Poona With My Sala

Bablu at Rakshak Chowk, Poona, with the Battle Tank he wanted to see along with Rohan & Mamli

We first planned to spend a weekend in Poona in mid July. First Mamli had class tests and then Bablu fell sick. So we finally managed to visit my Sala, Rohan Padhi, on August 15, 2010, after discussing the trip for a month.

We started from Mumbai at about 8.30 am on Saturday, Aug 14, having planned to start at 7 am. Not bad for a family with two small kids who love their sleep and have to get up at 5.30 am on weekdays to catch the school bus and as a result are slightly pampered on wake up time by Daddy & Mummy on weekends.

Anyway it started raining just as we started and the sky was heavily overcast, shadowing our mood a bit but not damping it out all together. I only knew the Thane route and prooceeded to follow it. The MIDC roads on the mainland were a mess. Bad does not start to describe them. It took as a good hour and a half to hit the Mumbai Poona Expressway. The kids and Padmaja had nodded off and finally woke up after the jerking of the car stopped on the concrete of the Expressway. Or maybe because I slowly increased speed till I was doing 80 kmph.

We stopped at the first food plaza after the toll gate. It wasn’t very clean and very very crowded. Anyway Padmaja & the kids grabbed icecreams while I bought samosas and vada pao. Then it was back to the expressway again.

We reached Poona at about 11.40 and my Sala’s home at noon.

Had a light lunch and the a siasta. In the evening we visited our dear friends Ravi & Vathsala. They moved to Poona in 2008 when Ravi took up a job with Suzlon. We had not met them since. Their two sons, Nikhil & Dhruv are slightly older than Mamli & Bablu. The kids had a great time jumping and playing while we caught up on 3 years with Ravi & Vathsala. We finally left at about 10.40.

Today we plan to grab lunch at a seafood restaurant and then head back to Mumbai at about 3.00 pm. This time I plan to take the Navi Mumbai – Vasi – Gatkopar route rather than via Thane.

Update:
We left Poona at 4 pm and made very good time, reaching Navi Mumbai by 5.45 pm. Reached home just after 7 pm though. I had to go get vegetables etc for the week ahead from the Madha vegetable mandi as I will be away visiting my client in Dubai & Abu Dhabi this week. Plan to return early Thursday morning.

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