Then name has come from Mahabharata. In the story a man unnecessary killed the snake named Khagom but the priest who used to take care of that old snake eventually gets his friend (Khagom) back. The way transformation is described in the story, is really going to thrill anyone.

In a story called Bhuto Satyajit Ray highlighted on Ventriloquism which is an art of making one’s dummy talk when his master is the actual talker.

Bipin babur smritibhrom (Memory loss of Bipin babu) elaborates a healthy revenge by a old friend by creating an environment as Bipin babu lost his memory.

Brihochonchu is about a big bird which had created problem by his diet.

Patalbabu is a character in the story Patalbabu Film Star where he is a good stage actor and offered for a role in a film. In the story we get to know with how much dedication he portrayed the small role.The list is long, in one line it’s impossible to describe. Being a good painter he used to design all his story book’s cover pages and inside the books one can find his excellent touch on the sketches. The only thing is all the stories are written only in Bengali and till date no one took initiative to translate those in any other language. So I believe a great collection of short stories is still out of reach for many of us.

Ganesh Utsav in Office Premises

Almost two weeks before the Ganesh Utsav, we received a mail from the HR department that this time we are going to have some competitions on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi in the office premises. That includes one sweet making competition and one idol making competition. We were asked to have a discussion with the respective planet managers. In our office there is a concept of Planet. Each floor is having two wings and every wing is named on the name of different planets. Our planet name is Mars. We have lots of Planet wise competitions. After receiving the mail we rushed to our planet manager and called a meeting for the plan and preparation of the competition. Volunteers gave their names in the sweet making competition. I planned to make some delicious Bengali sweets, but could not capitalize on my plans (which were quite obvious). Actually I was excited on the idol making competition rather sweet making. Competition was held on Friday 5th of September. On that day some of us came to office in marathi dress as it was declared traditional day. The theme of the competition was eco friendly Ganesha Idol. Every planet has successfully kept there concept secret. Our planet made Ganesha idol of flour. He was sitting on a cart made of packing cartons. Five rats made up of flour were pulling the cart. Taking all the decoration in consideration it was good all together. In the evening I went with Shubhankar and Suchita to the other planets to see what kind of creative idols they made. We got to see wide range concepts in making the idols and decoration and each one was better than the others. I was really grateful to the god that I was not the judge. Planet Earth emphasizes on Deforestation by a eye catching decoration. Jupiter was good at the perfection of their model. Saturn imported a new concept, as per their explanation presence of God is just a feeling, you can not touch it. So they keot their idol hanging at the lower part of a desk and the image of the idol was visible through the water kept in a pot. So it was a mixed experience and we were really keen to know the winner. Finally we got the result on Tuesday 8th September. We came second in the idol making competition. Planet Charon was the winner.

Ganesh Chaturthi

Vakratunda Mahaakaayah
Suryakoti Samaprabha
Nirvighnam Kurume Deva
Sarvakaaryeshu Sarvadaa

This is my second time in Pune during Ganesh Chaturthi. India is a country where one can find hundreds of festivals of all the religions and we all celebrate these together. I believe festivals are made to celebrate with your family, friends, neighbors, with all whom you know. This is the time to make new friends. Some people try to segregate us by talking the difference in the religion, but being a responsible citizen of India, the world’s largest secular country, one should not think on that line. The fact is those people who want to differentiate is very less in numbers and never get success over it.
Festival in India always comes with colors, gorgeousness dresses, delicious foods, eye catching firecrackers etc etc etc and if it is Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharastra then you will feel the heat for ten days that is guaranteed.
Last year I was not aware what exactly happens here during Ganesh Utsava. So on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi I just went to JM Road and FC Road area, and saw couple of huge processions with drummers and dancers. The rhythm of the drums was really good. Now those who don’t know about Ganesh Chaturthi, I can elaborate. On Ganesh Chaturthi people usually takes Lord Ganesha (Idol) to their homes or respective puja committees. After that they keep the idol for ten days and follow the rituals as a part of the worship for the lord Ganesha. On Anant Chaturdashi idols are immersed in the nearest river or pond. During these ten days puja committees perform cultural programs like dance, recitation, singing, drama etc. As I don’t understand Marathi language, I didn’t get anything out of those drama and cultural programs, which quite obviously performed with great dedication and sometime for noble cause also. For me the main attraction is the procession on Ganesh Chaturthi and Anant Chaturdoshi.
Like last year this year also I went to JM Road expecting lot many fun. There I saw one big procession is going slowly towards Deccan. The most gorgeous part of the procession was the drummers. The dancing group was performing with the magical beat of the drums. Dancing steps were very simple, probably anyone can do that but it was the synchronization which made the performance really attractive. They were using some props while dancing and reciting some lines on lord Ganesha with the beat of the drums.
There were Camels, Horses and guess who all the riders were… it was a tiny little brigade of children dressed with typical marathi attire. The most amazing thing about all the processions was the discipline. Without stopping the traffic and creating any chaos they were on their way. Really hats off to those guys who were managing.
After this we headed towards Daghru Sheth. I have Arkadeep and Arindam with me and on the way to Daghru Sheth saw more processions. Surprisingly we found some procession with lady drummers also. The streets were overcrowded and it went to an extreme point when we reached Daghru Sheth. Thousands of people were in a queue to enter in the main temple with the Puja Dali. The temple were decorated with lights and flowers, was looking really awesome. We didn’t dare to enter in the temple, since it required a lot of energy to stand in the queue. We said hello to lord Ganesha just from outside the temple only and came back to home with the memory of an eventful evening. Now I am looking for the Anant Chaturdashi Ceremony.

Malshej Ghat & Bhimashankar Trip

It has been quite a long time since my last post. Last time it was on Bengali New Year. This time I am going to share my experience about a short trip to Malshej Ghat and Bhimashankar which was scheduled on 15th of August, 2008.On this day, we planned for a memorable trip to taste

our freedom in our own terms, close to nature, away from the routine life we are more familiar with and not spending it like a normal weekend. The day was a Friday. So I and my roommates planned for a long weekend, full of fun and unforgettable enjoyment.Monsoon is the perfect time to go to Ghats, to see nature bathing in the showers of rain like Goddess Diana in her alluring lure. The question was where we should go. The options that we had were Lonavala, too close to Pune and 3/4th of Pune habitat spend their weekend there. The other was Malshej Ghat, which is around130 KM from Pune and it’s on the Pune-Nasik Highway. It all started with conveyance, then accommodation. We all were very much keen to make a night halt. So, we booked a 14 seated bus for our trip. But, to our surprise we found that there is hardly any hotel in Malshej Ghat. There is the MTDC (Flamingo) resort in the Malshej Ghat, but it was already overbooked. This, I will say was growing like a big impediment in our trip. But we were inexorable. We kept our composure and altered our plan and included Bhimashankar in our trip, hoping to get a hotel, and craft the plans for a night halt there.Then came our much awaited morning, even the Sun felt new as if it was greeting us on this wonderful day. We were all set to go. We started our journey by 6:30 AM, full of energy and enthusiasm, and exhilarated and expecting to meet up with lots of fun and activities awaiting us there. We were a group of nine musketeers. Sourav, Arindam, Somenath, Maloy and me from Pune. Subhamoy, Devjyoti, Mainak and Raju joined us from Mumbai. This was our second trip. We took a short break for breakfast on the Nasik Highway. Then we started off for Malshej. Our first concern was to get a suitable accommodation for our trip. Luckily we got one (the Monika Lodge) in Junnar which is around 30 Km from Malshej Ghat. We took three double bed rooms, kept our luggage and started for our final destination for the day. Our first spot of interest was a dam. The dam was on the lake Kukdi. The Bus waded through the clouds over the dam for about 1 KM and halted for us to unboard it from its confinements to the vast expanse of nature.. It looked as if we were flying through the clouds. The clouds covered us like blankets in the wintry morning. Driver said that this dam is 4 KM long and on the other side there is village called Harishchandragad.It seemed that the route would be really perfect for trekking. But we were not ready for trekking. We stopped our bus on the dam and went down to the water and had lots of fun. It was continuously raining and the whole area was under cloud cover. Then we came back from the dam and on the highway we found one waterfall. There was a huge crowd enjoying the beauty of the waterfall. We joined them and spent quite some time in the water. We had our windcheaters on but Maloy could not resist the temptation of taking a dip in the freezing waters, he went directly under the falling water and had a wonderful icy experience. Even for a second I thought to join him but….. any way still we were 20 KM away from our final destination, Malshej Ghat. When we reached Malshej Ghat the scene was fantastic and none of us had any words to describe it. What I thought about Malshej Ghat is that it might be a hill point where we can park our bus and then we may have to climb up/down to reach the water falls, something like that. But the fact was that Malshej Ghat is not at all like that. It is just a chain of water falls finding its way through the roads.

There was no place for parking even. There were a chain of eight to ten waterfalls one after another. Each one had its one beauty. The most amazing one was the last one. Eventually for an awkward bent of the mountain the water was coming down at the middle of the road. Cars were passing through the water. This experience was really cool. When our bus was moving underneath the waterfall we were all spell bound. The weather also was awesome. The rain was playing hide and seek at its leisure. We got down from the bus wrapped with our windcheaters except Maloy. But this time I also joined Maloy and went under the falling water. It was a marvelous experience al together. No one from our group was ready to get wet. They chose to be within their windcheaters’ safe custody. The people there were laughing, jumping, and singing in joy. One point I would like to mention is that, the place is not a good one day trip spot for the families, especially for the ladies. Even we felt little odd among the drunk crowd. I am not saying they where doing something harsh to anyone, but apart from the scenic beauty, crowd was not good, at least for me. From Malshej Ghat we took a u turn and came back to the hotel for our lunch. We did literally nothing in the evening. As Olympic was going on, saw some events in the TV. We got to know that three boxers of India had qualified for the quarter finals. Next day morning we started our journey to Bhimashankar. We had our breakfast in a roadside hotel. By road Bhimashankar has the same distance from Pune as Malshej Ghat. But this road is not that good, so it took quite a long time to reach there. Bhimashankar is famous for a Jotirlinga of Lord Shiva out of the twelve. Apart from the Temple, the scenic beauty and the jungle experience is a special tourist attraction. While we were heading to Malshej through the national highway 222, the road was wide enough and did not have many deadly turns. But the road to Bhimashankar is quite narrow with plenty of sharp turns. When we started our ascent, the weather started changing. We took a break in between, a photo break. We clicked lot of photographs there. After reaching Bhimashankar, we parked the bus 2 km from the temple and started walking. Walking down the jungle roads covered with fog and the only sound that one could hear was our footsteps…. Oh this was the experience of our lives. I have never been to any jungle before, so this was a first experience for me at least. When we reached the temple we saw a huge queue of people waiting to worship the Lord. We preferred to pray from outside as we were running out of time. After visiting the temple we came back to the bus and started our journey back to Pune.

Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.

I enjoyed the trip so much that my words may not suffice my thoughts and experience.Here is the contact no for the hotel (The Monica Lodge) if anyone needs it.New Monika Lodge Ph: 02132-264343 Cell Number: 9730367445.

Bengali New Year

Boishakh is the first month according to Bengali calender. First day of this month, we bengalis celebrate New Year. The day is called as "Poila Boishakh". Poila Boisakh is not only a beginning of New Year. It is not only worship of 'Lord Ganesha', 'Halkhata' and sweets. It is a day which gives us the true spirit to look forward with new motivations. We welcome the new year with all friends and family members. Normally people try to have typical Bengali food in this day. All these are just to make the day a bit special, memorable to our life.
A large part of this new year party is cultural program. From my childhood I used to see that the day starts with "Nabobarsher Boithak" on television. Famous singers, dancers, poets, writers they all take part in the program, perform and share their precious thoughts on this particular day. Since this is the beginning of a new year, it has a huge impact on Bengali Film Industry also. Lots of films get started their journey hoping for success. In Kolkata Nandan is the cultural hub of the city. You will surely find on road drama, dancing and singing activity, where famous personalities perform with other people.
If I talk about Poila Boishakh the first thing should be HaalKhata. This is puja of Lord Ganesha. The businessmen start their income for the new year with a copy(named haal khata) blessed by Lord Ganesha. In every shops, the owner distributes sweets and namkins between the customers. There is also a trend to buy jewelry on this day.
This will be the second year when I will be away from my family and hometown in this day. I will be celebrating the day with my Bengali friends in Mumbai in an evening with a small cultural program. There we all will perform and welcome the New Year. Now we all are busy with practicing dram, songs and dance. You can visit http://eso-he-boishakh.blogspot.com for more details of the program. But that blog is written in Bengali, so I think those who can understand Bengali can only understand the posts. I will update the program details

Yashotsav

Let me share my another experience of cultural event in my organization, where I am working now. This is basically the annual day of my office. But before the D day we have different competition between different group of people. We have drama competition, dance competition etc. I remember we performed in a 15 min skit (script was written on run time) in the semifinal, and for that round we were the champions. I will upload the video of the same. In the skit we had a very nominal make up. However it was all fun.
Other than this skit we had a movie competition. We prepared a movie based on the theme "Inspiring Performance". Some shots of this movie we did outside. For me this was just the first outdoor shooting. Everywhere stopped in their way and asked us..... "What movie you are shooting?" .... "Who is the Hero?"............ "Where is the Heroine"............ "By what time will it be released?" . etc etc etc................. And you don't believe that they were so co-operative. We stopped one auto rickshaw and asked the driver if he can consider for 5-10 min for the shooting. He readily accepted that, and started to make himself prepare for the shooting. It was really hard to say him that he will not going to be the part of the shooting. So we had a fare bit of fun out of this. Do not ask me for the feedback of the movie, I can't explain how we failed in this project, though we learnt from this.

We had lots of fun in the face paining competition also. The team had maximum no of face painted, won the challenge. Though we painted some jem, but there were no points on quality. We lost :D. But it was a great fun to paint some one's face. Actually competition was so tough we were not at all waiting for the permission of the person if he/she wanted to painted his/her face or not. Whenever we saw a face without color, we just painted, just like Holi.

Get Set Go

At last I have convinced myself to write something on my first BLOG. Since I created this blog, I was confused what should be the proper lines to start with. Now I realized that giving own introduction is the best thing, where I don't have to be innovative. I can share something about myself which will boost my confidence also.
Hi, I am Kaustav Banerjee, a 24 year old guy from West Bengal. I am now staying in Pune for my job. Really missing my hometown. Other than my job profile I like to engage myself with cultural and social programs.
Aahhhhhhh!! yes I got a real good topic to talk about. I spent all my initial days in Kidderpore, Kolkata. In 2003 we changed our residence to Botanical Garden, Howrah. I thought I would face a lot of problem in finding new friends, and yes that was true. In my new area I hardly found people of my age. Those starting days were depressing. But now I have lot of friends in my new area. Do you know how was it happen. This is all because of one cultural program. :))
Believe me. Actually what happened me and my elder sister thought to organize one cultural program on the day of "Rabindra Jayanti" (Tagore's Birthday). But the main problem was finding kid performers (mature persons are really tough to handle). Eventually we visited every single house of the area and asked if there was any kid who wanted to join our program. We got a huge response. We thought to arrange the program in our terrace, but with these number of participants we had to arrange for a stage. Thanks to Harun Kaku(uncle) who made the stage for us absolutely free. We got lot of support and the program was a hit, rather super hit. Then I found the people in the area are really good and supportive and now I am sure I have a good rapo with them also. We gave our Organization's name "Prayas" . Last year we completed four successful years of Prayas.
oh!!!!! this is too much for today. Sure I will let you know more about our Prayas.
Keep in touch.