K2S - The famous Katraj to Sinhagad Night Trek

If you're in Pune, and have a keen interest in trekking, then there is a high possibility that you must have heard about the famous K2S.

I am felling proud of myself, and for my group of 8 friends for having successfully nailed this - why so, hmm, to be frank it is not an easily doable kind of an outing, as in you don't need any special equipments for doing this, but it kind of tests you're patience to the core.

I was toying with the idea of experiencing the night trek, and what better than K2S. So during a lunch, i explained about this to a bunch of people in office, and as expected, almost instantly without even asking for details, my friends were more than willing to do it.
Gosh, don't know why, but we vella's are always so very ready to go anywhere without even knowing any detail. A senile person would have done atleast some research regarding the place, and required paraphernalia, but nope, we're invincible - bring it on baby, we're ready for any shit.
So the draft was set - start friday night from office itself, and go to respective homes on saturday morning.

Things needed:
1)Torches : compulsory, no torch no trek as simple as that.
2)Water : please don't expect that you will get water en-route the jungle that
   we will be trespassing.
3)Food : Same reason as above.
4)Gatorade: Not exactly required, but a blessing to have, you will find out why :-)

8 of us assembled at Katraj, well past 9PM. However if you're serious about finishing this trek by early morning, plan to start you're trek by 8:30-9PM.
From Katraj, we boarded a milk van to reach the starting point of the old tunnel :-)
However the driver suggested to start after crossing the tunnel. The route is pretty simple, get on top of the tunnel, search for a bunch of lights on top of the mountain - Ahh!!! that's my target, rightly put in as simple words as possible. There is no route, plan, map needed. 
However there is one catch, the target appears far, and by all means yes it is.
You will be passing around 15 hills, and for each of them, there is only one rule, peak to peak.
When we started ascending our first mountain over katraj old tunnel, we asked for Waghjai temple, located at top of the first hill.
We couldn't locate it, but as i said, all you need to locate from that hill is a bunch of lights on top of a mountain, so there is no chance of getting lost.

The view from our first mountain top was mesmerizing. It's such, on right hand side you have old tunnel, and on left hand side, its the new one.We will be crossing over the new one.
The city lights look beautiful. One side is Pune, looks like a sea of lights, and the other side is Shirwal, connecting them is NH4, looks like flowing lava.

Pune in Night

Thankfully to our good luck, the moon was very bright, in fact at many places, while walking over plateau, we even used to switch our torches off.
Now the first hill itself gave us a fair idea of what to expect. Firstly its not all rocky, so a little tricky. None of us were aware about what to expect, or how the route will be. 
When we reached the mountain top, i couldn't locate a proper route for descend, and the one which was available was very steep, almost like a fall. I was not sure if this is the route that we need to follow, so we started searching for help on maps, but alas, you don't get signal on mountain top - a good lesson to learn, do your homework first.

To our luck, we saw a group of people at the bottom of that same hill, it appeared to be around 40-50 people group. Which means, even they are here doing K2S, but in a group of this size.
Seeing no other route, we started our descend, and managed to reach the bottom of the first hill.
Ok, so the first one itself was this difficult, what do i expect from the other 14 left.
Meanwhile the group which was ahead of us, started ascending the other hill, and was almost disappearing behind the second hill.
So we raced to be with them.
Passing a few of the other hills was not as demanding as the first one, infact very easy.
Soon, we reached the group which was ahead of us.
Now these are 47 people big group from Alfa Laval. Having participant from all age group, it was but natural for them to go easy. We bid them good bye, and left them, while they were having food.

Now most of the hills were tricky, skidding is inevitable. You will skid no matter how cautious you are, everyone among us had bruised palms at the end of the trek.

Having done the first hill in top to bottom way, we were mentally a lot prepared to repeat this on other hills too, and this is exactly what is need top-bottom-top.

At 3AM we took our first official break. Took a nap, ate lots of food, drank lots of water, and started from there on.

Lack of sleep started to show its effect on everyone, and it manifested in our speed, and the number of breaks that we were taking.

Our destination Sinhagad Fort in morning, still a lot to cover

The sun started to show up, and we are still far from our destiny. My concern was, being summer we have to manage to reach Sinhagad by 8AM, otherwise it will be very difficult to even walk, the sun will be very harsh on us. I started pushing others to hurry up, atleast lets make it to the road by 6AM, but nope, the destination is still far away, and their are atleast a couple of more hills, even to make it to the road which goes towards Sinhagad.

  

So finally at 8AM, we reached the road junction.
Here Ashish gave up, and decided to hop on a vehicle and will meet us at Sinhagad.
The other 7 started walking albeit at an excruciatingly slow pace. The terrain had taken a toll over us.
Every muscle was aching.
We were strolling on the roads like drunkards. We took 1 hour, 15 mins, to cover 4 kms :-)  and we made it to the Sinhagad only at 9AM. So the trek took us 10 hours, 30 minutes to complete.
Ideally it should not take such long, but we are here for leisure trek, not competitive.

Had a heart full breakfast, enjoyed the moment, which felt as an achievement.
Started our return journey. 
But someday i will do this again, but to get the timings under 8 hours, anyone interested ???

Khadakwasla Dam Back Waters

Images - Special thanks to my budding photographer friend Manoj for some really amazing pics, more can be found at http://500px.com/manojhukeri
And for the other good pics courtesy my nexus4, i am a no good photographer, i seriously lack the patience required for taking nice pics :-)

A cute love story ...

I never believed in love stories, so bollywood movies were definitely not my taste. Arrange marriages never made sense to me, however love onces did made some, for a very obvious reason you at least know the person well enough to decide to spend your entire life with her.

Being single means freedom, carelessness, and so i made up my mind, never will i ever fall for anyone.

Other reason why i kept myself distant from the love bug - i felt its more of satiating your hormones, more of a duty, than it has anything to do with heart.

So there was I, just like most of you, living in my own world.

This incident happened a long time ago, then why have i decided to write about it now ???

Well i never had a thought about penning it down till just a few hours ago, and now i am going all crazy to finish this off, and share it with everyone.

This is a real incident, 100% true, i might have forgotten all the details but still, will attempt to be as close as possible to the one told to me. Names used are also fictitious.

I was on my regular Bangalore-Mumbai train journey, which is generally boring and uneventful.
I had upper berth, below mine there was this cute Gujrati couple - husband, wife and their cute little naughty daughter must have been 3-4 years then.
Gujratis are arguably the most friendly people, just strike a conversation with them, and they'll open up in no time, chatting with you just like a long lost friend.
I was playing with the little girl, her dad was trying to teach her something, but she wasn't interested.

There was something striking about this couple, i mean generally what i have seen, a married couple, after 5-6 years of marriage, they don't have the charm left in their relation, but here was this couple, they both were talking continuously with each other, the guy helping her with food and all, in short i was able to notice the affection still alive.

After talking with them for a couple of hours, the guy said, they are heading for a marriage somewhere in Gujrat, he couldn't get the direct train, so now they are travelling via Mumbai.
He told me, their marriage is 8 year old !!! and was literally called of, but somehow it went through, and now they're together.
Here's his version:

Previously we were living in Nagpur, there my family has our own business. We're into carpentering business. My marriage was fixed with Rani,
it was an arrange marriage.
But just 1 week before my marriage, Rani was doing something on 4th floor of their building, and suddenly, the stool on which she was standing tilted.
  -- She slipped from it, and fell from the 4th floor on her back.
Didn't damage her skull, but below her neck, many of her bones were fractured.
A completely shattered backbone, her chances of survival where very slim.
They rushed to the doctor, but he said, treatment cost would be very high, moreover chances of survival is very slim.
My father in law said, she had this in her fate, it's better if you move on and cancel the marriage.
I asked my FIL, had this incident happened after marriage, would he recommend the same ?
He went blank, i said my marriage is fixed with Rani, i have decided to spend my life with her, now no matter what happens, i am not going to loose her like this.
He asked the docs to go ahead, and start the treatment.
To his luck, a very senior spine specialist was visiting the Nagpur city for some ceremony. The moment he figured the news, he rushed to him.
Pleaded, told him his entire story, and asked for help.
The doctor decided to help.
An operation was scheduled.(i don't remember how many hours it went)
I used to visit her daily, when she was in hospital.
Helped her to walk again.
It took more than a year for her to recover.
Our marriage was conducted with hardly any glitz what it had at first instance.
My family accepted her readily, we were very happy.
But due to her medicines, she was not keeping very good health.
Doctors said, she needs to stay in some cooler place, so i decided to move down to Bangalore, here my cousin has his own business.
I joined with him, but now i have my own.

I was stunned, it sounded filmy, but then why would this guy bluff and make a story when i am a total stranger and have absolutely no business with him. I might in fact never even see him again.
I had to believe his story. And their chemistry, it manifested how much they cherished each others company, not just the guy, but the lady too.

Our journey came to and end, we all got down at Dadar, i bid  them a good bye, have to confess they left an impression on me.
After meeting them i wonder why is it that couples treat each other more as a burden rather than complementing and completing each other.
Why don't they cherish the same affection which they had when their relation was new.
People might argue, as relation gets old, people loose the interest, but if that is so, then why does a mother don't stop loving her kids after they get old ???
Why do people cling to their belongings even when they get old.
Why hobbies continue right from childhood to old age.
Many questions no answers, but one thing is for sure, they forced me to change the way i see.