FUNVILLE - last 2 days

Namaskar friends. OMG, Shirish and SRK can never be best friends again? What will happen to the citizens of India? Seriously? I think this earth shaking news is so casually been dished out on TOI, as though the readers are morons. Farah Khan comes across as a bully. She had a riches to rags story in her childhood. Well, she has recovered from that stunningly now. Good for her! Lucky star kids of Bollywood. Not much of a struggle to be launched. This time it is Armaan Jain (Kareena's cousin), Randhir Kapoor's sister's son being launched by Saif Ali Khan. Bollywood should be renamed Kapoorwood soon. They rule!
                                     Some days you bump into the same person again and again. Today was such a day for me. This lady and I were on the elevator this morning, we then met in the bathroom, then again in the kitchen at lunchtime. Later in the afternoon we met yet another time in the bathroom. All this time only exchanging polite hellos. In my head I was thinking, "how in the world?!. Who is she?" And then as I was leaving the office for home, I met her again in the parking lot. Both of us started laughing and introduced ourselves to each other quickly. Made a new "friend"  for today, till we bump into each other again. :)______________________________________________________________________

THE HOUSE

 Well, without further adieu introducing you to the house we stayed in. (See below). I think pictures speak louder than words.When we arrived, one family had already occupied the house. They opened the door and welcomed us in.  I only had the opportunity to take a pic. of the front of the house that night.

front of the house

Slowly all the other families came in and we had a full house. That night we played cards and talked like we had never talked before. Wine and snacks were free flowing. We finally went to bed at around 2 AM. I woke up to chatter and pipping hot tea made by my friends. It was so nice to sit outside on the deck with all friends and sip the tasty tea, while soaking the beauty of nature, so early in the morning.

 

The living room (early in the morning)  facing the deck on the back of the house

The Deck

 

The lake view from the deck (mesmerising!)

 

The heart of the home. The kitchen.

Dining area, overlooking the kitchen. This is where we assembled for every meal and chatting sessions.

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THE HIKING TRAIL

So, after breakfast we went on a hike. Long awaited dream of mine came true.

  

 
We came across spectacular water falls on the trail. The hushing sound of  water gently hitting the rocks, reminded me of the song from the movie Hero. We all kept singing this song all through the hike. I am reliving that moment now by making that song the Song of the day: Hope all of you enjoy the song too!

The flute tune was awesome in this movie. The novel idea of bringing together a bad guy and a sweet girl and the bad guy turning good at the end made this movie a blockbuster and one of its kind during the 1980s. I plan to watch the movie soon on youtube, just to refresh my memory. I was a big fan of Jackie dada then. I remember tearing posters of him from filmfare and pasting it on my study wall back home.  The beautiful, Meenakshi Sheshadri was a good actress whose potential, unfortunately, was not fully explored by Bollywood.
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THE BOAT RIDE

Later in the afternoon we rented speed boats with tubes. The kids had a blast here. Their tube was flat and required a great deal of strength to stay afloat on it. Plus our friend who was an ace driver kept them alert with his driving skills. He drove it fast at times and slowed down soon, so the kids had to save themselves from falling off the boat. Kids love healthy competition. So, they were in heaven.



 

 

We spent the whole afternoon taking turns tubing, ate sandwiches that we had packed, played antakshari, and just lazed on the boat under the beautiful blue sky, the breeze delicately touching our cheeks. The scenery surrounding the lake was breathtaking to say the least. It was a perfect day, away from the hustle-bustle of the daily routine of the suburbs. We went back home all tired. Luckily we had each taken an entree dish that we had already cooked when we left for the trip. We quickly heated some rotis and heated all the dishes and had a sumptuous dinner. We then sat around out favorite dining table and chatted for hours, getting to know our friends, slowly but surely. What a perfect group of like minded people we were! We thought of 20 different ways of taking vacations together in the near future. Lets hope at least a few of them materialise. We danced and played dumb charades till the wee hours of the morning. We barely slept for a few hours when it was time to wake up again. Had a last breakfast together, settled accounts and talked about lessons learnt from this trip and locked the house and returned the keys. We then went out on yet another hiking trail and finally separated at around 2 PM. One memorable trip came to an end. The whole family had fun. Looking forward to many more. Luckily with the age of digital cameras, its not hard to share pictures. Ultimately, its these pictures that keep the memories alive! Friends, I will be missing for sometime from this space as Shekar's sister, who lives in Australia, is visiting us for a week starting tomorrow. I hope to spend some quality time with her. I promise, I will write about it soon.