Sunday, July 3, 2011

Woke up to the angry pelts on the windows and AC at 5…..and for a minute thought it was an earthquake, or something bad enough! Then the sleep receded and I realized it was a summer shower…..get soooo many of those in Delhi…..
Whenever the temperature gets a few degrees above bearable, a mini storm, locally known as “aneri” (think it’s the Punju pronunciation of “andheri”) arrives…..coats everything in a couple of centimeters of dirt and lowers the temperature to a much more bearable level!.....today it was followed by a good 30-45 minutes of rain…..gorgeous gorgeous!!!
Not just me, it woke up the entire house….papa was up 15 minutes after me…..then him being him, he decided to go and wake mummy to join in the free nature show…..and with a piping hot cup of tea, it was as close to heaven as one can get on earth :)……so, great start to the day
Not piling up too many expectations though…..the cat is on the warpath….and as anyone who’s ever dealt with an animal knows, wildcats on warpaths are to be avoided ;))….since I cant avoid….will cross my fingers and wait for this storm to pass as well…..!

So, let me do a quick chat up about my trip to Hrishikesh couple of weeks back……bunch of people from work decided to try out the famed water rafting do at Hrishikesh…..and I, in keeping with my resolve of trying to find all possible good in Delhi, joined in…..plus any kind of water activity is always fun…..so was keen to try it out….
So, three female colleagues and one male colleague set out on a Friday afty arnd 4…..the decision being to drive down the 250 odd kms to Haridwar and from there onwards another 40 to Hrishikesh…..one wuld have thought a comfy 5-6 hours should do it……but thanks to all the “work” put in by the govt on the roads in this part, took us close to 8-9 hours each way…..painful!!....
So travelling with North Indians has its own adventures…..one of them being their aversion to any kind of slow, soulful music…..very bhangra, dha-dha-dha taste in music this…..all the never-heard-before-but-stored-for-party-sharty songs on my ipod came to the rescue…..good fun singing along…..:)
Reached Hrishikesh tired, exhausted and at 11-ish…..after having made frantic phone calls to the hotel (stayed at the ISKCON hotel, clean, reasonable and good food, more on tht later) to ensure tht the restaurant didn’t close before we landed up…..had dinner…..and then trooped straight up to bed for our forty winks…..literally forty, when a good night’s sleep for me is eighty odd winks :)…..after much democratic debate, we’d decided to leave the hotel at 7 am sharp…..so of course it was more like 8 by the time we finally set forth…..
River rafting adventures in next part…..adieus :)