It was the last day of our stay in pune. N it was presheduled for sight seeing. But being alien to the city we didn’t know the places of interest.. the popular spots……tourist attractions……nothing.we had no plans ready… n the scanty knowledge of our driver didn’t help much either.
At 10 in the morning we set out… not knowing where we were heading. Out of the info city where the iiit college is located , we somehow made our way through to the pune main city. We parked at the pune railway station and managed to get hold of a city map.
Three four amongst us took great enthusiasm and pain to locate tourist spots on the map. But locating places and finding ur way to them through unknown zig zag roads is a different ball game altogether. We tried another trick…. Asking our way to people… but trust me ..in a city tht doesn’t speak ur language, it can get very confusing and frustrating. The place we had zeroed in on was singhawad fort… a fort made on the top of a hill by Shivaji. It took us near about 4 hours and endless corrections in the pronunciation ( shrinagar, singhawat, singharwad… n many more) to finally reach the foot hill of the fort. It was raining all through…….
As we haulted , one guy came up and said tht we cant go further by bus. We wud have to take a car or jeep if we hoped to move uphill. But a jeep cud at max hold 12 ppl and we were 15….we moved in. Some sat on the seats , some on the laps of others. We were packed in like chicken in a cage… or still worse. Water was seeping in through the canvas roof…the jeep slowly moved up the hill….
The road was narrow.It was dark n raining….on both sides there were dense forests… n if u looked further there were cliffs on one side n vertical ditches on the other. It was scary, adventurous and romantic all at the same time. There were other people too… some on bikes, some in cars……some on foot too.
After about 50 mins, we were told that now we wud have to move on feet. We boarded down the jeep.. huddling under the umbrellas tht few of us had thankfully carried. We started climbing up.. in twosomes n in groups….taking snaps every now n then. By that time it had started raining quite heavily… n since we were sharing umbrellas..we were getting drenched.
We climbed up through rocks….and springs…round and round the hill ….. it was a tedious climb, I tell u…n it didn’t help a bit tht I was wet as a fish…water was dripping down my hair n my jeans was so wet tht it might hv weighed at least a kg. As we moved up… we cud touch the clouds literally. The wind was growing stronger .. and the rain heavier..with each passing second.There were people selling roasted corn and cold kulfi along the way… and people flocked round them for some hot break….
Wen we reached the zenith…..it was amazing…we were floating over the clouds.. n there wasn’t much above us except for a cellone tower. The wind was so fierce that the rain drops pierced us like needles. We didn’t feel much cold though it was freezing… cz we were already numb. It was one moment that has permanently been etched in our lives. A memory that cant be washed….
After savouring “the moment” it was time to climb down. On our way we had some kulfis( I never thought I wud have kulfis in tht chilling cold).the climb downhill was riskier. I sprained my right foot… n it still hurts me!!!!! From there we moved to a restaurant( we hadn’t had our lunch). It was around 5:30 pm then. Some had their snacks there.... while some had it packed. We were tired like anything. N whatever we were carrying along was wet. Our energy was low but spirits were at an all time high. After all u don’t have such experiences every day. From there it was another four hours to the college.. drenched and shivering… singing all the way….
Adventure for some ended there but for some hapless souls including me.. it continued till 3 in the morning…. Wen we were chatting n roaming in he iiit campus…. N how can I forget tht castel da was playing the mouth organ that he borrowed from some hostel guy.
It was surely one of the most memorable days of our lives. N even more so cz it came unexpected…..but if there was one thing tht made it less than perfect…it was the absense of someone……. cz wen u r living such priceless moments…. U miss the most priceless people….
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