Saturday, June 16, 2007

Mission Ladakh Zanskar Siachen 2007 - Day 01

Delhi – Sonepat – Karnal – Ambala – Chandigarh – Kiratpur

The day started with final shopping and packing. And as the clock struck 11, the first one to arrive was Farhan – in a bad shape obviously after a long train journey from Pune. I asked him to freshen up – take a bath, shave, etc and pack a separate bag for the trip ahead. He got busy! Bikiran soon called me to let me know that he is in Delhi but he’ll come via North Campus (he has got some work there). All the time, though, my thoughts were pinned on Hari – who was scheduled to arrive by Lakshadweep Mangla Express at 1.20 PM – but there was still no contact with him at 3 PM. My worries exacerbated when the clock struck 4. Fortunately, not much later, I got a call from Hari that he would reach my home in about 2 hours.

I was trying to induce some excitement into Farhan by showing others’ blogs when it was 5.30 PM and Bikiran called me to ask me to pick him up from North Campus. After discussing with Hari, I asked him to come to DU Metro so that I could pick both of them in one trip but alas, Hari was far away when I had to go to pick up Bikiran. However, I asked Farhan to withdraw 20k more. On arriving at home, I asked Bikiran to freshen up and get ready for the trip. Now, it was extremely late – 6 PM and I decided to take the final bath before Hari arrives. I was ready by 6.20 and finally – Hari called me from the DU Metro Station. I literally rushed to catch him and got him withdraw another 20k. We reached home and he was pushed into the bathroom (literally :P). Others were involved on phone – Farhan with a prospective junior and Bikiran with ICICI Customer Care on some issue on Credit Card, while my Mom was already tired of calling them for the Dessert.

Meanwhile, I made a visit to my grand parents and just before we were supposed to leave, my elder brother arrived. The first thing, he asked “What about accommodation in Manali?” I replied in nothing. He immediately called up his friend and booked 2 rooms for us at Hotel Greenfield at a very low price. He told me “Now you have to go to that hotel only otherwise I would have to pay for it”. This was the sign of a good start! The last thing I heard was “2 Calls Daily!” :-) I was not sure whether I’ll be able to fulfill this promise.

We caught the bus – it was good. As we crossed the Border, I opened up the packed Lunch and distributed to everybody. We were just done with it when the Bus stopped at Murthal :-(
Sleep soon overtook all of us through the midnight and I, of course, went into dreaming of Ladakh.