Memories of Matheran..!
Chug, chug, chug, chug!
I still hear the sound of engine behind me, as I recollect those days of yore, climbing Matheran. What joy to hear my toy train pal will soon be chugging into the Unesco Heritage List: Hurrah for you my friend!
The little train was always behind, before or beside me; I preferred long climb up, rather than overburdening already full, chugging train. But at Waterfall Station, I under waterfall and she watered by pipes, we caught up and smiled at each other, wondering how passing year had treated the other.
We met once every year, Matheran being an annual ritual and a rather pleasant and memorable one I must say. “How are your friends Bob?”
I wonder which friends she remembers; every year was a different group, most often only guys, though once Lisa decided to come along, guarded well, with brother and cousin walking alongside, shielded not from male tomfoolery but from bawdy, guy jokes that usually accompanied us on those long climbs to top of forest plateau. But that year with Lisa we were gentlemen, huffing and puffing but not swearing, or cursing even when pebble entered between blistered toes or slippery path made us skid and fall and slither.
“What about those other friends?”
“Ah you remember them? I do too!” It was the year I was to take over as chairman of a social organization and thought the best way to build good team was to do Matheran together.
To Snehal Patel who normally climbed to his residence in Malabar Hill in his Mercedes it meant a drive up, to the others it meant more or less the same, maybe not Mercedes but Honda City, but as chairman I had authority to coerce and bully; we traveled second class to Neral then started the climb, on foot.
“Yes,” I say, looking at puffing engine, “It’s one trip that stands out from the rest: I saw sides of my friends I’d never seen before; Tushar Mehta who’d I’d always thought of as a poker faced CA, throwing arm round a stumbling Ashok Mansukhani, helping him on. Panther Singh taking jokes about himself in his stride, Prashant Kalbagh throwing open his bungalow to a group of mucky, muddy, yucky looking bunch of bedraggled fellows, who soiled bed sheets, spoiled carpets and used curtains to dry themselves, but narry a word of reproach.
And there were the two Sandeeps looking for Charlotte Lake at midnight with a flashlight!
“Ah well!” I tell her as she chugs along, “I guess the hills bring out the best in us! For close to a hundred years you’ve carried harried, hassled souls up to the silence of Matheran and brought us down refreshed, rejuvenated: You deserve your moment of glory; I know this Heritage Status will sit well on your toy train shoulders!
Hurrah for you my friend as you continue taking people up to God’s own hills..!
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