Daman

Every time an outing is planned with friends, it somewhat goes like it happens in the above video. I can vouch that at some point of time each of us might have experienced it at least once or more.

It so happened that I was talking to my friend on the phone and that we need to go out for a outing. My friend spontaneously came up on the idea of going to Lonavala. He called up another friend, hooked him up on concall. He also said yes. Now we needed a driver for the car so called up another friend and he too agreed. 

The energy for the trip got build up as we were going on the same weekend. I was excited that in such a short moment we ended up planning an outing that was crazy.

The D-day came and I was all set to go. When I called up my friend for the meeting point, he said the plan is cancelled as he was down with dysentery. Nothing got me more mad than this as we were taking his car and without him the trip had to be cancelled.

We ended up making another plan which again got delayed by two months and then we ended up in Daman instead of Lonavala. Why, you ask. Well, we never had been there before.

The irony of this trip was that it also almost got cancelled. My friend kept pushing the dates and we never did any booking of our transport or hotels. When the D-day came near, we ended up booking our train tickets and hotel booking just one day prior our departure. 

We were supposed to reach Vapi at around 1:30am in the midnight but ended up reaching at around 3am thanks to the heavy downpour of rains. We hailed a Ambassador car taxi that dropped us at our hotel.

I thought I would catch up on my sleep but my friends wont let me. After all they were out of Bombay and now they can do what they do best and that was drink. 

Later on we ended up going to the beach on the early morning. Since our hotel was beside the Devka beach, we went over there but soon realized that it was not that clean kind of beach like in Goa. We decided to embrark towards Jampore beach by taking an auto rickshaw.

When we reached the beach, the water was nowhere to be seen. It was drizzling and being alone in the beach on an early morning had just made our day. 

We ended up walking quite a distance to find water so that we can drown ourselves but it certainly took a beating out of us. We also had a group of dogs that followed us. Finally when we could see the water, it was all muddy and yellow. Not the kind of water I would like to get myself dirty with. On our way back, we made halt at a shack for our morning breakfast.

There were no auto rickshaw and we decided to walk a little. With the little walk, we ended up walking at least half the distance to our hotel as there were no buses & auto rickshaw to take us back to our hotel. We also had a doggy who joined us in our dandi march.

We finally managed to get an auto rickshaw and had to bid goodbye to the dog which came along with us from the beach. Back at the hotel we had a proper breakfast and then went on to catch up on our sleep.

In the evening we visited the Moti Daman fort and the beach alongside it which was better than the Devka beach least to say. The Motil Daman holds all the government offices inside it. We also saw Cathedral of Bome Jesu. We then decided to retire for the day.

The next day we went to Nani Daman fort and then to the jetty wherein we tried to capture the beauty of this place. We then headed back to Vapi to get on our train to Bombay.

I was little disappointed by Daman from what I had heard about it. Especially the beaches, they are not that clean. What the point of living near a beach if you cannot go in the waters of it. All and all the tourist places can easily be covered within a day. It can be said that its a paradise for those who love their drinks, wont even call it a mini goa.

We did though had our fun and ended up checking off this place from our list.

Time To Come

Coming backing to his home from his evening walk, 80 year old Mohan makes himself comfortable in his reclining chair reading Malgudi Days. Photos of his family hanging on the wall with children settled abroad.

Post having his dinner, Mohan receives a call on his landline and he says 'Ab toh jab bulwa ayega tab jayege. Roz maara toh routine ho gayi hain. Baache sab settle ho gaye hain aur kya chaiye. Theek hain zaroor". "Good night" he said and walked to his room post turning the lights out for sleep.

 His eyes wide opened as he looks at the empty other half side of the bed. As he closed his eyes he was waiting for his time to open them on the other side.

Jio Mere Laal

Everyday back from work or on my weekends, I used to be found by my family hiding my head behind my laptop probably watching a movie or simply surfing the internet.

You see thanks to television soaps which instead of progressing forward from the days of Nukkad, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Surabhi, etc went to the back old days of Kyu Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Nagin and what not's...

Internet changed my life as I got introduced to the life of facebook, whatsapp, instagram, etc. Did I forgot to mention torrents which met with a fateful demise. I made sure that everyone knows about my 'happening' life by checking into facebook, uploading pics of places visited, Insta/snapchat stories Then again nothing comes for free.

If internet is free then data is certainly not. Data packs were exorbitant if you opt for the 3G plans. One ended up paying twice for data i.e., wi-fi at home and then another data pack for the mobile phones.

Even before 3G could make its presence felt, we had the arrival of 4G network in a very big way thanks to the Reliance Jio offering data free and unlimited voice calls for three months which they further extended.

Before the huge public lines outside the banks after the demonetization, they could have been found outside the reliance digital stores and yup they were not complaining.

I was not the early ones to get my hands on the free sim card then again if consumer is made the king then why not make use of it? I ended up getting one for myself.

With a Jio sim card in my hand, I wondered what to do next.... I then did the next best thing of downloading new apps, trying it out and then YouTube happened. I never used to download a single video even if someone whatapp'd it to me. With Jio, it was different.

 I think I have watched about 100+ videos by now and I never got bored. Its interesting to see people doing vlog when I believed only blogging existed.

Its like its a whole new world out there. People like you & me are making videos and putting it up there for everyone to watch. Some of them are real good. You can watch shows too that are available only online and they are devoid of the telly sagas sob stories.

Albeit like every good thing come to an end, this one too meet its fate as I am not going for a paid subscription. Don't think its worth it.

However in its fight to kills its competition, consumer ends up becoming the king with the data prices coming down and more free data offered.

In the end all I can say is Jio mere Laal!!