My Pune Tour Chapter-2

The households were already loaded by packers & movers and started for Pune on Thursday evening.  I had planned in such a way that when we reach Pune on Saturday morning, truck should be standing there to be unloaded at my new rented house.

 Now it was a Friday morning and we all were in the travel mood or rather “Travel mode”. Engineers never leave their job at the office so the people around them often have to tolerate the technical terminologiesL.  Shravan tried hard to get the registration once we finalized to go by car, and luckily we got the vehicle number but number plate and RC book was not ready.  He had spent the morning in regular car maintenance like oil change n all. I got responsibility of preparing the number plate for the car. My entire day (morning 10:30 to evening 4:30) went in choosing the right size prints. I was not sure about the size of the number plate so I did “Hanumangiri” and took 16 prints on A4 size paper with different font sizes with two copy of each so that even if it rains we will have ‘spare number plate’ to stick. I could afford to do so bcoz it was office printer and I was leaving it J.

 Shravan picked me and Sukeshbhai from office and we gathered at Shravan’s place at around 7 in the evening. Sukeshbhai is eldest and respectable member of our group. He is a mentor and friend of every group member. He was in ‘Family Mode’ so could not join us in the tour. He came there to say bye-bye to us. Also his home was on the way so we planned to drop him at home and take the highway thereafter.

10 minutes bag packing program was in execution and as always I took the least time. Shravan is famous for his long planning and preparation in the group. He showed it again by completing the packing previous day itselfJ. So I and Shravan started sticking the number plate with gum-tap. Fortunately “Hanumangiri” had paid us and it was perfectly looking like a genuine number plate. We put our bags in the car and started towards highway with Shravan on the driver seat. Suddenly I realized that police at the border crossing will not accept my debit card if we were caught. I instructed Shravan to take us to ICICI ATM at Gachibowli. On reaching ATM, I told everybody to remain seated in the car as I didn’t want any delay but unfortunately two pretty girls took time inside ATM. Actually as per Hyderabad standard, any average looking girl was pretty and also this species were rare in the area. After 5 long minutes wait everybody came out of the car. That’s it!!!!  Another 15 minutes of unplanned task hit our schedule. I collected cash and we again started now to Sukeshbhai’s home. In this half an hour, we (me, Shravan,Iqbal and Jasmin) felt the pain of Sukeshbhai. He was like die-ing to come with us. But at the same time he had to conceal his urge. It is really very difficult for any man in “Family Mode” to see bachelors enjoying bcoz at that time he is missing that stuff and at the same time he can not even express that he loves to do all that and he is in “Majboori Mode”. We reached Sukeshbhai’s apartment but refrained from visiting his home. I was afraid that in case, Sukeshbhai couldn’t control his urge and opts for last minute jump-in to tour. So we left his home from the gate with very slow voiced bye-bye from Sukeshbhai.

My Pune Tour Chapter-1

The worst thing of any journey is; it always has a destination. This time it was a tour for my house shifting from Hyderabad to Pune as I got a new job in Infosys. In those days, my wife was at my native place and I was fully loaded in “Bachelor mode”. Initially, I had planned to go by bus as probability of getting the tatkal train ticket was as low as rejecting the Infy offer that too of Pune location for any Gujju working in Hyderabad. I talked to Iqbal to help me in the shifting process and as always, he was ready to leave his “Fevicol sponsored” computer chair in the weekend for giving me company.

                                But these were the days when there was a first car bought in the entirely middle-class friend circle. Yes, Shravan had just bought the Indica Vista, a very good car with the image of being cab vehicle. I am using “very good” bcoz Shravan is very sentimental about Indica being called as cab. Actually none of us would ever dare to call his car a cab.  He is ‘senti’ type personality but it was not the reason to not to call it a cab. After all he was the first one who bought car and we already had two amazing tours within AP in the same car.

On hearing my week-end plan, Shravan immediately suggested to go by his car. But to go by car, we need two other members to share the diesel expenses. We all, including Shravan, the car owner, were short of money on those days due to different reasons and the worst thing was it was month ending. First, Iqbal told me that if someone else is coming to Pune then he would rather stay at Hyd as he was coming to Pune only to help me in shifting. Jasmin, the care-free bird, had only one reply: “if everybody is going, I am in. Just inform me when we need to start”. I called him care-free bcoz even his bank account was touching new low when he made that statement.

Another problem was it was a new car and permanent registration was not completed. We all were software engineers and by profession, we always think for the worst case first. So, here we evaluated that we need to cross the state border twice, AP – Karnataka and Karnataka -- Maharashtra, total four times considering return journey. And if we were caught without registration at any border, it will be addition of maximum of 2000 bucks in our expenses. Nobody was in position to bear even  normal expense of tour and these extra 2000 bucks was enough to make the decision easier to whether to go by car or not. I almost prepared myself for the semi-sleeper Volvo journey with Iqbal. The situation was like; if everybody is ready then Iqbal is not ready and if no one is ready then Iqbal is ready. His problem was simple; he could not afford to spend money without reason in the scarcity. “Uske andar ka Gujju abhi zinda tha !!!”.

Shravan was always ready to go for long distance as his car was new and this kind of tour would give him confidence of driving for over-night station :). He too had a condition to make: “I don’t have even ‘footi kodi’, right now”.  
                                                Everybody was well aware of the enjoyment that they can get in going by car, but the only thing stopping them was money. Also, we already had two tours and this one could become too much.  There were so many “yes – no” and “no – yes” between us for the entire day and at last we somehow decided to go by car. I had spared some 8000 bucks for house shifting emergency and was ready to give it to the tour till next salary. Means, I will give money for the tour and whatever per head expenses will be, given back to me on the salary day. Even this was the dilemma situation for Shravan :) .  But we went ahead only on the confidence of salary day. “Jo hoga woh dekha jayega” was the attitude we all had.  Actually, we took two days for this kind of simple decision only bcoz of the same attitude shown in the first week of salary :):):).  The beauty of this kind of attitude is; you can go ahead with the same attitude till end as nothing will be in your control so there is no other option left behind :):):).

Hi......Friends

Hi Friends,

I m here to vomit my random thoughts creatively.
Wish me good luck.

-- Thinking Smiley