I love you

Dear Friend,

I met you long time back & I am so happy that you are still there. Maybe we don't talk to each other everyday, we don't go for movies, we don't meet for years altogether but you are still there in my life. I am so happy that this has happened because we have crossed the difficult hurdle of friendship to be still together. 

I agree that I am not the same anymore, neither are you. We have grown & evolved because that is what life is all about. You might have loved me that day for being who I was then. But trust me the new version X.0 is maybe a little better than the old version. Don't be afraid to ask me to know me for I understand that you might find me different and difficult at times too. But when it happens don't leave me. I understand you have changed too, you met new people, went to new places and I was not there. Remember that I am also scared at times that I have lost the friend I had loved earlier. I won't leave you I will learn to love the new you, try to find the better of the worlds.

I am learning to be a better person, maybe I am not always right, I want you to tell me when you see me on the wrong road because that's what friends are for. Don't stop calling me to tell me what an idiot I am, because I don't tell you that I love you for telling me that. I will not stop texting you randomly because I miss you and I so want to be with you then. I am just so happy that you are still there by my side even when I don't tell you how much I love you.

Yours Truly

Bhaag Bhaag DK Bose

As our high energy trip was on its last day, we had to come back to Mumbai. Yes we were very optimistic getting a trip by train but as usual we were nowhere near a confirmed ticket. Searching through IRCTC aimlessly helped us this time & we got a train ticket at 21.30 at night, and that too confirmed😍😍😍. Now lets come back to our last day in Goa. 

The day was kept for the most important thing namely water activities and never dying interest in Palolem beach. We start early and have an awesome breakfast at Britto's, Baga. I know all who know the place would already be 😋😋😋. I did post the pic for reference. Now after we were full and ready to carry on with the day we started exploring on the list of activities we wanted to do. Now as you get lot of unwanted faltu information from lot of people, I had come to know that it is very cheap which I disagreed then too but what to do when that person is your brother. Now, ofcourse all the activities were not possible so we chose parasailing out of the lot. It was seriously super fun & not funny like usual things prefer to happen to me. Now. the upselling of services happen when you are in mid-sea but like good smart people we escaped the drill.

We actually thought that we might not actually come here for a second time & lets try the bumper ride which was priced OK, I mean ₹600 for two is decent. And I had a plan to not get wet (don't give the looks, sometimes you just overthink). The bumper ride was actually super awesome and once the boat reaches mid sea, we are given an offer we can't refuse... He told us that he will give us another few minutes of ride and also take us to an island where lot of things happened and said that it would cost only ₹3000/- for two. How cost effective right?? We refused but as we could see we were kind of trapped mid-sea with not much choice (I don't know how to swim too, FYI). He asked us to quote a price, and thinking that we should quote something which he would refuse we quoted 1000 for two, that's like 33% of the original quote. To our surprise after a few minutes he agreed to the price, then we actually realised ki dal me kuch kala nhi, poori dal hi kali hai. He gave us 2-3 rounds in the sea & then showed us the island from approx a mile away, Dhoom ki shooting hui thi yahan madam. I only wanted to say aa pani k bahar dikhati hun tujhe shooting. That was not it, when near the sore they asked me to jump into the water which was neck deep, and on my refusal he pulled me down... Yay!!!

Well, the next leg or the last one as we say is the trip to Palolem. It was a trip on its own nevertheless, as all of you know our near miss to Palolem, we had planned it now. Our planned trips are also most unplanned it seems. We start for Palolem, with an auto ride to Panjim where the buses ply to Madgaon & from Madgaon there was a bus to Palolem. At 2 as we started we thought we would eat at Panjim as if we leave the auto getting another one will be problem. Oh yeah, the scooty was given back to the owner safe and sound. We reached Panjim at around 2.45 looking at that I was very confident we would reach the beach by 5. Another two hours is the max it should take, and we skipped food, to stick to the time. Madgaon by 3.30 was awesome and made me confident that it was happening, only to realise the bus plying from there was actually too local stopped as frequently as very 5 mins for 5 mins. So the journey became a long one, we even checked the sunset time and realised that day why it was ever written in the newspaper everyday at all. Just 1.5 km from the beach the bus took the longest halt possible, 20 min and that was it, alas. I got down and took a sunset photo as I thought again the sunset will never be seen at the beach by us. As we entered Palolem after that tiring 4 hrs journey I decided, I would just run with the luggage in hope to see the last glimpse. I did run & after I reached I literally wanted to kill every person who ever told me that it was a beautiful beach. It was as ordinary as possible and all the trouble taken for the last two days to reach there seemed so fruitless. The only thing I could think in those minutes was at least we did do this we did reach (so that we can tell everyone else also to go there)... kyunki Zindagi na milegi dobara.

Chase the Sun

The scooty which we had almost lost was still in our custody, so I was happy & relieved. It was Day 2 and we had tattoos on our necks, the idea was to do everything we can. Even when it meant a temporary tattoo, with traumatising the guy with my most irrelevant questions "Bhaiya kab tak hatega" "Nahi hatega to kya karein" and what not, he had patience because I'm pretty sure that he would have thought "Are madam itna tension hai to kyu karwana hai". Well did get the tattoos and now I needed to make sure that it was visible, tough work. 😕😕😕

The second day had lot of things on hold for us so we started early, well who wakes up at Goa at 7 in the morning we did. Got ready, ate (always an important part) and we started for Fort Aguada. The Hindi movies have definitely played very integral roles in our lives and I am pretty sure the place is famous because of Dil Chahta Hai's candid shot nothing else could be placed to be more important. But being shutterbug crazy we clicked pics around every nook and corner of the very small fort. And every time we decided to click some place where there was nobody we did send silent invitation to people with DSLRs to click. Tried jumping over the rocks to get the best pic as we unfortunately we were only two people and the third person was missing for the Dil Chahta Hai click. I infact gave an idea that we could hire someone for that hour for the pics. And yes while moving out of the place two guys asked us to click and we did vice-versa, they tried a conversation with us which we had no interest and they also lost interest once they knew we were from Bombay (I like to still call it that over Mumbai), reasons were unknown at that time but we realised by the next day though.

The next stop was the one which my parents had suggested (Yeah they came to Goa before me)😏😏😏. The dolphin trip which we had just agreed to because it was too sunny & we will at least have a boat ride. Like always when you least expect something to happen I think it is bound to happen & as we were talking random shit (which we keep doing all the time & still not get bored) somebody shouted dolphins, according to the friend she did see a bit but I missed and I was like f**k it would be just the ripples and people just want to be happy (that was a way to console yourself when you are the only one who misses the important things). But God being really grateful they came up again & then again. It was possibly the most happy moment of the trip, getting something without any expectation. Then again we had to fill our tummies and the idea was to go to Palolem for the sunset which approx 90 km far and was voted by lot of people we knew as the most beautiful beach in South Goa. 

Well we got late while eating you can call it fortunate or unfortunate whatever. And at 4.45 we realised we should not waste a second now. We start our scooty ride and decide Google is stupid and maybe we can beat it and reach just before the sunset. As adventurous one can get we started towards Palolem and when we had crossed Panjim around 5.30 some part of our brain told us we were in Goa and any beach would have just as beautiful a sunset we could expect. Palolem was not happening tonight so lets check the nearest beach and Vasco it was. We are just going and Google told us to take the hilly road, though being skeptic I still decided that, it could be the best as we had no clue about why, where, how... After some time what we could is the airport and not the beach. 

We chased the sun but couldn't catch it at the right place and it was smirking at us saying "See Dude, I would look the best today and you won't catch me at the right place and only chase me".

We Almost lost it...

Now officially we were in Goa. Well it took me 30 years to reach there, so I was just happy it happened. Knowing most of you all would have been there and realised you need to know to ride a scooty because the local taxi & auto walas decide that they can loot us even when you are an Indian. We were able to negotiate a bit and reach the hotel, motel, guesthouse or whatever it was. Tired but excited we just take our turns to get dressed, was difficult to choose with the loads of clothes we carried with us.

First things first, hire a scooty, thankfully I had a rider as I'm just a good pillion :). We took the scooty & went for lunch or brunch or just a lot of food, we were hungry remember didn't get food earlier. We just needed a lot of food now to satisfy our hearts. The menu was pre-decided to be no chicken menu, when in Goa just eat lot of fish, prawns and all those sea creatures you get on your plate. Now the day had to start with the religious & historical trip because we knew if kept for later will never happen.

We started for Basilica, it was my idea as usual because I just don't want people telling me ever 'Are how could you miss this'. After some shitty derouting by Google we did reach. I just feel Google has this love of misguiding me trying to save a minute of my life & on the way both the rider & pillion were greeted by red dust spray, thanks to Google. I do still think it actually took us more time to reach with Google routes, well nothing else is even an option, Goa government decided that no point putting up signboards and wasting public tax money for the drunk drivers who won't be able to read the signs. Thankfully we still reached.

A lady came running to us trying to sell flowers & candles saying its auspicious, we did buy being very generous. We went in started looking at the inscriptions and feeling good. At times I still can't understand what I like so much about these old places which have lot of history, everything framed according to the historian who wrote the history, it is so biased. The tour was going good & it actually saved us from the scorching sun so we were more than happy. Also got a chance to try our hands on the camera, as somewhat I had already had a feeling that whatever was happening would make an excellent trip story. I needed every photo to keep my memories filled. We were moving to the museum next right opposite, had to save ourselves from the sun looking at our skin colour we could not afford to get tanned from Day 0. Once inside we realised we should just sit down for a while till the sun mellowed down and then what we were just missing parts of what was happening around us & most probably people looking at us thought we were head banging. Best part is we won't meet any of them again.

We started moving back to the scooty and the lady rider just stopped looking shocked, panicked I couldn't distinguish. No keys was all she said, being me I was like no that's not possible. We started searching the bag frantically and seriously there were no keys to be found. The other best possible could be the scooty itself, rushed to it only to find a man trying to give us parking slips instead of the keys. This would become the costliest trip of my life if we didn't find the keys is all that crossed my mind and I guess
the same for the lady. I won't give hope I thought & started tracing the route the we had taken & when we had walked half the way I almost had lost hope & the lady shouted I can feel something in my pocket. It was the flowers and candles were actually auspicious and the keys were found. We almost lost it... almost I said.

Go Goa Gone!!!

An eventful Goa trip just made me sit down on the laptop after along time & here I am with my first

2016 decided to give us a long weekend for Diwali, thank God and pray every year something like this happens. Well like everyone I also marked all the long weekends the moment the holiday list is circulated, actually just puts a smile immediately and makes the day for you. Wow Diwali you actually get 4 days to enjoy... now best is to plan a trip. The plan is just in my mind please mind it. Now it was July & I actually start asking my friend chalegi.. she is like yes all done. Trust me I remind her every week and she is like 'Arre it's here only'. I'm like OK I trust you on this, my first time there. It was start of October I was all happy for Durga puja, the vent which just makes all Bongs happy for some reason, I again ask her 'Babe tickets', She's like 'There's still a lot of time'. I somehow decide to check the travel options and realised we are stuck with the worst one, "BUS TRAVEL".

Now talking about a bus travel, the first fear is the one to pee at a dark shady dhaba which would be stinking. Don't drink enough water has to be the strategy. The next scare are our superb roads, I don't know what have we be doing since 1947, practically in the last 80 years we just forgot that one day we will need roads. So I shied away from the plan of travelling by road for 12 hours and told the lady that she should just take some reviews of places where we can go by train or maybe take my car.

It was a week to be Diwali and we have looked through all the portals for places near Mumbai. We practically chalked out all places. Almost there I thought but how is that even possible. It is the last day where we need a decision, at 10 pm we realise the places we decided were either not worth for 3 days to be spent or would need more torture than to reach Goa. That's when amidst laughter at 11 pm we pin Goa. We try our luck hard the next morning to get a train ticket, Tatkal, Premium Tatkal, Ladies quota, Second seating not a single option left, but we get is a ticket with a waitlist of 17 after some 6 hours. Once the tickets were booked lightning struck us, we were not at all prepared, I believe we were on the phone reminding each other what all had to be taken. We knew we were going, only thing was still not sure how. Cutting it short, our wishes were not granted and it was the dreaded bus journey. But like all smart people I trust on Google and checked for the route and tried to console myself saying it's a really good road.

All packed we start for the bus stop, looking at Diwali traffic we take the local. She was running late so just ducked on the ticket and asked me to get one. Once I reached the station I realised either its the train or the ticket, I opt for the train. So we started without tickets and we still managed most of other days the TC would be waiting right for us to greet with 'Ticket please'. Waiting for the bus turned out to be a torture and once we got onto the bus we were suddenly hungry and had no clue what to eat because our smartness superseded our common sense. Mumbai roads would not keep things simple ever and we started to crawl like a snail in the traffic. Well that was not the only problem the bus just halted for more than half an hour at Chembur and still the brain never suggested that we could buy food. The poor hungry people on their adventure to Goa it was. Like I said at the start why I hate bus travels, the third reason is availability of food. We just crossed the Mumbai circle and I felt the roads would pull out every thing from my stomach I ever had, I just wished Google just did some more research on Indian roads and ask our esteemed bus drivers which are the roads they prefer. It was that now we were going to Goa and the next morning as we jumped out of the bus, I could smell more adventure.

Keep reading for the rest of the adventures...