Chapter 3: Spot Deciding

Spot deciding....
Phew ! it took us hell of a long time to decide spot,. We did a lot of RnD, initially we all planned to go and visit some fort on sahyadris...but, with proper guidance from other friends, we realized that visiting forts on hills in summer is not a good idea. A stranger initially and then a friend, Amit Kulkarni, software engineer himself, guided us a lot in deciding the spot. He is a trekker and professional photographer also. In order to see the expeditions he has made so far, take a look at his site...by clicking here!

So we dropped the plan of hill forts. However, it was by coincidence or not, i donno....but both me and sandesh came up with the plan of Murud Janjira and Nagaon....a PERFECT 2 day picnic...the advantages were two fold, firstly we get to see a FORT in the middle of the sea surrounded by water and secondly, we also get BEACH to enjoy ! ....and now there was a problem, .....if the spot to be decided was MJN, then YOGESH won't come since he has already seen those. We were loosing hopes, since we did not want to loose him from team, not for money or contribution reasons, but for fun reasons, he is the living GOD of humor! ...but i like the spirit within him and faith he had in me and Tayade. ...he later agreed to come to MJN and proved that GAURAV GOEL was wrong.

So we started our R n D sending each other mail after mails and searching for accomodation...initially, no one showed interest .... not even tayade and yogesh...and that gave me a feeling that again this plan will fail like all other plans i made in the past 2 years. I would like to thank my bestest friend Saurabh Sawant who helped me a lot in giving information for the picnic, ...One more friend of mine who had been to murud recently, helped me in getting the information....thanks Ajith Menon. But later on the research got momentum, and this momentum was given by Yogesh and Swapnil,...thank you guys, had it not been for you guys, i still feel this wonderfull picnic would have just been in my dreams and my plans....my personal thanks to you two!

In my research i came across link on wiki mapia and got a site for murud janjira, where accomodation could be made as cheap as 1200 per day exclusive of food, for 8 people. We were thrilled, Tayade and Yogesh took the charge thereon of booking the accomodation ...they got few more numbers and contact information ... out of these for murud we booked "APNA GHAR" a lodging home by Faiq Faoujdar. We did not see or knew about it any where before. And we were initially skeptical of booking APNA GHAR....after a series of phone calls and confirmations, we decided to book APNA GHAR and as a token amount we transferred 20 Rs. electronically
initially. We were waiting for Faiq to confirm if he recieved this amount, but poor guy's mom suffered from heart attack and was hospitalised. Lets hope good for her health....she must be fine now. After a few days we got the confirmation and we transferred another 980 Rs...a total of 1000 Rs. This was required, since Faiq had complete faith in us, and he was going to book accomodation for us in Nagaon. He needed this money to confirm our booking in Nagaon. Without taking any advance for booking at his place, he reserved a room for us ....8 of us! At the end you can get contact information of Mr. Faiq Foujdar

In the mean time, Sandesh all alone, single handedly took the responsibility, of booking transportation. I bow before his confidence, he did this job so smoothly and nicely updating us on regular basis....that i think no one in the picnic has done so except for Tayade.

So, all the main issues were solved, accomodation and travel. only issue left was - MONEY...."PAISA....areee PAISA kaun dega ?" I had a tight schedule and it was difficult for me to collect money, i some how managed to get money(...initially 1500 per head) from Sunil and Krish....who forked out immediately without any hesitation like Ganesh ....an asshole, miser, who after repeatedly asking was not giving the money..."haan deto....are transfer karave lagtil naa.....karto thamb....udya ....haan haan karto!" .... and he never gave the money and at last moment canceled the plan for picnic......F#$K YOU BLUE BLISTERING BARNICLE Ganesh !

It is difficult, to give a detail account of financial transactions...but tentatively it was 15oo per head. Initially we thought, on the spot we will decide the hotel, since we had our sumo booked, so we could roam around anywhere in search of hotels for lodging. But Summer is generally the season, when children have vacations and families go out at beaches for vacation. So we thought, it would be more correct to do booking before hand rather than on the spot.
And believe me, advanced booking helped us a lot. ...right Zolers ?