Our Big Trip to Bhopal - The Beginninig

It started with the big day of Vipin Patel. He was getting married on 20th Feb and so it gave all of us a fantastic opportunity to travel and have few moments off from our very busy schedule. The preparation of the travel was a typical bhasad type, haphazard, and unplanned. But this is the thing I enjoy and like most about our group. Myself with wife Pooja, Doel, Samir, Tillu Bhai with wife shweta, Prasoon, Shanky, Hemant and Himanshu agreed to go to the marriage. Finally, Himanshu could not make it because he could not get the leave from his manager. It turned out rather fortunate for us since Vipin has requested us to take one of his friend along with us, which was not possible had Himanshu been coming with us.

For the preparation, Pande dual has done the bookings of Innovas, and Prasoon was given the duty of coordinating within the group and with Vipin, for which he has done a miserable job. Tillu bhai could not confirm if he is coming or not until Saturday, just two days before the travel date. Finally all came along and it was decided that we would leave at 4:00 PM on Monday. For me, it was particularly very difficult due to the assignments but I managed it somehow. There was some delay since one of the vehicle was caught by Police for some reason and could not be made available to us. The travel guy had to arrange a new one for us. Also, Tillu bhai went to pick Shweta which took some more time. Doel became a little impatient and things became little tense for a while. So finally we started from Indore at 4:45 PM, just 45 minutes late from our planned time. Considering the very bad record of our group, and particularly bad record of Shanky, it was a grand performance.

So we started from Indore in two Innovas. Myself and Pooja, Tillu bhai and Shweta and Vipin's friend took one and the rest of the party has taken the other Innova. It was a pleasant day and AC of the Innova was doing wonders. We had a opportunity to interact with Shweta since this has been only two months since Tillu bhai was married. It was the first time myself and Pooja met her and we found her to be a charming lady. Vipin's friend has taken the front seat, the gentlemen took the middle and ladies had taken the back. Me and tillu mainly jabbered about the company and projects while I had given no attention to as what the ladies are upto. It rather went well and we took a break at Dodi.

In Dodi, we had a feast. For some reason everybody seemed to be very empty and they had a blast at Poha and Idli. It was the birthday of Shweta also so we had a small cake cutting ceremony and feasted on the gulabjamun brought by the Tillu couple. We have given up on the count on poha plates and chai and took turns until we all are full and had no more. Pandeji gave me a rather nice dodge when he went for second plate of idli, which prompted me to go for one of myself, but it turned out to be rather sour in taste. We spent almost half an hour there and had some very good time.

Finally we took off again. The rest of the journey was rather boring as the gentlemen have finished talking about the projects and I was mostly interested in having my eyes closed and relax. Round about 8:30 we entered in Bhopal and from there it took another 45 minutes to reach Minal residency, our destination, becuase of one or two traffic jams one the account of Barats.