Marine Drive after Endsem - Part 2!
After a long long time, I finally get down to completing our journey to Marine Drive on cycle, after our endsem in the 5th semester. For the earlier part of the adventure, have a look at this post. Well, as expected, the second half of the journey was even more dramatic than the first part. I hope I can recollect most of the things as I write this post.
I had left the last part saying that we finally decided to roam around on cycle for a while and then going back to IIT on cycle itself, as taking the cycles in the train luggage was going to cost too much! Accordingly, we made our way towards Bade Miya in a hope that it will be open at that time of the night - it would have been around 2:00 a.m. then. This place is quite close to the Taj Hotel, Gateway of India and other prominent landmarks. Unfortunately we could not find the shutter open for us and had to make a decision to kill time somewhere else. It was decided we can go and while away some time at Gateway. However, there too we were not allowed to enter as some VIPs were supposed to arrive at the Taj and there was tight security at the Gateway. Dejected, we started making our way back towards Marine Lines. On the way, we stopped at some hotel and arbitly went in and asked for water. I remember there was a lot of discussion over going inside a hotel arbitly or not, but then we felt anything is justified for water! So it was! the hotel owner was happy to fill up all our water bottles and wished us luck for our journey back to IIT.
Having explored pretty much avenues of killing time, we decided to get back to Marine Lines and while away our time there. We were given some confidence by the hawaaldars at Churchgate that police would not trouble us at Marine Lines if we were not behaving rowdily. We took their word and went there. It was wonderful - all of us sitting on the sea face and enjoying the cool sea breeze at 3:00 in the morning - I wonder if we are ever going to get that sort of a chance again in our lives! We were feeling a bit sleepy, but we knew very well that falling asleep would mean we have no chance of gathering the courage to drive our bicycles back to IIT. After some more time spent there, at around 3:30 - 3:45, we made a move. Slowly, we started moving towards our home - The IIT Campus! It was going to be a long long journey and we started feeling right from the start. Every climb a couple of us had to get down and hold our cycles in our hand and drag them up. The intermittent slopes were welcome though :). "Fulvedya Mai" navacha ek dhada hota Marathi madhe amhala - tyat there was a reference to some bridge jithe khup gardi vhayachi mainchya vadyatli diwalichi araas baghayala - we saw that bridge then! :D.
As we kept moving slowly towards our target, it was becoming apparent that the entire road is not going to be made by all of us. Sudeep was probably the one who was feeling the most tired and I dare say Kartik was the fittest - he had no intention to stop anywhere before IIT! What a man he is - deriving his nourishment from only Kurkure and Maggi - but he has all the stamina in the world to go on and on and on - whether it is putting in night outs for tech-giri or cycling like mad! We somehow managed to reach Dadar and then the point came where we had to decide if we are taking the train or not. After that point, we were going to hit the highway and it would have been difficult to reach a train station after that. After much discussion and slight arguments and debate over what should be done, we arrived at a consensus. Sudeep and Shantanu decided they have had enough and would take the train from Dadar to Kanjurmarg. The rest of us - Kartik, Cheema, Boss and myself - were enthu to take the rest of the journey and complete it come what may! We split then at that point - about Shantanu and Sudeep ... they reached insti without too many more hiccups. They had a bit of trouble at the Gandhinagar climb - but made it home peacefully and slept off before the other warriors arrived.
The rest of us were trudging along the highway. We stopped for tea at Sion station - had garma garam cutting and proceeded. It was as refreshing as anything could get! Some glucose in your system at that point along with hot tea would do no harm at all - and it worked well for us too! The rest of the journey was painful at times. We had to get down and drag our cycles over multiple flyovers - it was getting just impossible to generate enough power in the thighs to get the pedals moving over the flyovers. The slopes where an amazing relief though. We kept passing one checkpoint after another - first the line of the airport, then the first sight of Godrej factories, the factories coming closer and closer and finally we crossing it and moving ahead towards Powai. We finally caught sight of the signal at the highway where we have to turn left and get into Powai. It seemed so very far that day - it was almost as if it is cheating us and going further and further as we kept pedaling towards it!
Finally we made it, crossed the signal and took the left turn towards Powai. The Gandhinagar flyover climb was very painful for us too - in fact more painful. The cycles we were riding had also given up by then - one of them had lost its pedals, another was low on air pressure in the rear tire, another had its seat in a bad states - overall we were feeling lucky nothing drastically bad happened, given that we had moved out without any preparation whatsoever.
Reaching IIT, it was time to have some much needed snacks - Cheema, Sushant, Kartik and me went to Harish - just opposite YP those days - it has now been brought down for road widening. Had some nice dosa idli stuff and then came back to our respective hostels. I somehow had the enthu that time to have bath - so did that before going to bed. It was one of the most satisfying and hard earned sleeps I have had in my life!
I had left the last part saying that we finally decided to roam around on cycle for a while and then going back to IIT on cycle itself, as taking the cycles in the train luggage was going to cost too much! Accordingly, we made our way towards Bade Miya in a hope that it will be open at that time of the night - it would have been around 2:00 a.m. then. This place is quite close to the Taj Hotel, Gateway of India and other prominent landmarks. Unfortunately we could not find the shutter open for us and had to make a decision to kill time somewhere else. It was decided we can go and while away some time at Gateway. However, there too we were not allowed to enter as some VIPs were supposed to arrive at the Taj and there was tight security at the Gateway. Dejected, we started making our way back towards Marine Lines. On the way, we stopped at some hotel and arbitly went in and asked for water. I remember there was a lot of discussion over going inside a hotel arbitly or not, but then we felt anything is justified for water! So it was! the hotel owner was happy to fill up all our water bottles and wished us luck for our journey back to IIT.
Having explored pretty much avenues of killing time, we decided to get back to Marine Lines and while away our time there. We were given some confidence by the hawaaldars at Churchgate that police would not trouble us at Marine Lines if we were not behaving rowdily. We took their word and went there. It was wonderful - all of us sitting on the sea face and enjoying the cool sea breeze at 3:00 in the morning - I wonder if we are ever going to get that sort of a chance again in our lives! We were feeling a bit sleepy, but we knew very well that falling asleep would mean we have no chance of gathering the courage to drive our bicycles back to IIT. After some more time spent there, at around 3:30 - 3:45, we made a move. Slowly, we started moving towards our home - The IIT Campus! It was going to be a long long journey and we started feeling right from the start. Every climb a couple of us had to get down and hold our cycles in our hand and drag them up. The intermittent slopes were welcome though :). "Fulvedya Mai" navacha ek dhada hota Marathi madhe amhala - tyat there was a reference to some bridge jithe khup gardi vhayachi mainchya vadyatli diwalichi araas baghayala - we saw that bridge then! :D.
As we kept moving slowly towards our target, it was becoming apparent that the entire road is not going to be made by all of us. Sudeep was probably the one who was feeling the most tired and I dare say Kartik was the fittest - he had no intention to stop anywhere before IIT! What a man he is - deriving his nourishment from only Kurkure and Maggi - but he has all the stamina in the world to go on and on and on - whether it is putting in night outs for tech-giri or cycling like mad! We somehow managed to reach Dadar and then the point came where we had to decide if we are taking the train or not. After that point, we were going to hit the highway and it would have been difficult to reach a train station after that. After much discussion and slight arguments and debate over what should be done, we arrived at a consensus. Sudeep and Shantanu decided they have had enough and would take the train from Dadar to Kanjurmarg. The rest of us - Kartik, Cheema, Boss and myself - were enthu to take the rest of the journey and complete it come what may! We split then at that point - about Shantanu and Sudeep ... they reached insti without too many more hiccups. They had a bit of trouble at the Gandhinagar climb - but made it home peacefully and slept off before the other warriors arrived.
The rest of us were trudging along the highway. We stopped for tea at Sion station - had garma garam cutting and proceeded. It was as refreshing as anything could get! Some glucose in your system at that point along with hot tea would do no harm at all - and it worked well for us too! The rest of the journey was painful at times. We had to get down and drag our cycles over multiple flyovers - it was getting just impossible to generate enough power in the thighs to get the pedals moving over the flyovers. The slopes where an amazing relief though. We kept passing one checkpoint after another - first the line of the airport, then the first sight of Godrej factories, the factories coming closer and closer and finally we crossing it and moving ahead towards Powai. We finally caught sight of the signal at the highway where we have to turn left and get into Powai. It seemed so very far that day - it was almost as if it is cheating us and going further and further as we kept pedaling towards it!
Finally we made it, crossed the signal and took the left turn towards Powai. The Gandhinagar flyover climb was very painful for us too - in fact more painful. The cycles we were riding had also given up by then - one of them had lost its pedals, another was low on air pressure in the rear tire, another had its seat in a bad states - overall we were feeling lucky nothing drastically bad happened, given that we had moved out without any preparation whatsoever.
Reaching IIT, it was time to have some much needed snacks - Cheema, Sushant, Kartik and me went to Harish - just opposite YP those days - it has now been brought down for road widening. Had some nice dosa idli stuff and then came back to our respective hostels. I somehow had the enthu that time to have bath - so did that before going to bed. It was one of the most satisfying and hard earned sleeps I have had in my life!
posted by Sangram @ 5:33 PM
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