No doubt that hastily planned or rather unexpected leisure trips are one of the most exciting ones. But This trip was a one off for me.
. 26th feb , 9.30 am, I logged in onto xbhp pune thread to read about a plan for a nightout at pavana dam. This is not yet the end of the winter season and people are planning for a night out in the open and besides a lake! Pretty insane plan- I said to myself. little did I know I was gonna be a part of this and I am gonna enjoy it.
. As usual, the daylight of 26th Feb was spent in the office attending yawning meetings, accessing xbhp via mobile, posting about off beat sleeping bags, bickering from colleagues, performance evaluations, target meetings... and what not. At 3.00, got a call from shrinath for knee guards, and to join in for their beach side trip, however, my office had different plans for me. I was to be in Chennai on Monday for a client meeting so i was to leave on Saturday evening for Chennai. I hence politely refused the invitation to join for joining the ride to the beach. A casual chat with surojit later, confirmed my worst fears. the camping was to be with an off-roading ride. oh dear how I wish I could join in for this !
Finally, my prayers paid off. At 5.30pm, I got a call from my dearest boss regarding the cancellation of the meeting due to client request. I felt so elated that I thanked him for this! The reply was "you bugger, I am sure you are up to something". oh yes, I was....

Soon, got a call from surojit that they are leaving for the dam as they wanted to pixellate the views before sunset. So I tried calling antz so that I could join him for the ride till the dam. but he was riding so could not pick the phone, so I called up mom that I am going for official work in lonavala, and will be late in arriving so will be staying with a friend's place for the night. Soon, I was at home, stuffing the bag with blankets and thick bedsheets for the night. Soon, mom guessed whats going on but reserved her comments for the last. So I geared up, lifted the bag, rushed to the parking lot, started the bike and waited for its rumble to stabilize and them set off. Wait, Before I set off, my mom asked me if the "meeting" was with someone special or was a true blue ride. she reminded me of the "no night-outs" rule ! oh dear, as usual, I got caught lying to mom. so i explained her everything and convinced her that I will be riding with much older and experienced riders (actually i used the word uncles), showed her the ride call on xbhp (yup she knows about xbhp). finally, mom was convinced that the ride was gonna be a safe one so she agreed to let me go on one condition ( you will read about this in the last part of the log). so finally, I set off. a few frantic calls to antz, same response, "the customer you are trying to reach is busy, please try again later".

So, with my phone completely charged and my favorite tracks on the play-list, off I was from Chandni Chowk at 7.00 am. Since, I was riding alone till the dam, I rode cautiously (thats crawling in genuine terms). on route, had a couple of drag races (courtesy my gears and the snoring k&N below my @$$) with pulsars, r15s, rx's, even bajaj platinas. I gladly lost all of the drags. After all, who has won a drag race at a steady 40 kmph and with no intent of being a mosaic painting on the road. Soon, As I crossed the hinjewadi Flyover, I noticed a fully kitted p220 rider besides the road. I intend to continue my ride , but something tells me that he might be in trouble, hence I pull over. After I pulled over, I realized that its antz. Ah! now this is a group ride.
. After antz finished attending (rather i should say live reporting) the phone calls, we set off again. He was leading while I was the tail-gunner (like i had an option). shortly, we topped up with fuel, and then we decided to cruise along till kamshet. lately, my bike had been through a lot of hard time and hence, due to some weird reasons, my low beam was working only when it wanted (courtesy an loose contact). So after some more time, we stop again for fuel. this time the fuel is for us not the bikes. Antz had skipped the lunch so he decided to make sure that there was adequate food for us all, called up MG to ask for the riding directions, and promptly asked about the barbecue that we were supposed to be having. All, we were informed was "the food arrangements are all done, just ask for Pavana-Nagar and ride straight on the road till you see a poser pulsar 250 with green color scheme"

As I and antz topped up, local on a passion, inquired antz where he was from after looking at his number plates. after a short virtual visit of nagpur, he bid us good bye, wished us for a safe ride and rode off. Then we set off. After a few kilometers, we left the smooth roads of nh-4 and entered the special offroading track that had been suggested to us. while, my bike was all over the road courtesy the road between the potholes, antz was flying over them. After a couple of more "asking for direction stops", we saw a dhabha with a green goblin parked. It did not take us long to guess that we had reached the spot. Antz called up the owner of the green goblin (the ninja 250), and when the owner asked where he was, antz replied "main teri bike ke upar hoon". We were invited inside the dhabha, where, the food was being finalized. so We called the waiter for the order and in a flash he was amongst us with a long notebook to note our order. To his disgust, we ordered just three items! yup, there were seven of us and just 3 items to order! so the order goes like this:

vipin (to us) : kya order karna hai (what is to be ordered)
Kshif : 2 chicken handi bol dete hain. (lets order 2 chicken handi)
antz: ek chicken handi aur ek butter chicken bolte hain, butter chicken safe dish hai, uske kharab hone ke chance kam hai.( lets order 1 chicken handi and 1 butter chicken. butter chicken is rare to be made wrong)
me: butter chicken tandoori aur tandoori safe rahega (butter chicken and chicken tandoori will be safer).

vipin (to waiter) : ek chicken handi aur ek butter chicken de do aur 30 tandoori roti pack kar dena
waiter (with a disgusted look): sir, butter chicken nahi hai aur kya loge?
vipin : ek kaam kario, 2 chicken handi aur tandoori roti pack kar dena.

later vipin told us about his earlier discussion:
vipin (as he entered the dhabha) : tandoori hai kya?
waiter : hain na. tandoori roti
vipin (grimacing his head) : theek hain. main order baad mein denge, pehle starters le aao..

Meanwhile, someone had asked for suttas, so vipin and kashif left to fetch them and the starters arrived. now we were in a rather uneasy situation. should we wait for vipin and kashif to rejoin or should we simply finish the chicken and simply bluff that the order did not arrive . we both decided the second option and order one more dish so that no one guesses where 1 chicken fry vanished. So I called the waiter, and ordered a second round of chicken fry. but to out dismay, the chicken was finished. so we decided we will order mutton fry. but as we arrived upon the decision, vipin and kashif also arrived. so we ditched our plan and pretended that we had waited for them to start eating. but the devils horns had grown on our heads and they sensed something fishy so we made another story. we gobbled up the chicken, ordered mutton fry and made up a story that a chicken dish disintegrated while we were thinking of getting it packed for the rest of the group. we even clicked a couple of pics so as to convince them of this.


After gobbling up the chicken fry, the mutton equivalent arrived. then we felt the need for a couple of roties so we ordered exactly a couple i.e 2 tandoori roties. soon, the parcel arrived. we paid for the order, took a couple of candles, and left for feeding the hungry stomachs ahead. soon, hell broke loose on the chickens, we gobbled up the food. After the food and the cold drinks were finished, the shutterbugs woke up and started fiddling with the tri pods. MG activated the voice commands for the cameras. now, since it was dark, all that camera's could capture was faint ghosts of us, so mg explained in detail (to kashif) how the pics were to be captured. this went on for some 10- 15 mins and all that i could stuff in my pea sized brain was that "freeze for 30 secs when the orange light on the camera flashes". so after this, in all the pics, we had to freeze whatever we were doing for 30 secs! Soon, antz came up with a "xbhp in motion light" idea and we clicked some more pics. now, let me allow the pics to do the talking. pst: the xbhp in motion was not a very good shot so here is the good one with all of us in it...



After all these pics, We decided to clean up the place and head down hill to the lake side. here, the xbhp dog also followed us faithfully owing to MG who had been secretly feeding him so that if we turn hostile, he would let loose the dog on us. but somewhere in between, Antz developed a fetish for my "see the pic and understand". here is the pic of me dedicatedly cleaning the whole place. proof that I am the only responsible human that god has ever made ( please stop laughing your @$$es off)



descending the slippery slopes in pitch darkness was like asking to dodge a shotgun while juggling penguins. never the less, we descended down the slope carefully and laid down our bedding. Since, we by the lake, soon the magarmach came out. I mean, the magarmach amongst us! soon, the starlit sky took over our mindless rantings and the shutterbugs got merrily clicking. Soon, we had to freeze yet again ( i.e for the pics) here come some more of the pics.







As the clock ticked away, our points for discussion started to fade away and out eyes pulled down the curtains and one by one, we were falling asleep. Soon,"breather pipe" laid down, the "magarmach" cuddled with the blankets, and Then the "platform ke yatri" slept. There comes one of the pics of the sleeping "breather pipe", "magarmach" & "platform ke yatri". in a sequence L-R. and antz making a guest appearence near the lake..

For this shot, we had to freeze again for 30 secs.



soon, the mighty MG and Kashif started to wear away. and we all prepared to sleep. then I noticed that since we were sleeping on gravel and on a slope, we were slowly sliding into the lake. but since no one was ready to believe my technical explanation, i rather kept mum wishing for everyone to wake up to the sight of being immersed in a lake. after this rather humorous theory, we all started to fall asleep. but suddenly, we were all woken up by the sound of a hound nearing us, and before we could act, the hound was gone past us jumping over our heads and barely missing antz and biru.
Since, antz was at one end of our sleeping line and biru was at the other, I was rather comforted by the thought that if a dog, or rather even a crock, suddenly decides for a midnight feast, I would be woken up be the screams of either of us being dragged and fighting the crocks. After hearing my explanation of why I am so comforted, antz got scared. Infact so much that he pulled out his dagger and kept it close to him in case any eventuality arises. Finally, at 2.00 am, everyone fell asleep.
as the last pic of the night, here is the defense samagri that antz held close to his heart while he slept...



Ps: the log does not end here... the next morning, i find my shoe scared of me, someone gets rather stingy on biru and biru later retaliates on someone else in a mug shot. also, we fing the latest iteration of captain hook... aka captain cannon lens....
keep watching.. updates soon....