Men who wont quit being BOYS

The Group minus Bala M

It was pending since a while. We had planned it many a times before and it never materialized. Well, not this time. A Bike trip to Kolad and Ratnagiri in the Konkan belt of Maharashtra on the way to Goa. The bike trip was to be complemented by River Rafting in the Kundalika River the next day. The riders were Raj on his 500CC Bullet classic; the beast as we call it, Bala K on his Yamaha R15 and me on my Yamaha Fazer, the humblest and the modest of the lot. The pillions were Bala M and Stanley George. Another friend ditched the plan and US at the last moment.

Kolad is about 140 km's from Bombay. You need to take the Sion - Panvel road and reach McDonald's near the mouth of Pune expressway. Go below the expressway take a right at the circle and continue on the NH 4. Pass through Panvel and join the NH 17. This is a right turn at a heavy junction area where the board shows Pune if you go straight. The right indicator shows JNPT/Uran. I am not sure if NH-17 board is being put there. NH 17 takes you directly to Pen via Karnala from where you take a left at Vadhkal Naka (Pen Market) and connect to the Goa Highway. Kolad is on this highway.

We went in July and the ride was just amazing. It was raining all the way.

Our first destination was Pooja Farms in Kolad. It is a wonderful lake side resort about 12 kms from Kolad Market, at a place called Sutarwadi. I had been there before and love the place for its location,view and the lake where they have a fishery. The location is Serene and beautiful with good Maharashtrian food as a part of the package.

We left from Sion at about 7 in the morning, behind schedule by 1 hour, thanks to our friend Raj. I still cant digest his reason of some tool kit arrangement. Anyways, we reached Shivaji Nagar, a separate country within Mumbai. Luckily they didn't ask for our Visa. Its only later we realized that the president of Shivaji Nagar, Bala Murugan Kathiresan (Bala M here) was our friend and part of the trip. Hail Bala M!

The Man with the third Nipple on his forehead - Stanley

Our first Chai wala stop was at Vashi. Its here we met a gang called 'Bisons - ride hard'. Ride here means their bullets (dirty people). Raj was the only one who was given a look by that group. Simply because only he had a bullet which was like a license to speak to them.

Raj negotiated the joining terms and conditions and also booked an appointment, while we enjoyed our cup of tea with some smoke flying around.

Bala K who was in the John Abraham cum Anil Kapoor Avatar showing his hairy biceps attracted a look of gaze from the people (old and still older). But the sport that he is, he managed to wax through the situation.

Stanley was our official photographer. He tried various stunts while riding as a pillion to take pics of everything around including his third nipple on his forehead (please see the pic for the proof).

The Riders

We took a lot of breaks on the way. I loved posing for pictures. Sometimes with the glares on and later with the helmet close to my hip to look like a real biker. A real biker we were, so to speak, but still - u can understand. While taking one such picture, Bala M almost got taken away by a truck. He went into the middle of the road for that perfect click of our lovely faces.
Rains hitting your body felt like stones hitting us hard. I wore my helmet, now the sound of the rain drops hitting my helmet was like listening to raag malhar mixed with the bike strokes.

We reached Pooja Farms, right at time for lunch. We were dead hungry. We put our luggage's in one of the tents allotted to us - since the lake cottage was still not free to occupy. We were about to change our wet clothes when Raj had an idea flash through his amazing brain. He suggested since we don't have anything to do in Pooja Farms apart from lust lazing around, why not ride to the Raigad fort via Mahad after lunch. Perfect - another 150 km's up and down in the rain and the return journey would sure be under the moonlight. No efforts put in convincing anybody - after all we are BOYS still, right.

When we asked the resort supervisor to shift our bags to the cottage later as we are going to the Raigad fort, he had a surprised look on his face. I thought he thought that our thought was very ambitious. But then the look didn't even come close to convincing us to change our mind. We enjoyed a nice lunch packed with chicken curry and bhindi bhaji, fryams and dal and rice. Just enough fuel we needed till we reach the Raigad fort. We rode towards Goa from Kolad and Mahad was 50km's away. I need not say how beautiful the ride was. If it was a Movie - I am sure the cameraman would have shot us from an helicopter and the audience would have see lush green set up with a Dark Gray line in between where there are like the 3 hunks; I mean the bikes, zipping through.

Bala M - AKA - Mandakini

As we reached Mahad, the tiredness had started to creep in slowly. We were at a junction where we had to take a left towards Raigad Fort. The big banner with Shivaji Maharaj's picture showed the direction to the fort.  We stopped for Chai and started discussing if its a good idea to ride further 25 km's to reach the base of Raigad. The consensus was that as we have come so far, we cant cut short our goal. The next 25 km's was the best that a biker can ask for. Well almost the best; I personally want my Ladakh trip to be the best. We were gaining altitude rapidly and overcoming some steep curves while riding cautiously in the fog. Now that sums up the situation. We stopped at a waterfall on the way. Its here where Bala M enjoyed the waterfall even more than what Mandakini would have done in Ram Teri Ganga Maili. Really! he posed like her too (check the pic for confirmation - I don't lie).

Raigad Fort

We reached the base of the Raigad fort by 5 and we hurriedly took the cable car to go to the fort. This was another highlight of the whole trip. First time I was going to be elevated to a higher altitude by a cable car. While going up, I wanted to take so many pictures but I couldnt take any. It was so foggy that it resembled heaven; the abode of the gods. I almost felt like Ramba and Urvashi may come to dance sometime soon. The journey by the cable car is for about 5 mins, but it feels amazing. If it wasnt the fog you can get amazing clicks of the waterfalls around, the valley below and the fort on the top.

Shivaji's Throne

The Raigad fort is very huge. It is in a better shape than many of the forts that I have visited. Raj was our guide who showed us around with stories like how the queens used the bathrooms, where the prison was, how punishments used to happen etc. I liked the Darbar area of the fort, where they have a huge Shivaji's statue on a throne built exactly where he used to have his original throne. Once you are near the throne you can actually feel how it would have been if you were Shivaji's Fan man with the peacock feather bundle been swayed right and left. On a serious note, that place has natural amplification. Any whisper anywhere in the Darbar can be heard clearly near the throne. So thats when I started to challenge the fact that the amplifier was invented outside India. We had that centuries before it was invented. So what if someone added wires and some chips to it the whole set.

One of the Many waterfalls

Waiting for Rambha and Menaka ;-)

We rushed back to the cable car in 30 minutes as we had to ride back as well. While coming down the fog had cleared and we could take some nice pictures. While we rode back and the light had started to fade, we realized that Raj's headlights weren't functioning and Bala's bike battery was running low. Anxious moments. Raj managed to fix the bulbs. I had no doubt he wouldn't; he is born with electricals and electronics in his mouth, hand, head, mind and what not. As Bala K could face issue on the way, we decided he rides in between the other 2 bikes so that if anything happens one can stop for help. This worked for us and we covered the next 75 kms in about 2 hours. Riding the bike in the ghats at night with the high beams from the opposite side temporarily blinding you is a nightmare which came to reality that day.
Once back in Pooja Farms, we changed into dry clothes for the first time since 6 am. We had food and just crashed on the bed.

The Alarm rang the next day at 6.30. We had asked for a vehicle to take us to the Rafting site at the Kundalika river. We wanted to be on time and kept asking our resort guys and also cursing them for not arranging the car on time. By the time the car came and we reached the spot it was 8. Only after reaching there we realized that the resort guys didn't hurry up because no one reaches on time. Obviously Except Us. What happened for the next half an hour is evident in the pictures. Photo shoot followed by some fun in the river. Though we were the first to reach our raft was ready only by 10.45 because we were 5 and there had to be 4 more people to join us and apparently all other groups were perfect 8 or 9. Point noted for the next time.

Ready to Raft

The rafting experience, I had expected would be more tough than what we actually encountered. We had a few crazy rapids along the way where our raft flew for a few seconds to land perfectly thereafter. But that was all, there was not much excitement after that. We rowed really well. And manoeuvred around without much difficulty. Balam M was all talks and no action. We put him in front to sit and balance the raft. And thus he assumed a central position in the entire operation.
As we reached the last leg, a calm patch of the river we jumped into the river and swam for about half an hour and that was a beautiful experience. Since we had our life jackets, we could float so effortlessly.

The whole rafting experience was great. It left us wanting to try the Ganges soon.






The ride back home was peaceful too. Only that we rode slow and relaxed and enjoyed the heavy rains. But our body was shouting at us saying 'Stop Pretending, and admit you are growing old'. No! we retorted. We will grow old when we want to.