A nice weekend

Had a great weekend (19-20 Sept 2008). Friday night had a great party @ Yellow Chillies at Koregaon Park (the hotel is owned by Sanjeev Kapoor of Khana Khajana fame).

Saturday morning it was raining and that too furiously. It was raining on friday too and non-stop. The climate conditions on friday made me think it would be a boring weekend sitting at home but it was not to be.

Friday afternoon there was a mail from Shailesh regarding the weekend and whether we should meet for sometime and stuff , most of the people were uninterested so I thought the weekend would be a boring affair :)

Early in the morning on Saturday I received a call from Shailesh that shall we enjoy something this weekend by going to a movie Rock On!! and then deciding what to do next. He asked me to contact Saurabh as he was too coming.

Saurabh called me to say that we could goto Mangala @ 5.45 pm show for Rock On! and then have a great evening @ JM road before retiring for the day @ Shailesh's place and Sunday was promising enough with a badminton game in the morning with Abhijeet and Vishal (Builder) and then something else too.

Tanmay had called up Friday that we can meet up on Sunday afternoon for lunch as we hadnt met a long time , so we decided we could meet up after the badminton session and have a nice time.

Deepak had opted out of the saturday stuff because of some personal stuff so he wasnt there on saturday.

I started saturday at 4pm from home , as my pass had expired took the pass at the station and got onto the 4.21pm local at Chinchwad. Met Saurabh and had an uneventful ride to Shivajinagar. The rain had stopped but the sky was still overcast and we were praying that it shouldnt rain until we reached Mangala. We walked the way from Shivajinagar station to Mangala in about 20-25 minutes discussing stuff.

We reached Mangala at about 5pm and took the tickets for Rock On! - I was seeing the movie for the 3rd time and as Sau was seeing it for the 1st time I decided to give him company and also the movie was good so not a problem. Shailesh came in by 5.30pm and we went into the theater and enjoyed the movie. The movie was rocking even when I was seeing it for the 3rd time. :)

We came out of the movie by 8pm and went to JM road for dinner. In between Shailesh showed us the river @ PMC which had a large volume of water thanks to the heavy rains, the river was ferocious and we had a great time seeing the river and the side road which was submerged in the water.

Had a great dinner @ Subhadra on JM and came out. Decided to take ice-creams from Naturals and have a walk along the river side. Came to the PMC bridge and discussed stuff about traffic and Pune and all. Came back to the car-parking took the car and went to Shailesh's home and retired for the night.

Morning had tea at shailesh's place and went to Tilak Road for playing badminton at Marathwada Hall. We had breakfast at Tilak Hotel and went to the hall. We met Abhijeet and Builder there and then had a great session of badminton for about 2 hours by the end of which we were exhausted but felt energetic. We decided to play badminton every weekend or atleast when we were free. Its a nice and energetic game and we needed something like this to break our lazy routine for the weekends.

We came out of the badminton hall and went to Tilak hotel and had vada-pav and sarbat and then parted saying byes to each other and went to CCD @ JM road to meet Tanmay. Tanmay was already there and Veena and Himani had also joined in. We had a great time chatting with them and then went to Aryan hotel near FC road for lunch.

The lunch was ok-ok and we had mexican food , Deepak had joined us for lunch here after doing his work in Pune and we had a great time chatting and eating. Sharayu also came in for lunch. After lunch we parted saying good bye to everyone. Me , Shailesh and Saurabh decided to go to the tekdi near Paud road and Deepak would join us later as he had to meet some friend.

We went to Shailesh's hous again and freshened ourselves and went to the tekdi at 5pm. Chaitanya too joined in and Deepak was waiting at the top at the parking. We walked our way to the highest point (Vetal tekdi) via a jungle path which was wet and slushy. We reached the top and immediately climbed a machan which was erected there. Once on top of the machan the views were simply amazing.

We could see the whole Pune city and all the places. Had a great time here and took some photos there. Came down from the Machan and went to the Vetaal maharaj mandir and paid our respects and went to the backside there to see the sunset. The tekdi was connected to the Pashan and Chaturshringi hills and we could actually trek/hike the whole place as it was connected. I plan to do that sometime.

We took photos of the sun going down and also enthusiastic people :) and started back. Took a bus from the Paud phata to PMC with Saurabh. Deepak on his bike went to Talegaon with his sis.
Walked down from PMC to Shivajinagar station and took the local back home.

A nice weekend to say. Full of adventure and meetings with friends!