independence weekend

15th august is when this country takes a day off to celebrate the fact that 59 years ago we replaced the british bureaucrats and civil servants with indians. well, it gives me a day off and thats always welcome.

i took monday off too and had an extended weekend break. four of us had decided to do a rustic trip and so we went to a village and stayed in a hut for 2 days.

the trip began with a train journey to karjat junction, famous for its wada-pav, 2 hours away from bombay. then a half hour rickshaw ride and we were at the village. the rickshaw driver introduced us to a chap who agreed to let us rent one of his huts, just mud walls and thatch roofs, for a couple of days.

it was as rustic an experience as most of us city-slickers are wont to get in a lifetime. but for a village the place was quite up-market. they had satellite television and regular electricity. water though had to be carried in buckets and brought in to the house manually. and the toilets were in an outhouse, which proved to be quite daunting in the dark.

we indulged in some trekking but mostly we just lazed, ate authentic maharashtrian food and watched a couple of b-grade hindi movies. finally, in true city-slicker style we cut the rustic vacation short so that we could get back to the city with a day left in the holiday.