My Diwali Vacations and Get-together at Nanded

I am just back from a refreshing tour - an 8 day break (the longest I have had in past 3 years). Spent 4 days in Nagpur, a day in Nanded and nearly 3 days travelling in buses and trains. All along the journey I cursed my decision to have not chosen the aerial route, but still I had many things to observe and learn and I would I have missed them otherwise (would write more about that some time later).

At Nagpur, I witnessed one of my best Diwali festivals. It was important for me for many reasons - firstly, I was at home for Diwali after nearly 3 years, secondly, because it was my first Diwali since I started earning, and thirdly, because most of my of dear ones were with me. My gaining the status of an earning member of family was the centre of most of the discussions. And adding flavours to all these conversations was the news of my upcoming trip to USA. You wouldnt be very far from being accurate if you tried to correlate it to a typical Hindi film setting. On most ocassions I felt stupid at being praised, for I thought that the trip wasnt anything that I had acheived or that I could celebrate about, but then I did not want to deny the rare opportunity of being crowned as a king, even if only momentarily.

The most exciting part of my tour was the get-together with my troop (HaRdBoYs and ToUgHgIrLs, as we love to call ourselves). Let me give a quick introduction to our troop; HaRdBoYs - Ashish Kumbhare, Mahesh Sayankar, Sandeep Satpal, Sandesh Tawari, Shyam Wadhekar, Vishvas Trikutkar and Vishal Ruikar, and ToUgHgIrLs - Deepika Nemanwar, Harjot Gulati, Sonali Mamidwar, Swati Mamidwar and Vanita Rangnani. We all graduated from SGGSCoET in 2004 majoring in Computer Science and Engineering. This was our second major get-together since 2004; all most all of us were there except for Mahesh, Vishal, Swati and Deepika who couldnt make it this time. Nothing was pre-planned (except that we all knew that Vishvas was going to be the star of the show and I was going to be the treasurer :( ), but still we all seemed to always know what we were going to do the next. Vishvas was our defacto host; I must say that his house is an ideal picnic spot, away from hustle-bustle of Nanded. As usual, we had a gala lunch prepared by Aunty (Vishvas's Mom), a soon-to-be family member of Vishvas, Vanita and Harjot. I wouldnt have remained in a semi-awake state all throughout the day had Sandeep not made a bed/pillow out of me in the journey previous night. After the lunch, we all moved towards Kaleshwar temple, which is on outskirts of Nanded, 1.5 kms away from our college, on banks of Godavari. Godavari banks were overflowing with water and so we were denied access to our defacto picninc spot, where we would otherwise have had rounds of gossips and photo-shoots. But to compensate we decided to take a boat ride - that was great and refreshing. I had received prior warnings that, while in Nanded, I shouldnt be meeting any professors and other friends; infact, the on the last get-together I was held guilty of that and seriously accused. I was quite serious about not doing that this time but, call it my luck, I met 2 profs at Kaleshwar. After we were spotted by profs (perhaps it was we who saw the profs and the profs did not notice us at all), we decided to leave the place but then we soon realised that we had lost keys of one of the vehicles. Searching squads were formed, many theories were suggested and a probe began, but all in vain. Finally we had to take help of a rickshaw driver to fail the vehicles locking mechanism. Somehow we managed to reach Nanded by evening. Evening was spent at a Juice outlet and a fast-food/icecream shop. Archana (Vanita's elder sister) and Esha joined us there. That same evening Shyam had a train to catch. Sonali too left soon. I had a train to catch early next morning and so I too decided to retire for the day. Ashish too left the next morning. Sandeep, Vanita, Vishvas and Harjot would perhaps have had somemore funtime the next day. It was overall a great experience and the kind I always long for. Wouldnt write anything more about it except that I now have somemore memories to cherish for lifelong. Now I am waiting eagerly for Ashish to post the pictures. Meanwhile have a look at the snaps of our first get-together in Sandeep's photo gallery and at Vishvas's blog.

Books that I have (to) read.

What I have read so far - Abridged Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, The Alchemist, Wings of Fire, Ignited Minds, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Pilgrimage, Gandhi (by Nanda) [half read], Lajja (by Taslima Nasrin), The Kite Runner, Abridged Gita [beyond my comprehending abilities, so reading slowly].

Sometime soon, I wish to start on the ones suggested by Shish

1. The Goal, Its not luck, The critical chain (Eliyahu Goldratt),
2. Essential drucker, Managing yourself, Management challenges for the 21st century (Peter Drucker),
3. Straight from the gut (Jack Welch)
4. And once again (perhaps that would be the third time) Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi

Meanwhile I found a new book...borrowed it from a friend - The Vendor of Sweets (by R.K Narayan). Fiction again. But you know this author is a great story teller, most known for his works - "Malgudi Days" and "Swami and Friends". And this guy happens to be a brother of the celebrated cartoonist, R.K Laxman (yes the same Laxman whose cartoons regularly feature in Times of India). Well, haven't yet started reading it but am feeling so excited that I have made up my mind to buy out and read up all of his works. More on him here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.K._Narayan

At last !

I wonder what took me so long to get started. But am happy that I finally muttered the courage.