Memories of Abu

You will probably like Gujarat for every romantic reason save the 3-4 months of excruciating and un-endurable heat – that’s one thing this land puts your semi-white skin to an ugly test. The worse entails engendering heavy raining of sweat of-late, unlike a couple of years back when only the epidermis burnt to death without sweat. Primarily, the said fact took us (3 families) to Mount Abu, in quest of some remedial relief from the scorching heat.

Coming to the composition of the retinue – it was multi-cuisine dish with young pros from varied fields- a pilot, two engineers and one to-be-ER and the last one still a student coupled with the stereo-typed supervising heavy weights. In all, a healthy dish and luscious too.

The itinerary precisely included Ambaji, the holy and revered worship place of Maa Ambe and therafter Abu for another one and half day. We eventually checked into Abu at around 2 pm and pacified our exhaustion in an oblivious sleep. The clement evening of Abu breezed all of us to Nakki Lake whose hilly, cemented but dilapidatedly dirty banks housed some of our mischievous commotion for two long hours coercing the other tourists to look at us perplexed and irritated. Poking, playing, enacting, teasing, taking series of snaps, mouth-watering slushes what not! The only thing left was to dive into the heart of the Nakki Lake but the water had mostly dried up, leaving behind bones of rocks as remnants. There followed some feministic marketing (but I doubt whether they bought things or simply bargained as usual) and the young team managed a bat-ball which actually paved for a night long corridor-cricket match in the gigantic common balcony of our hotel rooms. A thrilling and hilarious 5 member match with our excited parents acting in as both spectators and cheer-leaders but only for the first few overs – I guess!!

The next morning looked more cheerful…a much early wake-up morning tea at 11 am, the last person to have been luckily offered a tea only because it was a vacation; then a sexy shower followed by Park Avenue’s Good Morning, when it was bidding time for the morning in-fact; we set out for a breakfast and then the Bramhachari’s Peace Park, which looked antagonistic to its name, pregnant with multitudes of people. We then headed towards Dilwara, but the killing crowd discouraged any entry and thus we decided to worship our stomach in a restaurant before again stepping into the tiring afternoon’s oblivion.

Team young again had a wonderful time with bat-ball until late afternoon and eventually it was time to bid adieu to Abu – a place re-visited after 4 long years and thoroughly enjoyed by all and sundry to cherish it till a next visit.