Weekend Escape: Palasdhari

Probably a 3300 KM of travel in last week was not enough for so I’m hitting the roads again.

Actually small correction, it’s not road but railroad. This will be my first outing of this wet season. IndraDev have already been late in his deliverables by if not at least a month. Anyhow it’s always better to be late than never. It’s 8:00 in the morning and I’m standing on Pune Railway Station, Platform No.1, Alone. Even after a numerous attempt with all of fancy and hype I could create, I was not able to convince even a single of my knowns to accompany me over the trek. So, pulling me up with the only Ravindra Sangeet I know “Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re”, I boarded the Lonavala local.  

One hour later, I’m standing on Lonavala Railways Station, Platform No. 2. I can easily see clouds drenching uphill. But that not my destination (maybe some other day). Meri manzil kahi aur hai. Some few minutes later I boarded an Express train to Karjat and yes, the very best of Shaydri was in front of me, Unadulterated, Untouched. And if to see this spectacular scenic beauty, a Sheikh Couple flies in here from UAE annually, no one should be surprised.

Anyhow, this too is not my destination. 40 Min later I was at Karjat Railway Platform and exactly 10 min later I was standing on Palasdhari Railway Station, soaking in typical anti-Asheesh rainfall (I mean the one which starts only when ‘m out and stops as soon as I find a shade).

My pre hand research offered me two options, either to scale up Palasdhari Fort which was visible from here and second one was to move to Palasdhari waterfall. I wanted to do the former but chose the later. But I have reasons to it. All that I could read about this place had one thing in common. They all have warned to beware of wild boars, and some even have heard leapord. Aur abhi toh meri shadi bhi nahi hui hai. So I opted to be amongs human rather than encountering someone I cannot handle.

As a rule of thumb or a nature's law, or an engineer’s law, whatever you call it says, "Waterfalls are always located on hills, and railway tracks are not”. So anywhere you go, the waterfall is always located away from railway station, so is this. You have to walk for 20 minutes from station to reach there. The walk passes through lush green surrounding, and that's enough to turn you on, even if you've been there tens of times. The first sight of waterfall was disheartening especially when you are obsessed to relative "big". Nevertheless, the crowd was minimal. And it was actually a private waterfall.

I moved up the waterfall and sat a rock stable enough to seat me. The gushing water from both side and water tripping off my sleeves, well this was my destination. I was able to simulate the same feeling what Indradev shall feel seeing from above. I might over exaggerate it, but then it was sort of the feeling of being the Lord of Waterfall.  

Moving a little up the water fall I could find a place lonely enough to do the thing which I like the most, SOUL SEARCHING (and was much required as the Review Process in office just ended). The whole of Shaydri was there to listen to me. Express Trains kept making their presence occasionally. The winds were in a hurry to be somewhere and have dried me by now. After having a good talk with “Better Me” on what, why, how, where and politely asked him what next. He said “Ghar chalte hain”.

It’s 9:00 in the night and I’m standing on Pune Railway Station, Platform No.1, Alone Again. J

Remembering Pather Panchali

I love Trains.

 Given the fact that in my 4 years of my college life, I have covered more that 16,000 Km on wheels, even today every moment on railroad is so speacial and awaited for me.  

For some reason each time I’m on a train passing through vast fields in the Indian hinterland I’m reminded of the unforgettable train scene from Satyajit Ray’s classic Pather Panchali when Apu and his sister Durga ‘discover’ a train in a field of Kaash flowers.

Born into an accomplished Brahmin family himself, second to none in their achievements in the Arts, Ray’s Pather Panchali(Song of the Road) is a story of a poor Brahmin family from rural Bengal in the early twentieth century and charts the story of Harihar Ray’s impoverished family struggling to make ends meet. In a backdrop as grim as this the film belies the seeming futility of their existence with its portrayal of Harihar Ray’s children, Durga and Apu, as alive to possibilities of life, and ever ready to imbue meaning into the simplest of things that simply being alive had to offer.

Riding on their unaffected childhood innocence that manifests in their discovery of the world beyond their immediate circle of life the film unravels time to the pace of Durga and Apu’s life, and nowhere more so when Durga and Apu find themselves in a field of Kaash flowers, possibly drawn to the humming of high tension electricity wires, only to hear an unfamiliar sound carried their way on the breeze. Never having heard a train before Durga stills herself, her eyes having averted to a non existent visual frame before her, only the occasional jerk of her face in the direction of the sound indicating she was seized of the unfamiliar, and Apu having gone quiet, looking for cues in Durga’s absent gaze presses his face to the high tension electric metal pole even as the Kaash flowers sway gently to the breeze now bringing the mystery to the fore.

Seconds turn to minutes and as Durga breaks into a run to meet the mystery, Appu follows her. There among the head high flowers they pause unsure of the direction the sound was coming from, their heads still, the sound grows louder, and in the split passage of a moment on the threshold of unfolding the unknown, realization dawns, and their heads jerk to their right just in time to catch sight of thick black smoke in the distance gusting back above the heads of Kaash flowers, the engine and coaches hidden from view. Pushed back by the force of air yielding to the train’s momentum as it hurtles across the plains, the swirling black smoke might as well have been a demon snorting rage. Appu breaks into a run to meet his defining moment as he comes face to face with a steam locomotive for the first time in his life.

In that one moment of sprinting innocence I understood the Indian hinterland from a different perspective and my travels by Indian Railways were never to be the same again.

And yes, when back to my world and hunting for this artistic iconic movie of Indian Cinematography on google, I came across a postage stamp dedicated to this film. It might seem purely out context but I cannot avoid myself from posting it. Here it goes……

The Rat Race Syndrome

While I was sailing across the net (worthless to say, worthlessly), came across this very interesting image. And here are the thoughts that yelled out in me until I was forced to be pulled out of this.

When the flight lands, we get up from our seats and head for the exit. So what if the exit door is still closed. At least when it opens, we won’t have to wait behind a zillion people before we get to alight. When in a traffic, if on a bike, we always have to zig-zag our way to the front. When standing in queue, be it in the airport, mall, temple, some stores or in the bus depot we have to jump the queue.

In a temple, we also have a VIP entrance. For those impatient to stand in the serpentine queue and await their turn, you simply have to pay extra to get access to God’s attention a lot quicker than those guys standing in the queue. When in a Movie theatre, we wouldn’t mind buying tickets in black, if we know we might end up not watching the movie. In the station we have to be the first to board the train. How else will we get vacant seats to sit on? While on a short distance trip, I took a train back to Lucknow. Inspite of having booked my tickets in advance and got my seat numbers too, I found a family of four occupying my seat. I only got to sit after they had alighted. By the time we were approaching Lucknow, I was not the only ones sitting. I was sharing the seat with some five odd people.

What right do you have to sit comfortably on that seat when there are 5 other people standing? It is not a request. It is their right.

Its starts right from the beginning in the schools, I think. The teacher writes a sum to be solved on the board. “Whoever finishes solving the problem, put up your hand.” You have to be the first one to solve the problem, correctly. The one, who solves the problem and is luckily the first one, not only gets all the praises but becomes the envy of the class too. What pride in that :D So much of joy to watch your fellow classmates look at you with envy.

“If you come first in the class, I promise you a laptop.” And your child’s eyes grow wide with excitement. He indeed tops the class.

I often wonder, if there is no other way of living our lives. But probably, there is a reason why we are the way we are. It’s all about the survival of the fittest. We are after all, a population of 1.21 billion. Can you imagine? How else do you survive? The day you stop competing, that is the same day you stop surviving… Little little things we do like jumping the queue, sends cues to our unconscious or probably conscious brain that ‘Yes, we are still in the race…STILL COMPETING…STILL SURVIVING…’