To celebrate 30 years of Craziness

As most of the adventures started at Tata Motors hostel..It was apt to do something bit crazy to reach Khanapur for the 30 years celebration Party with my Batch mates.

I checked the distance 28 km..(Then mused abt a 21km + marathon but discarded it and chose my Cycle.)
I was getting bored of my Honda. I had stretched to the limit owing to heel injury.. But Then What the heck

Agey ja kar dekha jayeegaa! Time will tell, why worry.

I messaged My friend Shirkant abt my plans..28 km cycling..at 3PM..He replied that we should see each other at 6PM.
I mentioned casually that I might take a detour. (The plan was to do something a bit crazy than the 28 km cycling.)

Early morning I oiled my Mountain bike cleaned the 6 mths+ dust. It was soon as good as new.
Then I cleaned and greased the bikes of Neel and Mihika. My Gears were still slipping so I went to a cycle shop.
The mechanic was too good and set the gears in just 3 mins. I knew the problem now. It wasn't the cable but the shifter orientation around the tube that was misaligned.

At 3:07 I started pedaling to Katraj. The detour idea was to climb Katraj then pedal via Khed-shivapur then climb Sinhagad ghat col and descend to Donje then to Khanapur.

The sun burned my neck and I had to stop twice in Katraj Ghat for water (Tang). The descent started soon after the tunnel and I took another stop near a shop where I bought two bottles of Nimbuz. One went straight down my throat and brought back life in me.

I kept the other bottle for the Sinhagad ghat.
Just after the Shivapur turn I realized that my legs had started to lock. I got down and squatted to reduce the toggle.
I had forgotten the basic cycling pain. I realized that my thigh muscles were weak and the tautness was causing the issues.

I remembered the old days. I have not cycled for more than 6 months. And even before that I just biked 13 km to work which is routine city cycling. I had chosen a tough target. It was good that I had no option to retreat.
(I had not even calculated the kms to destination as I had a gut feel that it would be 5km +/-. with bit of gradients.)
I had done this route 5 yrs ago and I felt my "age". Or I would rather say..Out of practice.
The very first time I did this route , I had biked continuously with zero rest. Even the steepest parts were not out of range.

Over many years, I had not strained myself enough.
This time I had to get down thrice to push the cycle up the slopes. Pedaling and walking are different feats as the knee angle changes.
The over taut thighs crib and rebel and the knees lock.

I got to the Sinhagad col. The I started the descent. I had to speed up to recover lost time. I chased few bikers and My hands gripped the brakes hard..Even disc brakes were tough to engage. Again..A matter of lost practice.
I biked to Donje and then Khanapur and entered the resort to celebrate the 30 years service party with TATA motors batchmates.
I had clocked 43 kms!!

The proprietor warned me that the water from the cooler was very chilled.
Well! That was what I would have ordered. two glasses went down the throat. The rest went over the shoulders and sizzled.

It was 7PM and the party went on till 2AM on the side of a swimming pool.
Sleep was immediate after effects of downing several pegs of Liquor and the ordeal.

I was back to the Hostel days but no teetotaler.

Next day after plenty of carb loading..Bhokwada/ Idly/ Pohe and a nice swim in the pool before doing so.
I started back at 10 AM.
It was a race against sun but the earlier day had prepared me for it.
It was a 28km easy drive (with City traffic at peak on Sinhagad road).

It was good to be alone. I could stop when I wanted to rest.
Back home I ate an apple and tried to catch up with sleep.
A 5:30 PM I went to the racecourse with Ila to do the regular run. ~5km

Ran a loop and walk-ran the other.


I was learning to cross train. I hope this effort did activate some of the grey matter which was otherwise in a dormant and rebellious mode.

Talk but No Walk

I believe I have learned my bit of history through the (aging) and maturing process.
Of actions and reactions.
Politics of subdivision ...imbalance/ religion
Reasons for extremities and intolerance.
...

I remember I used to be an emotional guy in School.
I am still pretty reactive (artistic temperament) , but I may have learned to walk my talk. I am hence as majority observes; a silent guy when I do not talk or do not walk.
I recollect my old times when I used to train on Parvati -Ambegaon (Taljai route).
When I was back at Parvati after my cross terrain run, a group of Old guys used to talk about Strained US-Russia relations ..International topics or any hot National ones and the talk was always opinionated.
I used to keep an ear to such talk, as it provided amusement after my run. These guys had zero influence to straighten International relations or National ones, yet the discussions were animate.

I see such talks even now but I prefer to not be party to them. It is just old man talk to me.
I wonder why so much steam is spent on something, that does not yield fruit.

I listened to Mr. Modi's lecture on the Teachers day. I was surprised. I like his approach. No leader had ever touch this imp aspect- Jana Jagran.

We prefer to talk about Politics AND never bother about the wrong stuff we do.
We ourselves create Idols and then find flaws in it and talk endlessly about how misguided we were.
(The problem started when the the idol was created in the first place. There was no attempt better ourselves.)
I studied in Central schools and there were no groups or pockets of friends. It was close bond within most of the class. I got a real shock when I changed to a state school in Pune. All I saw was smaller circles of friends. I lived my life differently and found this groupism as constrained.

In Kendriya Vidyalaya, every child shared friends for 3 years till his dad/mom got transferred. I believe few of your kids go through the same?
I remember, every day the bond between the kids was very strong always knowing that the friendship would last for just 3 years. The parting of a friend was tough affair and few even cried. I have lived my bit of sorrow when such ties got disconnected. (This is life in its true form.)
This is the bond that a child shares with people in different states. It is vital to build a nation. Working in Silos builds cities or states and NEVER a nation. Flexibility is restricted.
Our PM was talking to children from Kendriya Vidyalaya and old memories flooded my mind.I missed my days at KV.

Our PM talked about Japanese kids cleaning toilets. We did it for 3 years at Tata Motors hostel.
I have seen social discipline in Japan. Garbage needs to be sorted to 3 types and I abided during my stay. Come back to India and everything falls apart.
WHY?
Is it because you alone cannot change when there is much of indiscipline around? You never want to start the change . Do you?

IMO we ought to really work on personal discipline and getting our kids up-to speed with "international" examples and improve daily habits. Spreading positive friend circle across borders.
I would not like our kids to end up on Parvati doing loose talk; about things they can do nothing about. Its absolutely no use fuming or relishing on past .

Political Awareness is good to have, but we should work on, OR talk about, what WE can INDEED change.

Do you walk your talk? If you cannot; why waste words.

I remembered a pic of Japanese kids cleaning toilets and later the same was mentioned by our PM. If you clean up you own mess ..start helping others to clean theirs.

I hope the message was clear enough and not just addressed to school kids.

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/watch-live-guru-cool-modis-teachers-day-speech/20140905.htm

My first Pinnacle- Dhak Bahiri

It must be some time in 1986, that I wanted to lead my first climb. The options were Telbaila Right wall right route or the Pinnacle of Dhak Bahiri. Both offered around 100 ft of climbing. Equipment was scarce and I owned 150 ft of Garware rope, 1 Ice hammer and 5 carabiners (Steel) and 3 flimsy harnesses.

I had first climbed it with ‘Pune cubs’ couple of months ago, the group that included Prasad, Sanjay /Sushama Katti. It was easy scramble in the first pitch to reach the first anchor. Then a traverse with slight overhang at start to a ledge with around ~600+ ft of exposure. The ledge gets narrow at the escape point and its easy scramble to the top (I guess 50 ft).

Milind and Girish were keen. Girish and I had done our basic course in Mountaineering at NIM Uttarkashi. On one scheduled weekend (We had Thursday off) Girish could not make it and we had to postpone it to next week.

We travelled Pune-Kamshet and from Kamshet we took a bus to a village where we would stay for the night. The shelter was a temple at the village. At 11PM  in the night the villagers who had assembled at the temple and sang Bhajans and we got absolutely no sleep till 5AM. We packed our foldable straw mattresses and Sholapur chadar into our sacks and started the trek towards Dhak.

We climbed to a plateau and turned right to climb a hillock. Karvanda bushes bloomed and we had our bit of feast. The path then descended to the left and we could now see the pinnacle and Dhak fort.

We climbed up the col and took off our sacks. Clipped on the harness. (Three carabiners gone. Two left)

We had devised a self anchor using a sling with loop at end which we could slip into Carabiners at Belay points. I moved up to the first anchor. Milind followed to meet me at the wide flat ledge after removing the carabiner. Girish climbed up as well. Now I had to negotiate the traverse.

I pushed up and started climbing towards the right exposed face of the pinnacle. At the second anchor point I clipped my Carabiner on to the Piton. Milind followed me. I asked him to clip himself to the anchor.

NOTE: There was a rope running between me and Milind. We were perched on a ledge. And I was belaying Girish.

I yelled back to Girish to start climbing and he took off. Just after the overhang he moved on to a loose rock. The whole piece of rock dislodged and Girish yelled “Belay Tight”.

Girish took a 10 feet fall and hung below our ledge. The Rock ricocheted into the valley below and there were shouts from the villagers in the valley. We pulled Girish up the overhang. I pulled out my Zenit Camera and took a shot. It was an expression of fear and narrow escape. None of us had ever fallen off a rock. Milind wondered his fate if he had not anchored himself to the rock he could have been pulled off too and I would have been a lone person managing the weight of 2 “fallen”.

The next stretch was easy with very good hand holds. The only “problem” was that we were now on the 600+ feet of exposure. I moved to the end of the ledged and heaved myself. It was easy to get to the top. I clipped on the carabiner to an Iron stump and my friends followed.

On the way down I tied a piece of sling in a loop and our Rappel rope went into the loop the double rope was no 75 ft long. I remember that I did a side rappel (But with my carabiner looped into the rope)

It was an easy win. And we had learned to arrest a fall.

We took back the evening bus to Kamshet and then a Local train to Pune.