Mamabhanja is a lofty hill, part of which falls in Thane and the other in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. We agreed to meet at Teen Haat Naka at Thane. Sajan and I waited for Ravi (who is invariably late) at the station and ended up delaying everyone.

So just who were these stars?

To begin there was Abhishek – The man who was leading the trek
Sajan – the quite man who surprised us with his experiences of the outdoors
Ravi – the man who tried too hard
Anuradha – the naughty mommy
Mukesh – the strong man
Maanya - the youngest member of the team and at 1 and a half year old amazingly made it to the top
et Moi

I’ve been hiking with all kinds of people – inexperienced people, the kind who think they know what they are doing but don’t, the outdoorsy type who don’t care a damn about the rest of the group, the kinds that come on a hike dressed like they are going to a disco and the works, but I have never been up on a trek with a one and a half year old! That was a whole new experience – one that I enjoyed to the core.

We took a rick to the place from where we were going to climb and started our ascent. We stopped for breakfast- yummy aloo parathas with achaar (courtesy Anuradha) – about 20 minutes later. Poor Mukesh and Anu had a tough  time carrying Maanya and making the climb. But there was nothing any of us could do because the little girl refused to come to any of us.

We reached half way up where we took a well needed rest. Surprisingly, there was a little tea stall and we sipped strong black tea and watched our monkeys climb a tree

Then up came the sun and our little hiker began to cry and get very restless. I think she was feeling really hot and stuffy in what she was wearing, so we changed her into a cotton tshirt – my extra one which I had taken along to change later!

We finally reached the plateau of Mamabhanja and took some time to enjoy the view. For those who are familiar with the central and stallite suburbs of Mumbai, we could see the area stretching from Powai lake to Vashi to Airoli and Thane. While the boys visited the Dargh at the top, we girls played a while and caught 40 winks

While it took us nearly 2 hours to get up, we made it down in 20 mins, Maanya had long fallen asleep by this time and Ravi actually got his chance to carry her without making her cry!

Abhishek dropped me off to Thane station from where I got to Vikhroli and Ajay. Spent a quite evening with him and then headed to Gajalee for a fishy dinner.

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We went to Priyanka’s place on Sunday to help her with the liturgy booklets for the nuptials and the confetti pouches – (Below is proof that we actually worked!)

(From left to right: Chetna tying the ribbon on the booklet, Priyanka in the foreground with the last of the confetti and the rest of the ’slaves’ in the background’, Wilbur desperately trying to punch holes in the paper – with the punch and template I must add)

For the booklets we printed the hymns on ordinary A4 size white paper. This we used as the inlay. We used a blue printed wax paper for the jacket and printed the couple’s monogram on the upper right and the details of the date and church at the bottom. Finally we covered the front of the jacket with silver spangled white wooly paper (Thank you Dad for cutting them to size for us) and tied a pretty bow with blue tissue ribbon. Below is the final result which I was very happy with!

After almost 5 hours of some serious ‘labour’, we called it a day. I was quite pleased with the fact that we got through putting together 48 hymn booklets and almost 75 confetti pouches – not bad for a bunch of people who don’t do this on a regular basis ! 

Ryan and Priyanka went off for some food and we cleared up the mess we had ended up making! Then Malvika went shutter happy and captured some our antics

We said Rosary and had a  round of sing song with Wilbur accompanying on the guitar. Finally got down to dinner and by the time I hit the bed it was 1 in the morning.

Couldn’t resist this picture of me with Pri’s yellow wall and ethnic piece of art

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Rushed home as I had promised to meet Aunty Lyn and the gang at Bandra. Went on a brief shopping spree and treated myself to a pair of badly needed jeans and sandals

Caught a few zzzzzz before David, Daniel, Chetna and Michelle came over and we all headed to Hard Rock Cafe. We were lucky to get a table quickly. Had quite an entertaining evening

(some pics from the evening)

Cafe Cofffee Day was next on our list for some cuppa. Since everyone was up to it, we walked home along the seaface.

Headed back to work on Friday. Came home to find a really bored group of cuzzies so we decided on trying our luck with tickets for a late night show of “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”.

After a brief walk down sea face and quick dinner we picked up the boys from Dadar and headed to Suburbia. Ruth managed to get hold of the last 7 tickets ….. yipppeeee …… but they were front row seats …. boo hoo ……. which is not very nice usually …… but in Suburbia it was horrid To add insult to injury it was the first time in my movie watching history (and I’ve watched some not so good movies) I actually wanted to walk out at the interval. Headed home and hit the sack ….. it was going to be a long, full Satyrday. But more on that in the next post.

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It rained all Saturday threatening to wash away our plans for the evening, however there was a break in the downpour and we braved the buses and trains to reach Bandra.  We had plans to go for the Indiana Jones movie. Ajay and I bought tickets and grabbed some milkshake and juice while we waited for the rest of the gang to come. Delilah ditched us for the movie, but Bhakti came so the ticket did not go to waste.

It was my first Indiana Jones movie, so had no expectations. I enjoyed the film which had its share of good guys and bad guys (the hottest villain there was a woman) and incredulous stunts involving jumping through vehicals on to bikes, saber and machine gun fights, and also a Tarzan like sequence. It provided  tonnes of laughs and some senti scenes too. All in all a fun movie.  

Went to Hilda’s place to pick up Deliah. After much ado aboutt where to have dinner, we landed at 5Spice at 11:00pm. Had a rib tickling night over yummy starters, drinks, main course and sinful dessert. It was too late to go home, so crashed at Hildas place where we played cards, got a tour guide through Sanket’s pile  of pictures and heard some stories about Sean’s love life!

Ruth and I woke up in time to grab breakfast and quick showers before heading  to Sacred Heart church for mass and this time there was a baptism!

Came home and took a walk in the pouring rain (I try to do this ritually for sheer enjoyment once during the season) to the library and bazaar. Had plans to meet Ajay in the evening, but the rain played spoilsport and ruined his last Sunday in the city.

Had a good lunch, curled up with a book and promptly fell asleep.  Ummmmm the joys of an afternoon siesta! Spent a quite evening at home.

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I hadn’t bargained for the high mass at Sacred Heart Parish, Santacruz! I usually avoid these kind of masses as it invariably goes on for hours. Anyway since we had no other choice this mass it had to be. While the church was beautifully done up in red and gold, the choir was really bad and the homily had no depth.

Ruth and I headed home after mass with promises to meet the gang the following weekend.

Has yummy mutton stew for lunch, grabbed a quick nap and headed to Vile Parle where I was scheduled to meet Ajay and pick up some stuff from someone. I must have still been in dreamland and ended up walking right past him (ya ya I’m sorry yaar!) Anyway as luck would have it the gentle man was away and we would have to return in another 40 minutes. We decided to spend the time at MacDonald’s, where I indulged in a strawberry shake and french fries.

Caught up on some movie watching at home and then went of to Dynasty for dinner. We’ve been there a few times before and unfortunately this was the first time we had to wait for a good 30 minutes. Anyway the food (Crab meat soup, followed by Tsing Hai Chicken and Pepper Garlic Chicken) was good as usual so no grumbles

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