LOTER: Lord Of The Engagement Rings

Disclaimer: Only for LOTR fans.


The world has changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.
Much the bachelorhood that once was...is lost.
It began with men agreeing to get engaged. There were rings that were used as a gift by the race of Men.
For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern themselves. But then the Men were deceived.
For another ring was made. In the lands of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom...a Lady forged in secret an "Engagement Ring"...to control the race of Men.
And into this Ring she poured her cruelty, her malice and her will to dominate Men all life.
One Ring to rule them all.


One by one, the Free Lands of Middle-earth fell to the power of the Ring.
But there were none who could resist it. Because the hearts of Men...are easily corrupted.
And the Ring of Power has a will of its own. And some things that should have been forgotten were made common. 
And for thousands of years...the Ring passed its all knowledge to every woman.


One of such rings ensnared a new bearer, the ring came to the creature Gollum when he got engaged to a misterious lady, who took him deep into the tunnels of the Misty Mountains.
And there the Ring consumed him. 
The Ring brought to Gollum unnatural short life.
Within 500 days it poisoned his mind. Then she married Gollum....

Agar Aisa Hota To Kya Hota...

People always say dream big, think out of the box, live your life to the fullest and so on... But last Sunday night was not for any of such quotes. We always dream of becoming a great personality and having great power. But what happened that night was in no ways near to these dreams.

It all started with the dinner at Dhawal's place (may be this was the effect of that dinner ;) ). We had the awesome food. Me and Priya already planned to go for a walk in Mindspace, we asked others to come, paaji and Satyan agreed. It was more of another outing than a 'walk', we went straight to the CCD and had some coffee etc. We were talking and talking on different matter then suddenly a thought came to our mind. The thought was "What if we were different from what we are now". It started with this and ended up as... well you will come to know... :)
So we started thinking if we were not what we are now but someone else, then what were we doing... Some of the weirdest ideas came to our minds. It started with Satyan, Kanwaljeet and me but as good friends we did not stop there, we included our friends as well in the story... (no offense)

कँवलजीत - 'एक गाँव के बहार की सड़क पर पुराने से ढाबे का चौकीदार जो रात में बैठे बैठे दुःख भरे गीत गाता है'
सत्यन- 'इस ढाबे के पास के ठेले पर पकोड़ीयां बेचने वाला जो पिछले दो साल से वही तेल इस्तेमाल कर रहा है '
वैभव - 'इन सब में सबसे फालतू इंसान जिसके पास कोई काम नहीं है, हमेशा मुफ्त के खाने की तलाश में रहने वाला'
गरिमा - 'इस ढाबे के सामने रोज सुबह झाड़ू लगाने वाली बाई, जो हर आने जाने वाले पर चिल्लाती रहती है'
अक्षय, मिहिर और सुहास - 'पास ही की साइकिल पंक्चर ठीक करने की दुकान पर काम करने वाले, सुहास हवा भरने वाला, मिहिर पंक्चर ठीक करने वाला और अक्षय गल्ले पर बैठने वाला'
धवल - 'कभी कभार यहाँ रुकने वाले बस या ट्रक में चुटकुले की किताबें बेचने वाला'
निखिल - 'यहाँ रुकने वाले बस और ट्रक में अखबार और नकली पोपिंस बेचने वाला'
अभिमन्यु - 'ढाबे पर वेटर जो काम कम करता है और पगार ज्यादा लेता है'
ललिता - 'वहीँ ढाबे के पास रहने वाली चार साल की लड़की जो साइकिल का बिना तानियों का पहिया एक लकड़ी के साथ घुमाया करती है और जिसके बाल चार साल से धुले नहीं हैं'
आँचल - 'ढाबे के मालिक की बूढी माँ जो शाल ओढ़े, एक कोने में खाट पर बैठ कर उसे ताने दिया करती है'
लक्ष - 'ढाबे पर आने वाले ट्रकों की सफाई करने वाला, और सभी ट्रकवालों को बार बार एक ही कहानी सुनाने वाला'
निमेश - 'पास के गाँव की पुलिस चोकी का हवालदार जो कभी कभी ढाबे पर मुफ्त का खाने आ जाता है, और ट्रक वालों से वसूली करता है'

The Mafia/Song Trouble

After the awesome trip of Guhagar in November 2009, everyone was enthusiastic for more fun. The next day when we reached office only one thing was in mind of everyone - Guhagar. All of us were there in the cafe for evening snacks, remembering the trip right from the start. The whole group was a family now, every evening we were meeting and discussing about similar trips in future. Those who could not made it to the trip were wondering what happened to us. We already told them our stories literally thousands of times. We were so excited that we were ready to go for next trip anytime. We didn't want to waste our weekends in sleeping and doing nothing. We thought we would atleast play Mafia like we did in Guhagar. So, we wanted a place where we can enjoy nightout. It was mid-week when Nimesh suggested to come to his place for the nightout, as his parents were not in town that weekend. Everyone was became at once for the weekend plan. We were going to have a Pizza + Mafia + Dance + Songs party :)
Saturday evening we were at Nimesh's home: Me, Nimesh, Kanwaljeet, Amruta, Lalitha, Madhur, Dhawal, Akshay, Garima, Lakshdeep, Nikhil, Abhimanyu and Bharat (Don't remember if anyone else was there). We ordered pizza around 9 PM and some of were not having it, like paaji as usual was on "dieting" :P . Others including me, ate a lot :).



We finished eating around 10, by that time Laksh and Nikhil decided to go back. So we remaining 10 planned to play Mafia, but after some tea.



Mafia, A game which we played on and on for 2 days in Guhagar and still wanted to play more. As usual we all started targetting Nimesh to kick him out of the game, thats because he confused everyone so many times in Guhagar that no one wanted to take any "chances" :P, but he fought back with lots of arguments. The game was on, we were are shouting at each other and no one was listening to anyone else. We played like this for another 2-3 hours. By that time Nimesh's neighbours must have got irritated by us. But who cared about them, we were only caring only about who is going to be kicked out and who will get saved in the game.
After 2-3 rounds of continious shouting and arguing we got bored of the game and decided to do something else. It was around 2 o'clock in the night, what could we do at that time, some suggested to go out and have something to eat and drink, but it was hard to find something near that place. Some suggested to go to Juhu Beach, but we thought it was too early to go there, we could go there at sunrise. Finally we decided to do what we wanted to since quite a time. We decided to record a song! :).
Yes that was very unusual thing, but with our 'besuri' voices the song that we choose, would quite suit on us, because the song was "Pyar Hume Kis Mod Par Le Aaya" So we started rehearsing, everyone had one para to sing and had to sing in most harsh voice one could make. :)
After practicing individually for a while we started sining in group. We were loud! Everyone was excited now and we started sining other songs as well in our loud voices. It looked like no one is going to stop now, but in sometime we started having sore throats and finally we stopped.
'Gosh, neighbours must have gone mad by now', everyone had the same thoughts in their mind, but none of the neighbours came to complain so we were on the roll... :)
It was around 3-3:30 am in the morning when we finally stopped sining and started random 'bakar'.
It was just few minutes after we ended our ordeal, the door bell rang. 'Shit! pass waale aa hi gaye pareshaan hoke', Maddy said.
We were all in the bedroom, Nimesh told 2-3 guys to come with him in the hall and rest all stayed in the room. He closed the door and went, in the room we were all thinking about getting rid of the neighbours asap. Suddenly Nimesh came back, his face was pale. He didn't look at anyone and said "Bahar Police waale aaye hain, kisi ne Police complaint kar di hai, 2-3 log aur mere saath aao aur baaki yahin ruko". It was like everyone got a heartattack at the same time. "Now what do we do, God help us", everyone was thinking the same thing. We were sitting in the room then the door opened, this time it wasn't Nimesh, it was a Policeman. He called all of us outside the room and then asked what was going on, we said we were just rehearsing a song, we weren't doing anything wrong, but the Hawaldar didn't want to hear anything from us. He just asked his questions. He then took all of the guys to the ground floor to his senior. Even when everyone else was tensed because of the situation, Abhimanyu was not (may be he has faced such situations before :P ). When we were going down by lift with the Hawaldar he forgot to press the Ground Floor button, Abhimanyu was satnding right next to him. The lift's doors closed but it was not moving, everone noticed it but did not dare to say a thing, all of a sudden Manyu said to the Hawaldar, "Button to dabao...". We were about to burst with laughter but then some how we managed to control. Pheeww...
Then we were standing outside the society with the Hawaldar and his senior was sitting inside the Police Jeep. We again pleaded to him that we were just singing a song, we did not know that people were getting disturbed (irritated is the right word ;)) He told us to shutup and asked us our names. First he asked Dhawal's he said it. Then it was Nimesh's turn. He asked his name, and the word came out of his mouth was 'Nilrreess', he said "What?". Nimesh said again but slowly "Nikhil", we were again about to burst with laughter... but controled. He could barely hear it, he asked again. This time Nimesh said "Nilesh...". He wrote it down. We were laughing inside but also thinking that he will get us all in trouble.
Then Akshay talked to the Police Officer and we all begged. Then he gave us a warning to keep this in mind next time. We said yes we will. Then he left us all and went away.... wowwwww!!! What a relief...
Everone was looking at each others faces, then we went back to the flat and decided to go out because it was about dawn. Some of us planned to go to the Juhu beach and some just wanted to go home and take rest. So we went to the beach and stayed there for some time and I got to clik some amazing pics there, like this one :D

The Trip

I was thingking about it since we came back, but I had lots of work and was too busy to get any time to even start on it. Amruta had already done it, I thought I will surely do sometime but tonight when Madhur sent the link of his blog telling the story from his perspective, then I decided that I will also start it now...writing about one of the most exciting trip anyone of us has ever had... The Guhagar trip!!

It all started with the cancellation of our last plan, Daman trip was cancelled at last moments and everyone was upset about it, though I did not take active interest in that trip, but like everyone else I was feeling that we should go for another trip... After few weeks I had a talk with Gari and Akshay and they told me about this place, a small village with beautiful beaches, with very less crowd, which was hard to imagine especially after seeing beaches of Mumbai and even Goa. Anyways, they told me to keep the plan in stealth mode untill they are ready with some options of accomodations and other arrangements. After few days when Akshay came up with the options after consulting with Suhas and other people we started asking people. Slowly, people were taking interest in the trip even Anuj and Madhur agreed to come. Anuj, I think, was ready to go out of Mumbai for the first time ;) :P

So, finally after lots of dicussions total 12 people agreed to go, Me, Akshay, Gari, Lalitha, Kanwaljeet, Madhur, Anuj, Dhawal, Nikhil, Anchal, Amruta and even Nimesh (well he prefers staying at home and resting than wandering around at new places). And the date was finalized as 14-15th November.
We decided to collect money before the trip(kind of prepaid) so that no one would have to take the burden of spending from his pocket. And we started mail chains to tell everyone about the status of the trip and to ask for the money (which was the main purpose).
By start of November 2nd week, accomodation and taxi were taken care of by Akshay and Garima.
The only thing remaining was the train tickets, which we had to book in tatkal. We decided to go by Konkan Kanya to Chiplun on friday 13th (:O I just realised why our trip was so different!!! we started it on FRIDAY THE 13TH) and come back by Jan Shatabdi from Chiplun on 15th evening.
So we were all set in the mood for the trip by the start of 2nd week. The week started with some good and bad news. The good news was that Akshay had made booking for accomodation and transportation at Guhagar, and the bad news was that our trip was on the verge of cancellation...
The depression at the west coast of Maharshtra was developing into a tropical cyclone which meant that we could not go for the trip. I was thinking that God is playing with us, last time Daman trip and this time Guhagar trip both getting cancelled because of weird reasons (atleast I felt so)
Anyways, we proceeded as planned, we decided to book the tickets for 13th which we had to do on 11th morning, but this was one of the busiest routes on weekends because many people go to Goa by this train so we had to be fast for booking the tickets, for this I arranged "livemmetings" with Paaji and Gari and discussed with them on how to book tickets as fast as possible :D
But later on only me and Gari had to book the tickets, so we had to woke up at 6:30 in the morning to get ready and come to office for reservation which was quite hard for both of us, so we decided to call the other when anyone of us wakes up.
Thank God we were able to wake up and book the tickets for our journey to Chiplun. Now there was no turning back :), but as the journey date was approching, the cyclone named Phyan, was approching towards our destination: Guhagar... we were constantly keeping track of the situtation as parents of many of us wouldn't allow to go for the trip and we did not want that. Luckily, the cyclone became weak and finally ended soon after the landfall. And the reports were that it didn't impact that much. Ratnagiri(where we were going) and some other districts were some what affected. But the cyclone was ended. I even sent a report and satellite image to our mail chain so that everyone one would be relaxed. Now it was sure that we were going! :D
The next day Maddy and Gari went HyperCity and did lots n lots of shopping...all for our snacks :D
On the journey day there was one more task to finish for me and Garima, the return tickets...This time we were more confident that we will get the tickets as easily as the last time, but when we logged in we were welcomed by the standard message from Indian Railways "Service Unavailable", we tried many times but we were constantly getting this message only. Finally after trying for 8-10 mins I was able to get the proper data and finally was able to get the reservations for 6 ppl in my list, but Gari was still struggling with Indian Railways...only God and people sitting around(if any as it was 8 o'clock in the morning) her know how much she had cursed that site on that day. Finally the site worked for her but she still had to get the reservation for remaning six people, and the site was showing total remaning seats as 9, but she was not going to let it go so easily, she booked the tickets with electrifying speed. Finally all the tickets were booked!! We were really happy and wanted to shout and tell everyone that we are going!!!
But too much excitment is also not good for u, and I realized that quite later. In the excitment I did a serious mistake...letting Gari write a mail from my ID :( ... this mail started a chain reaction of mails which everyone knows as the "See u at Dadar" reaction :(

Some of us were not bothered about where we were going until 2-3 days before the trip, they were excited just by the fact that we were going for a trip together. But now everyone was ready for the trip. Most of us decided to leave the office by 6pm, Anuj came office with all his luggage so that he could leave for Dadar station from office directly. In the excitement I could barely work but I had to checkin my code before I leave the office, but I wouldn't be me if I did that :) I left the office without checking in the code and thought I will do it on Monday after coming back. I left the office at 7:30 pm, was feeling relaxed after the thrill in the office a few hours back...

Everything was going fine, I was working on my code when suddenly my desk phone rang, it was Anuj's call:
"Tune kuch dhundha kya?"
"Kya dhundha???"
"Oh!! Tujhe kuch nahi pata na?"
"Kya nahi pata?"
"Upar aaja jaldi se, batata hun..."
I immediately went upstairs to Anuj n Madhur's desk thinking what the hell went wrong now... Garima was also there, she was googling for "Guhagar Hotels", I was surprised seeing this, Madhur was standing behind her, he said: "Jiske yahan rehne waale the usne Guhagar aane se mana kar diya hai, bola ki 3-4 din se lights nahi hain, wo accomodation nahi dega..." It was literally like 'Pairon ke niche se jameen khisak gayi ho'. But Gari, Akshay (who was on sick leave) and Maddy were continously searching for other places for the stay and transportation. We tried MTDC and other places, finally Akshay was successful in negotiating with one person but the problem was that there was no electricity. He agreed to use generators for whole night and few hours in day. Our major concern was that the budget was going to be more than what we expected in worst case. We immidiately called everyone to meet in cafe, we told about the situation. No one was ready to cancel the trip now, we all agreed to pay more. phewwwww what a relief!! :)
So now I just wanted to get ready and reach Dadar asap, didn't want to get late at any cost...