Sunday date with Ms.Lavasa

The plan was made well in advance, on my cycling trip to Sinhagad. I was searching the map and Lavasa caught my eye. Well, anything which shows green on the map draws my attention cos it means a green belt. And cycling in greenery can be fun.

I zeroed in on this Sunday. I had fine-tuned the brakes, oiled the chain and adjusted the seat so as to make the ride comfortable and eventless.

The plan was simple: Start before sun-rise. Reach Lavasa for breakfast. See whatever is there to be seen. Return home for lunch. Take rest for half a day. Be fit and fine for the week.

Unfortunately was chatting with Suzie till late in the night and could hit the sack only by 1.30. I couldn’t wake up before 6.30 and I was geared up and out by 7. While Sandeep Maheshwari’s lecture on Law of attraction v/s Law of love running in my earphones, Microsoft’s HERE maps was giving me directions. Once out of the city I switched off the maps and GPS so as to save the battery for pics n music later in the ride.

I met Jyoti, with whom I had cycled to Lonavala couple of months ago, on the way. She rode with me for about 5 kms before she stopped and decided to return. That was sad. Company on long rides are not only fun, but essential to keep the spirits up when you hit the wall.

For the next one hour I just rode – the weather was pleasant, roads were more or less flat, the lecture was giving lot of motivation… When I noticed that there were no milestones reading “Lavasa” I stopped to ask a shop-keeper. It was shock when he said that I had to take a deviation 20 kms earlier to go towards Lavasa.

I started the map just to ascertain that I was not being conned. I wasn’t. I had 2 options, go back 20 kms and then ride on to Lavasa. Or I could ride 20 kms ahead to a waterbody, which my map told was Mulshi reservoir.

I chose the second option.

As I rode on, I could see lots of people overtaking me on bikes and cars, most of them couples. I decided that when the time comes, I’ll be riding here with Suzie.

Mom called when I just spotted the water in a distance. The conversation that ensued can be summarized something like this:

“Where are you?”

“Riding to Lavasa”

“When will you be back?”

“By lunch-time”

“Is it a proper road?”

“Of course, full of tourists.”

“Don’t go to lonely areas or jungles”

“Sure”

I had some corn and onion pakoda at a small petty shop. After 60 kms of riding, this simple breakfast tasted heavenly. The maps told me that if I go 15 kms more I would hit a small path leading to Lavasa. On cross-checking with the shop-keeper, I understood that there was indeed a path, but it was not a proper road. It was under construction and leads through hills and forests.

“Just what I needed”, I beamed and registered a mental apology to Mom.

I took the cycle off the road towards the lake. After resting for a while in the cool breeze, I hit the road again.

The next 15 kms had intermittent drizzles. As long as it was not too heavy, I would enjoy the way it kept me fresh…

When I reached Tamhini, I realized what the shop-keeper meant by “under construction”. There was a weather beaten road, complete with pebbles, potholes and boulders disappearing into the hills. It didn’t deter me. I rode on. After some distance, the path was too steep and the terrain too rough to cycle even for a mountain bike; and mine was only a hybrid. So I began pushing…

Little did I realize that this exercise was to repeat several more times during the day.

The hilly stretch between Tamhini and Lavasa was arguably the best ride of my life. Deserted, green, hilly, drizzle, calm, selfies… it was a perfect concoction for adventure. I had my share of speeding downhill, passing through tribal villages, crouching under trunks when it rained heavily… Somehow I made it to Lavasa. For those who want to try it out, this particular stretch of road does not figure on Google maps.

I expected love at first site with Ms.Lavasa. But first sight was a disappointment; I was entering from the wrong side of Lavasa and all I could see was lots of construction work and a dry river. As I rode further I could spot the real Lavasa, the so called modern smart city. To put it in one sentence, Lavasa is just a small township built around a river on the lines of Italian architecture. There were loads of eateries and games for kids and families. I decided that when the time comes, I’d spend few weekends in here. 

After a quick Biriyani, I shopped at Mapro’s for a variety of fruit chews and Crush. This was a mistake – it added some 4 kgs to my backpack (which is quite a lot on such rides) and I had no idea what was waiting for me…

I had done some 90 kms since morning. Stomach full, body relaxed, I decided to start on the last 70 kms home. I asked a passer-by, “Which way is Pune?” He pointed and said, “But you can’t go on cycle. It’s steep uphill.” I had no choice. I had to reach home for the night, so as to be in office the next morning.

For the next 2 hrs, I just pushed the cycle up the hill. It looked never ending, as I could see the road snaking its way up the hills and into the clouds. To make things worse, there were these couples zipping up n down the hill on bikes. It was 6.30 in the evening when I reached the summit, fully drained. I stopped to click a pic at “Welcome to Lavasa”. I could barely force a smile.

Once up the hill, I got a steep downhill descend for 5-6 kms. I just zipped past all those bikes and cars, a childish avenging gesture, after they had climbed past me up the hill. I trusted my repair skills on the effectivity of the brakes, cos one failure on the brakes would send me flying off the hill into the inviting but deadly dam below...

The ordeal was far from over. Pune was still 50 kms away and as I went on, I encountered 3 more hills to be scaled. I guess I must have hiked some 30 kms, pushing the cycle along in the whole day, apart from over 130 kms of cycling. My thighs were crying for mercy and my shoulders felt like it was carrying the earth like Atlas.

I stopped for a mango milkshake just at the outskirts of the city. That was refreshing. But the last 15 kms through the city to reach home was on pure zombie mode – I was just mechanically pedalling devoid of any kind of emotions or feelings. All I wanted to was to reach home and crash on my bed.

By the time I did that it was 9.30 in the night.

The last thing I remember before dropping into a trance like a corpse was making a rule: No more long rides alone. I have to hunt for company now.

Bollywood Blues

Our wild estimates on the depth of our connections with Bollywood would most certainly be far from reality. Involuntarily we have grown up getting heavily influenced by the multi-billion dollar show world. We wouldn’t be very wrong if we conclude that most of our personality has been shaped by filmdom.

Let’s begin with our kids: With formal training or not, the next generation of kids appear to be born singers. The songs are usually the chartbusters of that month. We all know about the immense grasping power of children. Feed them with any kind of stimuli, it just sinks into them. And exposure to Bollywood has never been more easy & full-fledged; what with the 24 hrs movie channels, posters all across the city & also on the public transport, newspapers offering reviews, timings, advertisements, interviews related to Bollywood… Mostchildren exposed to Bollywood in the early years (3-5 yrs) talk flawless Hindi without the parents even contributing! Of course there is the current sensation: Mr.Yo Yo Honey Singh whose lyrics always linger around pubs, party, daaru and vodka… A very clear invitation for the teenagers – who adore his tunes. (Yes Sir! He has a fan following!)

From singing to dancing. Here we are not limiting to kids. Whatever little dance we display, be it just swaying of arms or gyrating butt in the bathroom & pub (those are the safest places to save yourself from the embarrassment) is learnt thanks to the choreography of Bollywood. The flow of dance steps is easier with couple of pegs down the throat. The supple among us try to ape Prabhu deva, Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor or the latest sensation Lauren Gottlieb, while the josh walas are more into Govinda. There are the high inertia ones who settle for Sunny Deol or Big B. Well, the ladies are at a disadvantage – the dancing standards are quite high among heroines (it’s a question of survival; cos most heroines survive on dance & glam quotient)

Our fighting skills – both verbal & physical – are somewhat polished by filmdom. These days we come up with out of the world logic to counter someone. And what better way to pick up abuses than the movies? Also without wearing any of the colourful belts, we know the nuances of martial arts and can faintly dodge any onslaught, without letting the attacker get away with whatever he / she intended to…

The dialogues, oh my god! If only words could kill, Indian population would be less than half of the current billion. While some lines have a short shelf life, other lines, perhaps from Mr.Bacchhan or Rajani sir, are always greeted with whistles & claps. Some of these dialogues have attained immorality. Try the variety: “Tera kya hoga Kaalia”, “Maine ek baar commit kardi, toh khud ke bhi nahi sunto..”, “bade bade deshon main aisi choti choti baath hote rehte hai”, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi namumkin hai”, “… aap purush hi nahi… maha purush ho, maha purush”,  “Dosti ka usool hai madam, no sorry, no thank you”… These dialogues, apart from teaching us pick-up lines & humorous one-liners, often give us a moral to get enlightened & to live by.

Style. The single main source of styling ideas are the movies. The tiny patch of beard below the lips in Dil Chahta hai became a rage and still is. Ajay Devgan’s mush in Gangajal or Once upon a time in Mumbai, the C-O-O-L chain of Shah rukh in Kuch Kuch hota hai were all short term fashion statements. It’s lot more intense among girls. We see frocks & chudidaars named after movies selling like hot cakes in garment shops. The hairdos, the colour combinations, shape of blouse, design of kurtis are just some of the items inspired by films. Some husbands may have got furious after the behavioural changes in their wives after watching Sonam Kapoor splurge in Aisha. If only girls could ape size-zero or the perfect hourglass figures…

In a country where love & love-making is not a popular topic of group discussion, the best tutor for these are the movies. In the past couple of decades falling in love has become a mandate among teens or those in early twenties. So much that if you don’t flaunt a girlfriend or a boyfriend, you are looked upon as an alien and slowly you sink into a complex. Who else can teach us how to patafy a girl, flirting skills, flowery talks, chivalrous gestures… not just the skills, the intent & the courage required for falling in love & standing for it, against all odds, is also drawn from the movie powerhouse. So what if there are a few who are into bhaag ke shaadi karna mode? All is fair in love & war.

That said, lovers have actually started going against all odds to make their love stories successful – and why not? When the movie stars can do it, why can’t we? Where they fail is when they don’t get to see much on what happens after marriage (most Bollywood movies end when the boy & girl have run their marathon and tied the sacred knot…) or are they trying to ape their idol’s off-screen life? If Aamir Khan & Hrithik Roshan can get out of wedlock, why can’t we?

We can go on and on correlating our lives to Bollywood. Ultimately the take away is that life as portrayed in the movies is not always close to reality. Like Morpheus says “The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this...” Although there are the likes of Anurag kashyap & sometimes Ram Gopal Verma who try to show real life on screen, most screen stories are predominantly fictitious and made larger than life with a sole purpose of entertaining the audience (& reap the harvest out of the box-office in the process). It’s totally up to us to choose what is good for us, what inspires us, what can be adopted & then shun aside the unwanted stuff… If we do not want to get into that kind of dilemma, we may as well just sit back, relax, pop a corn & enjoy the offering.