Nagaon and Kashid

I am sure that the trip would have taken a toll on your mind and body. The worst part following a good trip is getting back to mundane work. Well, that doesnt stop us from recalling the wonderful time we spent together. Plainly put, it was fun and more fun over the past 2 days. Many grey cells had worked overtime to decide on the optimal departure time - 1:00 PM. Our immaculate planning ensured that we started at about 2:15 PM. Helped by some adventurous driving, we managed to reach Yashprada resort on time. Nagaon beach was about 15 mins walk from this MTDC resort and we reached the beach by about 5:30 PM. Nagaon beach was totally deserted. It appeared as if we had ventured into a private beach. Then we realized that there is a cemetery very close to the beach. It was the cemetery and not perhaps our 'stroke of luck’ that explained the absence of any human souls on the beach. Unperturbed by the reason, we chilled out. The beach was pretty safe so to say, as one could easily venture about 50 meters from the shore. While most people dared to challenge the waves, Sanjay and I tried to capture their exploits behind our lenses. Back to the resort from the beach, we were treated by some sumptuous starters. Veg starters were just fine, but the non vegetarians seemed happy. Slowly and steadily, the adrenaline started flowing and people started to get into the groove. The tone was set by none other than our Infy rocker - Sachin Surendra Pratap Singh. The way he was singing and playing guitar, he seemed to have been powered by some cryogenic fuel. He was equally matched by his siblings - Tarun and Akif, and his carefree parents - Nitesh and Nupur. All of us were pleasantly surprised to learn that there is something else in Deepak's life apart from cricket. Deepak made a statement with the guitar when he played Hotel California. Eventually Sachin's guitar could not withstand the multiple onslaughts and one of the strings gave up. To keep the music tempo going, Jayesh played the dafli with consummate ease. And the music orchestra went on for quite some time.. Without any intended pun or understatement, Suren is probably wasting his time in IT industry. The concoction of mock tails that he came up with, were something which were out of this world. There was no backing out of fun for Laxman, who was trying to come to terms from his 'backout' episode. He managed to confuse everyone with the song which he was long trying to recall. Eventually, the song puzzle was cracked, but not before everyone scratched their heads. I knew that my wife Ankita sings well. What I didn’t know was that she drinks well too. Another person who quietly sipping and wasn’t too bothered about what was happening around was Prateek. Bhookha was having the time of his life. Sanjay was trying to shoot anything and everything coming his way, through his new SLR. When I say anything and everything it means from slippers to sea. When he was not shooting, someone else was shooting him. Watching Sanjay clicking reminded me of monsters ad – caught in the wrong job. Another person caught in the same act was Kareena Kapoor of the team – Nupur Kapoor. Her rules of the game are very simple. She will click you once and you have to click her 5 times in different poses. Post dinner, we had quite an animated discussion on racism. To be more precise, the debate was on whether Pune police is partial towards Maharashtrians. There were good arguments from Sachin and counter arguments from Suren, but eventually no consensus was reached. The focus then shifted to other usual topics under the sun, until people decided to doze off. If the first day was about songs, guitar and dafli the second day was about with water sports and fun on the beach. After an early morning breakfast, we headed towards Kashid beach. Kashid beach would be about 30 kms from Nagaon. We managed to reach Kashid by 10:00 AM. The sand in Kashid beach is white, which makes the beach all the more beautiful. As water sports was top on our agenda, we decided to wrap that first. Two groups of 6 people each went for Banana boat ride. The high point of banana ride is the intentional dip which is made in the middle of sea. I watched all the action from the shore and captured some of those opportune moments in my camera. Following the eventful banana ride, was football and volleyball. If football was a tale of hits and misses, volleyball was a tale of all misses for Aabhas. Only for once Aabhas got his act right and that was when two good looking ladies passed by. The last session of volleyball was specially enjoyable as people gave their everything into it. No wonder few people came back with bruised knees. Tarun and Sachin took some quality time off from volleyball and went in shell and soul searching mission. They had part success and its anyone guess what they succeeded in. Profusely exhausted after all these activities, we had lunch at the beach side restraunt (if I can dare to call it so). The place doesn’t matter, for the food was good. At about 3:00 PM, we came back to Yashprada. After freshening up ourselves, there were some folks, who still had some steam left in them. That enthusiatic group left for an evening stroll at the Nagaon beach, while the other group stayed back at the resort. We caught some wonderful glimpses of the sunset and the shimmering sand. Night was no different from the one a day earlier. It only got louder. The topic of debate after dinner had moved from racist Pune police to ghosts. Many encounters and personal experiences were shared. Few were frightened, few others pretended to be frightened, while the rest slept. And their sleep was so sound, that the ghost knocking on their door had to go back dejected, as the door was not opened. The next day, after breakfast, we headed back to Pune. We all had a great time in Nagaon and Kashid. It was time to get back to home on time to catch the action on TV for India Ireland match. Looking forward for many more such trips.