Sunday, Sep 2, 2012
I used to wonder why kids in their paintings always paint the cliched green mountains, blue sky and a river flowing by through green valleys brimming with yellow-green farms. Today, I knew why ! – ‘Cause its a sight that leaves a mark on your memory. Mine was stamped today.
Saturday evening Manas called and an impromptu bike-ride was on the map. Kurze Dam, which is just close to the Talasari junction on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad, NH 8 highway.
Back to the kids’ paintings – By September, the earth has been painted, replenished and cleansed as well. The sights that we saw on our way were just from the kids’ art books. The flushed-clean highway clinging to the green bosom, climbing and caressing the green paddy fields, which were close to being harvested giving a slight hue of yellow through the broad green spectrum. The air too was crisp-clean. Every single particulate dust had settled. The small, yet picturesque hills around the Manor region added another touch of flavour to the picture. As if that wasn’t good enough to put in a frame, the sky with its receding black clouds, was now azure blue.
A right turn from Talasari took us through a lazy little country side still oozing of the wet spells that were continuing to be intermittent. The gravity dam’s wall was just ahead of us, the road kept moving along the wall teasing us as it would never touch the dam wall. We spotted a small brown opening through the grass and we ploughed through to the base of the water reservoir.
It was still raining, wind creating a wonderful mixture of the droplets. The water body streching ahead of us till we could only see the mist in trees far in the background. At our feet though was the pungent brown mud, blades of grass fizzing through it. The whole sight reminding why people in country side can’t think of places like Mumbai as their home.
Kids passed by us adoring the R-15 and the other lowly models. I asked them
तुम्ही पोहता का इथे ?
to which they eagerly pointed out at the base of the reservoir where they were heading and ran off. JK looked at them run bare foot, and his philosophical counterpart murmured
साला कोई टेंशन नही है
I too pondered … we had lost all, the carefree attitude, the innocence, the honest smile, everything.
We took a few snaps and headed back towards the base from the dam wall. To my surprise the kids were actually swimming, jumping in the water. We rushed and joined them. The water was warmer than the air, which made us feel out of the world! Manas enjoyed clicking our water buffalo (JK) and the kids with his water proof camera.
On our way back we had some parathas that my mother had helped us with and Granola bars with Mars chocolate that Manas always keeps handy on his bike trips.
Even the hot shower by the end of a wet, cold ride wasn’t good enough to wipe clean the warm swim that we enjoyed.
Travelling Directions
- Head on the NH-8 highway towards Gujarat
- Take a right under the flyover at Talasari
- Head right into the heaven in a minute.