A day trip to Ali Bagh; Amidst Sea Music

A day trip to Ali Bagh; Amidst Sea Music

(14^th Dec. 2013)

The days after coming back from vacation from Chandigarh, had been quite hectic, due to over-pending work at my office table, plus my bosses’ in between question, ‘Kitna kaam baki hai aur?’ while handing over more new tasks, putting huge pressure on my little body and of course my little head throbbing at Rajnikant’s speed. (Sigh)

My heart would wish to go out and explore, but my body would say,” Sleep, you need a rest.” So my weekends had gone almost doing nothing, except for two occasions; once to a Movie with my friend Shanti and an after movie stroll at Juhu, and second, an evening outing to Lake Powai with Deepali. Hmm. I felt myself getting so dead and boring. Lol: P

To visit Alibagh had been in my mind since long, but couldn’t make it because of the above factors. So, this weekend keeping everything at a bay, I decided to go; just go. I asked Deepali, and she agreed. So nice of her to get up quickly in the morning when I just patted her once on her forehead! Hmm

We boarded the 09:15 am Ferry from Gateway of India, which would fetch us till Mandwa and from where we were supposed to go by bus to Alibagh. The Rs. 85/- per person they charged was incl. of the bus service as well. Not bad han!

The one hour Ferry Ride up to Mandwa was quite memorable, with the accompaniment of seagulls being a treat to our eyes. They kept following our Ferry till the end, showing their playfulness, which was beautiful and full of life. Some of the kids started throwing pieces of biscuits at them, and in seconds many of them started showing their talents, catching every piece with their beak and throwing them in sea, so as to catch the next piece. All the people on board were having fun and looked very happy and cheerful, which was in full contrast to their hard, angry and frustrated gestures while in train and other public places in Mumbai on a working day. I wondered what it would be like, if life is nothing but a ‘Holiday’! How different then things would be! But it’s ok as everything has got two aspects, so too has life. And we are here to play a balancing act. Aren’t we? J

We reached Mandwa Port after an hour, and we both were delighted to see the name Mandwa, written there, which took our memory to Vijay Deenanath Chauhan’s village in Agneepath. We tried to connect the location to the movie, but there was hardly any trace of what was in our memory from the movie to the real Mandwa, the sets of the movie being the re-creations of the geniuses of course. But we loved the village itself. It was quite peacefully located, far away from city commotion.

It took us another hour to reach Alibagh by road, from Mandwa. Ali- Bagh; I assumed from the name that it would be a Bagh (Bageecha/garden) named after someone named ‘Ali’. But I was wrong. It was not a bagh, rather a city, which has a vast sea shore/beach, in the middle of which is located the remnants of some old fort of Marathas i.e. Colaba Fort.

We took a motor-boat ride from the beach to the fort, and walked through length and breadth of the fort. We were walking leisurely at snail’s pace, checking on every broken bricks and posing around, though we didn’t have a good camera but only our mobile phones. But no issue, we were having fun under the sun. ;-)

The return trip was beautiful and soul-touching, esp. for me. This time as the sea gulls were not in sight, I just put my hands on the side railings of the ferry, sitting crossed on the chair and bent my head down to look into the sea only. My ears were all to the sea music, the splashing of the sea water as the jetty crossed, with the background garr-garrr of the engine. The sea music pleasing my ears, and the dancing on its tune, showing various moves the watery waves were quite a treat to my eyes. I was so much in deep admiration of God’s creation of magic in various forms, that I didn’t realize how one hour of the ride ended, getting us back to the reality of Mumbai.

It was a refreshing outing, and to say in my own words “A-Awesome”. (All smiles’ J J J)

Re-visiting Mcllo; Magical Bhagsunag and the Sacred Dal Lake.

Re-visiting Mcllo; Magical Bhagsunag and the Sacred Dal Lake.

(10^th & 11^th Nov. 13)

Diwali break; I took two weeks leave, just to stay home at Chandigarh. This time I had no tour plans and I just wanted to spend some times with my family, who would always taunt me saying, “This is not Dharamshala by the way, where you come to drop your baggage and then go around all days roaming around and come back at night just to sleep.” Hmm. That’s why this time I didn’t inform many of my friends about my vacation, except for a few close ones. But things wouldn’t work always as your mind plans, as I earlier said, “Everything is destined.” So was this trip. J

So, it happened like this: on the evening of 9^th November, I was in the market with my niece, Rinzin when Nini, my friend called up asking me to show some Movie. I agreed, though there was no other movie worth watching except for Krishh 3, which I had already seen in Mumbai. So for them, I didn’t mind watching it over again. So, we went for a night show (9:15 pm) at Big cinema, in Paras down town Mall, which was close to my house.  Nini , Lata and Angmo from Chandigarh,  and Kaki and me from Zirakpur met at the Mall itself. So, the five of us, and you can imagine how noisily we would have rocked the almost empty Mall, after the movie ended. Lol . We packed pizza from Dominos and went to my place.

In the morning we all were awake by 8:00 am and kept lying in bed, chit-chatting, when finally Nini and Lata got emotional about something in their head, for which they had planned to go to Mclodganj a couple of times, but didn’t go due to so many apprehensions running down their nerves. I hardly had a say in their respective decisions, as they asked for my suggestion. I have no fixed plan or goal of my own in my life, so it would feel quite odd if I went around giving advices. But I said what I felt. I said,” You have something in mind, so at least take some initiative; the rest will be seen eventually. Otherwise things will remain in your subconscious to haunt you in near future. Let’s go to Mecllo tonight only.”

We all agreed in unison, and the plan was made for the night trip to Macllo, as in the evening I had some unfinished work to complete.

We boarded 12:15 am bus, and after a smooth, sleepy drive reached Macllo at 7 in the morning. We went to Bhagsu and booked a room for two days. I remembered my earlier trip in august to Mcllo, when I missed Bhagsunag to answer Triund’s call. But Bhagsu wanted me to come this year only, so I was there along with two not so sane, of my own kind, but beautiful girls; Nini and Lata. We got fresh turn by turn, taking morning sun bath at the verandah; where lovely & warm rays of sun fell straight on our faces. It was quite heavenly. We had our breakfast first, and then set out for the job.

As Nini and Lata had their appointments after lunch, we decided to tour around. So, our nearest destination for the day was ‘Bhagsunag’ itself. It took us a long leisurely walk, passing through street shops, entering Shiva Mandir, beside which a swimming pool, to reach finally at the Waterfall itself. And its crystal clear water, was so beautiful that we couldn’t resist staying there for hours and looking enviously at its beauty. We felt like jumping into the water and playing with it, as our heart tickled at the soulful and soothing music it played, but we couldn’t as it was way too chilled, even to touch. So it was our eyes that beheld the beauty with full admiration.

Then we went walking up to Mcllo, had our lunch, met the appointees and then returned to our room. Taking a little rest and getting fresh again, in the evening we decided to trek and go to Mcllo via Dharamkot. The peaceful walk was quite memorable; the already set sun showing beautiful colors of crimson red and orange from behind the mountains and spreading wide arrays of happiness in our hearts, while we walked through the dark roads surrounded by lush green Jungle, with hardly anybody at sight except for us.

'Magical!!!'

We roamed around the Mcllo Market, did some shopping and then went to dine at the most famous restaurant of the city, ‘Mcllo Bar & Restaurant’; good food and chill beers in a chilled night and we went on chilling. ;-)

The next day, i.e. on 10^th November, we went to the Buddhist Monastery, where I have been a couple of times with my parents, paid our obeisance, took Parikarma of the Monastery thrice, sat for a while and then hired auto for our destination for the sacred ‘Dal Lake’, which is situated at an altitude of 1770 mtr above sea level at a distance of 11 kms from Mcllo. It was though a small lake, but it was beautiful. Nearby it is a Shiva Temple, due to which the lake is considered very sacred for Hindus. The lake is surrounded by tall, dense and lush green deodar trees, the reflection of which in the lake, made it look more and more magical.

'the sacred Dal Lake'

'Peacefully blessed souls''

We chilled around in Mcllo for some more time in the evening before we finally left for our return journey. The overall trip was though unplanned, but fantabulous for all three of us. They took an initiative in the venture they had in their mind, taking the pros and cons now they have to decide for further developments, and I found an opportunity to add more to my ‘memorable moments savings’ account. (Wink wink wink)

( I had an A-Awesome Diwali Break. All smilesss J J J (Nawi))