Swapneel Shah

…Rajasthan Trip was part of Ramgarh visit… Here are other posts where I have recorded memories and experiences from the trip…

On the way to Ramgarh...

Though part of the Rajasthan Trip, I want to keep Ramgarh out of it… Basically because Ramgarh was not about the trip… It was about meeting Piyush (now Piyush-Toolika ) after sometime and visiting Piyush’s native-native place (after Rajnandgoan)… Actually it would be more correct to say that Rajasthan Trip was part of visiting Ramgarh… Yes, in fact the whole trip came into existence because of Piyush-Toolika coming to India for a two week visit… I started with taking two days off from office and then making it into a 4 day off and then finally even dragging Pravin and Nimesh into it!!!

Piyush came to pick Pravin and myself at Hawa Mahal, and we started for Ramgarh in the afternoon… Ramgarh- better known or distinguished as DattaRamgarh, is around 180km from Jaipur…

The Journey was pretty decent… It always feels good to see a close friend after a while and then keep on talking and talking… btw, those of you who don’t know about Piyush let me write something about him… Writing about Piyush will also fullfil his long time wish-requests-orders-threats to write something about him on my blog… Yes, this is a difficult and tricky thing to do… Firstly because it has to sound good… And secondly risky to write about one friend and not about others!!!

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…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I have recorded memories and experiences from the trip…

Mahendra Palace- Nimesh's choice... And a disasterously WRONG choice!!!

Reaching Jaipur, Nimesh and Mayur went off to find a Hotel for night stay… And Pravin and I reached an ATM outside the station to withdraw money… Piyush came to receive us here… Nimesh after about around 5 mins called and we reached the hotel… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Am stuck here from last few days to find something to write about it… … … … … Though the hotel came at Rs. 250 per day (for two) and I would have not stayed here even for free!!! But it was with respect to Nimesh’s friendship then I spent the night there, and now will refrain myself from describing the Hotel… The key chain however looks lot better and I specifically clicked it to record this memory and Experience… With a sleepless night next day really started on a heated up end with Pravin; over bargaining with a Auto Rickshaw driver… Maybe I was wrong; but his bargaining expectations were too much and we finally got in a BUS!!!

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…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I record memories and experiences from the trip…

After a decent day at office, Friday evening I rushed toward Bangalore City Junction (SBC) to check the status of my ticket… Confirmed!!! And the journey started on a good note… The journey by Karnataka Express was mostly uneventful, except for the 45 minutes between Itarsi Junction and Bhopal Junction; which deserves a separate post outside of the trip… Will write it soon… After a 36 hour journey by the Indian Railways, I reached Agra on Sunday morning…

Yes, a Rajasthan Trip that  started from Agra (Uttar Pradesh)…

Getting out of the Agra Cantt station I was invaded by loads of Rickshaw Drivers and I thought I was prepared well with the inputs from Nimesh and Pravin last night from their experience… But still ended paying out 20 Rupees to reach the hotel which was hardly few hundred meters away from station… For the first time I thought the Rickshaw’s in Bangalore were lot better… Getting ready, our first task was to reach out Fatehpur Sikri…

On the way from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri-

100's of pilgrims walking to some place in Rajasthan... (Picture looks nicer in full resolution... Click to enlarge...)

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Map 4 (RC 1)

Since a long time or probably since childhood when I did regular treks, camps, etc. I wanted to plan and enjoy a long trip on my own………

Piyush, one of my best friend is visiting India after a gap and was going to be around Jaipur in March… So I had plans to visit Jaipur for a couple of days to see him… I thought of adding few more and see Jaipur when I am there… And then finally decided to take this opportunity to plan a Rajasthan trip… So after lots of planning, reading, web-surfing, Google search results, travel-sites, blogs, train timings and managing ‘dates’ of all superstars and megastars of the journey; here is our travel iternery presented as RC 1.

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…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I record memories and experiences from the trip…

Sharing the invitation mail that I sent out to my friends…

Dated: Feb 28, 2009

Yesterday morning as I logged into my Google Reader to check blog updates; a line in one of the blog there said-

“”"am really happy when few of my friends really have tried to keep in touch, no matter where they are, whatever timezone they are in, but the ones I am referring to are the ones I feel are in front of the computer all the time, or carry a mobile phone with them for 20 hours a day, but still find it hard to use them to keep in touch !”"”

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 After the exhaustive day 1 write-up, I will try to shorten this one… Well, as far as the trek is concerned it wasn’t really…

It was tiring, and more tough because it turned out to be unexpectedly long!!! The expressions above say only one side of the story… It was also fun, pure nature, excitement and loads of private jokes, friendship laughs all the way right from the nature’s call in the morning to the last minute as we departed…

So lets start from where we left yesterday… Khandas- A small village surrounded by mountains on three sides… No phone network has still been able to reach here till date… But its an amazing place where you would not feel cut out from the world, but rather it takes you closer to mother nature… Walk out in any direction, look anywhere and its all green and lively…

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Nimesh-Hemant-Snehdeep-swapsshah-Pravin

3:30 pm: 23 phone calls… 65mins after the 1st call, loads of altercations on to go or no to go, who will go when, and people forced to drop-off live seminars we reached ShivajiNagar Railway Station to catch the Deccan Express before time Snehdeep-Nimesh-Pravin-­swapsshah and Hemant still slogging at office…

With all of us completely clueless about this particular trek, how long? where? how tough? it was all a unknown… We just knew that Yuvashakti was taking us to an overnight trek named Khandas Bhimashankar… Swapsshah to Aniruddha (Yuvashakti leader) “1stly thanks for accommodating us, on such a short notice and sorry for all the 12th hour hassle!!!”… While Pravin continued to fill up the half-filled forms standing in-between the train toilets… “Ae Hemant ka blood group kya hai???”(what is Hemant’s blood group???) I dropped off at Lonavalato wait for Hemant who was running late and Snehdeep-Nimesh-Pravin continued the journey till Karjat with the rest of the group…

4:45 pm: I rushed to the enquiry window to check the next available trains to Karjat… 5:05- Udyan Express, 5:25- Koyna Express, 7:25 Indrayani… I further made sure that the other folks collect enough information so that we can reach from Karjat to Khandas village… 7:45 was the last bus to Khandas from Karjat… I was strictly warned to return back to Pune if we don’t make it to this bus… Read the rest of this entry »

Today I received a bonus and thoughts ran down back to my 1st salary… Hummm… Everyone knows what the 1st salary means for an individual… It also meant so much for me… So many things keep on rolling in your mind as you see the money deposited in your account… Pulling out a mail from my Patni .pst that I wrote to a friend when he got his 1st salary in Aug 2006. It reflects my feelings when I got my 1st salary… It also has reflections of my recent past when I wrote this mail…

Sharing it with you-

“My memory of 1st salary… 9,849… everyone in my batch of 40 people who joined Patni Computer Systems Ltd. with me were enjoying… (In their own ways)… I was dormant… cool, unmoved… Read the rest of this entry »

Shabd! a movie I saw last night… Was a good one! liked it… was different… The Hero in the movie is a writer who writes true stories… and the movie revolves around a story that he writes and then lives at the same time… And in the end messes up his life as well as the story as he could not decide the end… So I think I should write the end first and then maybe continue with the story… This should help me not mess up the story… jokes apart… I am seriously thinking what will I generate out of this… loads of thinking and writing… hours spent!!! At the end… end… end… I think that I should be able to justify to the people that my actions were not that cruel or insensitive or materialistic or money-minded or career-minded or just driven by passion to do something… Or I think that they should understand my perspective and don’t take me something like the HEAVY words (that I have used in the previous sentence)… Or give an explanation why I drastically changed so much? Or make them realize that how right I am and how wrong they are or vice-versa… Or set up a discussion forum to discuss and discuss and discuss… Or just keep this as a memory for myself… Or send this write up to people to earn criticism/praise/suggestions/comments… Or just keep this as a memory for myself…Honestly, I am writing this for my friends, people I am associated with and all the people who mean so much for me… So that I am able to share a perspective with them that has given me… life! an identity… self-respect… calmness… confidence to build something… a feeling that I can bridge the gap between dreams and reality… or have dreams that are still bigger, wilder, crazy and real…

Swapneel*