The TimePass of India

Part 2 of the "Hey Dog" trilogy.(Yeah, just like MATRIX!!)

Read the Part 1 -Hey Dog (The original dog!) here..
Read the Part 2 -Hey Dog (Dog's day out!) here..
Read the Part 3 - Hey Dog (The return of the wise one) here..
(No reference between the three, just like MATRIX!!)

I took a trip to Manori again the other day.. I now like the place even more than I did the last time.. I went there alone this time coz I wanted some peace and quiet for a few days, get away from the world, stuff like that..
The staff at the resort were increasingly nice to me, maybe coz I was alone.. I think they saw me as a loser who likes to spend his holidays alone (which was partly true.. er... no, not the loser part.. The part that I like being alone). The guys there upgraded my room to a nicer, roomier room for no extra charge!

Not only the staff but even Dogs there were nice to me..

Now I am not too fond of dogs, for that matter, I m not particularly fond of any animal, but yeah, I dont mind them being around.

So, as soon as I reached the place, I hit the beach.. I ran along the stretch, took a few pics of the setting sun, saw the sky change its colour every minute and sat on the rocks which were still warm as the sun melted into the ocean..



Once it was too dark, I returned back to the resort.. As I was walking, I noticed a white dog was following me..
I stopped.. He stopped.. I started walking again.. He started walking again.. The problem with dogs is that you dont really know why they are doing what they are doing.. And you cant befriend them by offering them some gum.. They apparently like bones, and for some reason I dont carry extra bones with me..

It was getting really dark now. My fav thing in the resort are the hammocks they have put up outside the cottages.. I lay down on one of the hammocks.. As soon as I settled down in it, the same dog came and sat below my hammock..

I am not scared of dogs, so I didnt mind him much, but I wanted to know what did he want.. But he was wagging his tail, and from what I have learnt from my CS class(Communication Skills) in engg, that means that the doggy is happy and he means no harm..

Next morning I forgot everything bout the dog, and set out for a run on the beach.. Thats when I again felt someone following me, I checked to find it was the same dog..

Inorder that you believe that its true, I have the clip as the proof..

Please note how when I increase my pace, the dog also increases his. When I turn right, he turns right.. When I stop, he stops.. I have heard that animals can be very camera conscious, so I tried shooting this discreetly.. that is one of the reasons why u see my shoulder in the video..
To make the shoot more authentic, I show that my hands are empty (Like David Blaine does at the start of a magic trick) and that the dog is following me without me doing anything special.. (not that I am particularly proud of it..)





I admit that I was getting a bit nervous by then.. I didnt know what to expect.. I started to run on the beach trying to lose him.. The faster I ran, the gutsier his chase became.. I saw in some Vinod Khanna movie that you run in a zigzag manner if you have to confuse a dog.. Though it works only when the dog is following your scent and you are outta its vision.. Here, I was right before him.. Still, I decided to give it a try.. I started running in a zigzag line.. A few of the locals gathered around me coz they expected me to break into their local dance form after the zigzag run.. But I didnt know the local dance form, so did a Govinda meri-pant-bhi-sexy routine there.. Somehow they werent impressed..


In the commotion, the dog lost the track of my scent or whatever it was that he liked in me.. Happy to not have a tail behind me, I plugged in my music player and started running to Nickelback's Rockstar.. As I was running I heard a lot of panting.. As far as I remembered Nickelback dont pant that much while singing.. Still running, I looked over my shoulder to find two dogs, yeah, not one, but two dogs running with me.. Running, and at the same time smelling each others, you know what..



i ran fast, they ran fast.. I ran faster, they ran faster.. I got tired, they didnt.. In my defence, they have 4 legs while I have only 2.. sucks, i tell you!


I dont know if I smelled too good, or too bad(coz I have seen them chase the Garbage trucks) that turned them on or something.. To check, I got close to a pig, gave him a whiff of my..er.. body scent, but it didnt follow me..



That means my deodorant was still working.. It was meant to attract girls, but look what it was getting me - a couple of dogs, not even bitches, but dogs! Not that I have any interest in bitches.. er.. anyway.. the point is that they followed me till it was time for me to leave..

I packed my bags, locked my cottage, and paid all the bills.. I was still being followed by the two dogs.. And I was getting irritated..

"Hey Dog! Look, I am really getting irritated with you constantly following me..What in the world do you want? ", I asked..
"Hey Human!"
Wow.. you can talk..?!!
Yeah.. or maybe its your imagination..
Oh.. maybe..
So why do u humans come here, stay for a while and then leave?
Hmm.. I guess we do that to get away from stuff.. you know.. relax a bit..
You like the beach..??
Yeah.. I do.. I like the ocean kinda..
Because it makes you realise how small and insignificant you are..
Wow.. those are big thoughts coming from someone who licks his own, u know wht, for fun...bwahahahaha..
Hey! Dont be jealous coz u cant do it..!
I am not, trust me..
So you come here to getaway, relax and in short have fun,right?
Yeah.. well put..
hmm..
What do you guys do around here to have fun..?
Oh.. we follow unsuspecting humans staying here in the cottage till they get irritated and frustated.. It is really a cool modus operandi developed by my friend(pointing to the brown dog) changu.. We just follow them, we dont bark, we dont bite.. just follow... We keep them guessing bout what we want..
Oh.. sounds familiar.. So what happens to those humans..?
Nothing major, they start talking to us and in their imagination see us talking back to them.. bow- wow! weirdos u humans are i tell you..
Yeah.. right.. I need to go now.. Please dont follow me anymore..
Oh.. Dont worry mate.. We wont.. And your imagination will be back to normal once you leave this island..
I sure hope to..



P.S. - To my friends : If you find me digging for bones in my garden, kindly inform Paris Hilton..

Hey Dog (Part 2) - Dog's day out..

This sunday I accompanied my office friends to this beautiful paradise called manori beach. For all my readers in Mumbai, this post can be quite useful.
So heres how it began. We have been doing 6 day weeks from like ages... Pallavi got this brainwave of arranging this outing. The problem with our office is tht we have absolutely no holidays whatsoever!! There are like 8 holidaysin an year, I suck at remembering dates, but these ones I do, there r only 8 to rem!!

We were looking at an outing which wouldnt take more than 1 day coz thts all we got.. Prajakta, the explorer tht she is, put in this idea about Manori.

After a few postponements, the day was finally decided.. This is how it goes - Mulund->Thane->Borivili->Gorai->Manori

We[Sharang, Shruti, Pallavi,Amit,Sachina and above all(heh heh)me!!] took an Asiad(I have no idea why it is called tht). For those who came late, Asiad is ST's so called luxury bus. Its better than ST which I believe has no shock absorbers. They have shock transferers, every lump on the road is felt by your spinal chord.. Your spinal chord cries like its been subjected to a lot of Himesh Reshamiyas songs..

So after 45 mins we reached Borivili(E). The organiser of this whole outing thingy, Prajakta, was to meet us at Borivili(W) in about 10 mins.

But as it goes with girls, these 10mins took about 30mins! Akshay aka aks aka sukhi was to meet us here with Prajakta.Now Aks crept up from sumwhere wearing nothing but his attitude(and clothes ofcourse). I mean he looked as cool as Saif in Tashan with those sunglasses and tht goatee(I am straight,I am trying to make a point here..Pls be patient) . As he nears I realise he has no backpack up his back(thts why he looks cool? Get it?)

Aks: Arre tu bag mein kya laya?
Me: Abbe? Change!!
Kya baat kar raha hai!! Prajakta toh boli sirf towel leke anaa!
Shruti:(with genuine concern)Tu towel leke aya hai kya?
(unable to control his laughter)Nahi!!

Crazy right? Thts aks for you!

Next, we take a rick to Gorai, you get a ferry every 15 mins to get you from this End of the creek to tht opp one.

As the mech engg in us took over, there questions floating in our heads..

Me:Arre is mein(ferry mein) bhi gear hai!!
Aks:Abbe har chalti cheej mein gears hote hai!!
Really?
Abbe isme Reverse bhi hai..
Haan be.. sahi na..
Merko bol arshat, Reverse mein ek hi gear kyun hota hai..I mean why dont you have like 2-3 reverse gears..
Coz you dont need it..
Oh!
Yeah! (Genius)

We decided to keep our mouth shut when an aunty sitting opp to us, gave us "The look" The look seemed to say, "Keep your puppy mouths shut or I ll kick you in the nuts"

The ferry took like 10 mins and we found us just one step away from Manori. But you know what they say, one small step for a man, one big step for a horse.. Some girl in the group had the brilliant idea to take the tanga(horse cart, you angrez ki aulads :P) I dont get why us guys have to take the front seats on the tanga, why cant the girls sit there in the front, it was them who thought this would be fun.. And I dont get why they r called the "front seats" they are right behind the horsie's behind!

Me:Is gaddi mein kitna horsepower hai? Two bhp? buwahahahah..

Somehow the horse didnt enjoy the joke and he/she lifted up his/her tail and let out half a kg of horse manure.. I decided to keep my silly jokes to myself..
10 mins into the travel..
Me:Aks, har chalti cheej mein gears hota hai na? Is ghoda gaddi mein kitna gears hai??
Everybody laugh.. bwahahahaha... Up went the tail, horse shit again..

Why cant I keep my mouth shut!!

Our cart rider though never kept his mouth shut.. He kept singing this songs which I suspect were from some C-grade Konkani movie.. "Tawa kela garam.. hmm hmm.. mulgi zali naram" some shit like tht.. He sweared at almost at every other cart driver on the way.. He had this stick with which was actually his acceletor.. There were 2-3 times when I was hit, I let out a neigh or two, if I remember correctly..



30 mins after the ride, we reached our resort, Dominica(Ph 022-24462161).. Its a nice place if you like peace and quiet.. The beach is like 2 mins from our cottage. Me and akshay were the first ones into the sea, other boys joined a lil late..
Girls took 1hr 12mins to get ready. Pray, tell me how do you get ready to get wet!!?

The water is okay, I mean dont expect Ganpatipule, but its relatively clean. 2 hrs in the afternoon sun and lazing around in the salt waters and it was time for some pet puja.. When I reached the resort, there was Aks in my six pockets, and Amits vest..

Me:Salee!
Aks:Ruk na, I hav left my pants to dry..
Mera pant tereko mila kahan se?
Prajakta ne diya!!
Towel kiska use kiya?
Patah nahi..shayad tera..
Abbe yeh mera nahi hai..
Prajakta:Arre yeh mera towel hai..
Wht goes around comes back around bwahahahaha....*evil grin*

Btw, I still havent figured out whose underwear he was wearing..

There not much to see around. The resort has got its swings, hammocks and see-saws on which we had the most fun!! This place is for you only if you are a water person and dont care about getting a tan, which makes u look like you have been to the sun and back!!

On the way back I realised how tired I was.. And how much I miss these guys.. And how much fun I had with them...

“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
-Mark Twain

Twain couldnt be more correct... You guys rule...

Thank you for the memories.....


Castaway : Manori beach