Thé star of the show

1974 being the year of legends, quite of a few of us turned 50 this year and we made the most of it by trying to be there for our friends in their moment of joy and celebration of this milestone event in their respective lives.

Legendary transformation

As usual planning commenced a few months ago and almost a dozen of us were available for trip. The usual suspects were around except Vandana and Suprita who we sorely missed. It was a bonus that Vijay decided to make it to the event despite his upcoming tour of duty a week later !!

Karthik who during this sojourn was awarded the prestigious title of Le Clown par Excelencio and also the secondary title of Sir Unstabilo by the Madam of process controls undertook his swansong event of 2024 with great elan. A few of us gathered at his home on Thursday evening, which was conveniently evacuated of all supervisory elements and staffed with half a score of domestic helpers and put us in a great position to start early on Friday morning.

Thé Chief of Events + 2 titles.

Thé guys

We hired a vehicle which in addition to providing Airconditioned transport was also equipped with high technology hip probes designed to provide precision jabs and ensured that we rémained alert throughout the trip and enjoyed ourselves completely. It also had an audio system that provided magic volume controls requiring 2-3 people to manage it and revolutionary \240bluetooth technology designed to surprise you.

Our drive was eventful with music, sips of beer, picking up people from below a bridge on the outskirts of Pune and a couple of eating spots on the way. A couple of our friends also discovered a new protocol of work WFV, which is soon set to be introduced into one of the prestigious project managèrent companies in India and the UAE. Work from Van is set to introduce a new era of balancing work with mobility and usher in a completely different lifestyle for people if it gets acceptance around the world. During the ride, we also came across a few songs that our madam of process controls chose to act out with her head of department for the next student event in her college. Excerpts from this at the next gathering.

Dozing or Dosing

Riding into the sunset- figuratively

We reached IK in 8 hrs from our initial start in Mumbai and were just in time before Suranas family we’re contemplating breaking the self imposed fast in honour of their 50 year old prince. It was such a pleasure to see the expressions on Vikas’s parents and spouse as well as other family members on seeing how loved their son was. We had a great time having lunch, taking photographs in all possible corners of the room and with varied backgrounds and Karthik also managed to bring some floral splendour into a photograph literally with his own bare hands.

Lunch on the mind !

The perfect spot :-)

Floral tributes

The cake deed

Famille bonhomie

Later - we cut a cake at Suranas house and then began the trip to our halt for the night in the hilly locale of Panhalgad - apparently the place where 3 decades ago - some within the group were responsible for lighting the valley up on fire. It appears that some of the perpetrators of this crime are at large and spread to far corners of the world in Canada, Australia and the US, however this was a chance for the remaining to come back and pay respects to the place they had almost burnt down. There were some animated discussions about the sequence of activities and whether we saw the adivasis on day 1 and whether slept under the open sky watching out for wild animals on day 2, however this argument was inconclusive.

We fortunately also had the royalty from Karad \240accompanying us. She had spent her childhood in these hilly locales. She took us around on a moonlight walk and showed us all the spots she had romantic rendezvous at, during her teenage years. She also took us to a spot where it is rumoured all her unrequited lovers contemplated about their life on this earth.

As his STA (short term assignment) coming to and end and now business is on the mind !

Thé madame of process controls !

Her highness !

For an unnamed app

Looking eastward

We were luckier. We spotted a shooting star and then Vijay from our group showcased his newly acquired photography skills of taking photographs with an inverted camera setting. It was very sought after and everyone posed for photos \240as Vijay assured them these photographs on their display profiles will greatly boost their self- image and popularity amongst all the whatsapp groups they were a part of. It surely made them look giant in stature, so it definetely made a difference.

Giant stature ! Life changing photograph

Three Musketeers

We also visited the erstwhile abode of our Karad royalty and peered through the living spaces that were now under lock and key and speculated about how the royal family spent their time. One of our group members who has since recently relocated to another kingdom in Saudi Arabia and has connections all across the world was a tinge disappointed that he wasn’t aware of the existence of royalty who he had once tried to woo, but hadn’t succeeded in his ventures due to the sheer lack of effort. He did share with us that his effort could have increased \240manifold had he known better. He has now decided to wait for the afterlife to make amends.

Anyway we spent time back at the lavish villa who we were informed belonged to a MP in the area but our event organiser par excellence had got at bargain basement prices. Food was arranged by some subjects from the royal kingdom and next morning - we went on another walk to the edge of some castles and then walked back to have breakfast and then left for Kolhapur. We visited the temple for a quick check in with the residing diety and all her family friends. Some of us were more happy than others being at this place even though it was very crowded.

At the Villa

The penultimate leg of the trip was to the royal town of Karad where we were introduced to the remaining members of the royal family. We had to cross a moat to get into their palace and there was some intriguing trivia about this moat having won awards in civil engineering for preventing snakes and rodents from climbing upwards. It was an ingenious piece of work - however we were also informed that the rodents had found their way into the palace instead by breaking into the pipes and emerging from the WC. Truly the adage ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ fits in here.

At the castle with the moat

Near the boulders

Lunch was fantastic. Conversation was magical and the warmth was felt by each of us and we were basking in the joy of being present for this occasion together. The 2 day event had to come to an end unfortunately and we bid goodbyes to each other reminding ourselves to be back together in June, in the seaside resorts of Goa.

The way back to Mumbai was quite sedate with most of us sleeping away as the WFV proponents tested their concept on the way back home as well. A new concept of SFV (sleep from van) was also tested by our Saudi friend who wanted to get better before the next set of activities planned in the maximum city with another character who was previously very inclined to go on a spiritual journey to Mecca and Madina.

I wanted to bring to an end with a few words of how this extreme bond of friendship has brought seamless joy into our lives and how our near and dear ones are also happy seeing us happy and enjoying our lives with friends from 3 decades ago. May this joy and bliss stay forever !

Thank you friends ❤️