I have always hated Monday mornings since I started working,, but this one was special ,, the best part of working in a start up organization is that most of the times there isn’t a lot of things to keep you busy apart from having your free lunch,, after a frustrating week of sitting in the office doing nothing ,, we decided to take a road trip ,, within minutes we were on our bikes and off to RAJPIPLA,, our honorable journalist Mr. prabin barot was playing host,, roads were smooth as our machines cruised along the highway,, though its not very pleasant when you have hot air hit your face, burn your skin and make you want to jump in every passing pond along with the buffalo’s,, but the worst was yet to come as one of the two cruising machines ran out of fuel on a bridge,, pleasant sight ,, clear water ,, with beautiful shades of turquoise, quite a site to camp,, but in this hot weather ,, every minute was torture,, how we managed to get to rajpipla is quite a story in itself,, we should get an innovators award,, jigin and vivek sir found a real cool way of building muscles in one hand each,, our experiment backfired and they ended up in pain,, never the less ,, we reached.

Starting this moment and our entire experience after this,, we at BNTV are pleased to announce that we are anointing reporter prabin barot as the unofficial king of rajpipla by way of the enormous power the dude wields in his native town..

Day 1
We were put up in an amazingly luxurious and surprisingly empty circuit house meant for senior bureaucrats and politicians, the night was going fairly well as we talked about all the useless issues in general but they got this sudden itch to share their philosophies,,, and it all started,, I thanked god that it was just the four of us,, anything more than that would have led to complications in my brain,, luckily the night got over and so did the living nightmare,,, we checked the entire dam out ,, went to inaccessible areas ,, which were a little scary ,, like the tunnel going through the mountain under the dam ,, think about it ,, you are under a dam where they drilling and blasting ,, and there happens to be water pouring out the ceiling (this actually happened) ,, while the other guys were more concerned about their under wears not getting wet ,, I was shitting in my pants at the thought of the disaster waiting to happen,,, got to see the turbines ,, whoooaaaa ,, they’re huge ,,really huge,,, size of half a football field ,, I didn’t bother touching any shit there ,, one shock from this baby and you’re through with life, hell and heaven in one go,, the entire area is full of rivers and lakes ,, makes it a real chilled out place ,, we even walked on top of the dam with a free fall on one side and a monstrous river on the other ,, for the rest of you ,, please don’t try any of this shit even in your bathrooms ,, its requires professional fools for company,,,. back at the room it was my turn to share my philosophy ,, five minutes into it and I was the only one awake

Day 2
We had two options ,, one more dam or a jungle trip,, some how I lost my jungle bid 3 votes to 1,, though we spent most of our day at prabin bhai’s place wondering what to do and what our boss will think ,, it took us approx 5 hours to figure out that we should live our life to the full and that we should live every moment and not waste time working or worrying,, smart isn’t it,,,, moved to our new hotel ,, the RAJWANT PALACE,,, this is a heritage hotel ,, an actual palace ,, beautiful palace ,, a palace ,, I just couldn’t get over the fact ,, but one first step into the room and I wanted to run back to the circuit house ,, I’ll leave the rest to imagination,,
There was a feeling of desperation in our hearts ,, despite all this water around us ,, all we could do is watch the water ,, the only time I tried to get in a lake to dangle turned into horror as I saw a signboard saying the lake had crocodiles ,, I freaked out while the rest laughed,,
So we went to the local pool with diving boards ,, my first time on a diving board ,, not something I would want my kids to know ,, I went to the board 5 metres above the water level ,, a chill went down my spine ,, I literally sat down on the board holding the railings tight making way for 8 year old kids to jump away in glee ,, t thought of all the stories I’d heard of people dying in the pool ,, suddenly it was a battle for life ,, just wanted to get down some how ,, but strange things happen when you’re to get fucked ,, couldn’t find any concrete to put my foot on ,, I only jumped when I realized what a laughing stock I’d be within my office and my beautiful colleagues,, and I jumped ,, two seconds later ,, I realized I was still alive ,, hands and legs were moving ,, I could see ,, such a fantastic feeling ,, a high that you get when you’ve fought a life and death situation and emerged a winner.

We moved to karjan dam ,, the first five minutes were spent in silence and shock ,, the same feeling when you look at a new born baby or anything more beautiful than you can ever imagine ,, a huge and lively river with mountains on three sides and dam on one overlooked by reserve forests ,, I just went blank ,, I didn’t know what to think ,, thoughts weren’t even coming ,, it gave me such a calming effect ,, and I wasn’t the only one ,, the other three were already in their own worlds humming songs as the sun set depriving us of light to gaze at the beauty of nature ,, I didn’t want to go back,, but the thought of coming back eased the pain of going,, we bribed the watchman promising him dinner if he lets us come here at midnight ,, he was more than happy and he scribbled his favorites on a newspaper, back home we were all talking about life, god, miracles, irrelevance of money ,, I had the feeling that the rest were possessed by spirits but I still gave them company,, after a brief stopover at the hotel we went back to the dam,, this time though it looked freaky ,, dark and empty roads ,, forests on either sides ,, and a dam with no living being in sight,,,,, perfect setting for a horror flick ,,
Full moon night ,,and the waves lashing the rocks we were sitting on ,, mountains on three sides ,, silent reflection of the moon in a hustling river ,, all of us went silent ,, nobody spoke ,, we were just looking at the river ,, it seemed like its calling us ,, I could see a thousand heads just bobbing up from the river ,, calling us in ,, the river desperately trying to free itself from the dam ,, but it made a mind numbing sight ,, at 1 am the silence was broken by vivek sir ,, I looked at him and he was sweating,, said he’d seen a ghost ,, he didn’t really bother describing it but looked shit scared ,, the prankster in me and prabin took over with some amazing stories on our own fake encounters with the spirits ,, three stories later ,, vivek sir gets up and announces that he’ll leave no matter what ,, back at the room he felt much better until I told him about how kings tortured and killed their enemies and slaves at underground dungeons at these palaces ,, he didn’t sleep all night and didn’t even let us get close to the light switch ,, kept them on all night.,,

Day 3
Our deadline to leave this place has been missed by 3 hours,, well wouldn’t crib even if I had to stay back one more week,, we were so well taken care off that I’d never call prabin bhai to my place,, the hospitality standards he set are so bloody high that even my best attempt would not match half of what he did,, trip back was cool,, drove on fifty ,, straight to the office,,

Was such a memorable experience ,, totally unplanned , I had three road trips planned out till the last detail but for some reason none of them happened ,, we just let ourselves get swept away in the moment and this is what we have ,, beautiful memories.