It was an early summer morning of
May 20, 2018 when we three friends were executing the plan of exploring Sanjay
Gandhi National Park and Kanheri Caves with the bicycle as our savior. As the
clock touched 5.15 AM, my mobile did not let me sleep with its loud alarm. And
yes, I am the one who needs more than dozen of alarms and I wake up just before
alarm gives up. But today was different; a single alarm was enough to kick me
out of my bed. I got ready within half an hour, packed my bag and rushed to station
to catch the local train to Borivali. However, I got down at Andheri, so that I
can catch the train along with my friend. We reached around 7.05 at the gate of
Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali only to realize that I could have slept
half an hour more on this Sunday morning. The gate opening time was 7.30 AM. As
the gate opened sharp at 7.30 AM, it was like the flood gate of the dam was
opened. Public flooded towards the ticket counter. Thankfully my friends were
ahead of many to save us on time. Once we have our entry tickets in hand, time
for another mission started to get bicycles on rent. This time we were late,
still managed to get cycles before 8.15 AM. Thanks to our efficient guide cum
friend.
It was super fun to ride cycle
after a long time. For the first few minutes, cycles were not in our control.
However, we managed to control it and started moving to our destination Kanheri
Caves. It is around 6.5 km distance from the main gate. Although, we could not
find any animals except deer, still we were happy to be away from the chaos of
the city, to be away from the concrete jungle of Mumbai and to enjoy the serene
beauty of the nature on the way. It felt like we are far out of Mumbai. We were
surrounded by greeneries, trees and fresh air. We enjoyed the cycle riding more
than anything else. With few breaks in between and after a struggle to cycle so
long, we reached the foot of our final destination. The final patch of the
journey was tough with high elevation and with zero energy level. So we decided
to re-energize ourselves with watermelon from the road side vendor and few sips
of water. Still our legs were not ready to pedal the bicycle through that
elevation. The aunt, who was selling the fruits, was kind enough to allow us to
park our cycles near the shed and climb the last patch.
So the last one kilometer of our
journey started with our tired feet against the elevation. After 20 mins of
walking, we reached the Buddhist cave of Kanheri. More than the beauty of the
carvings on the huge stones, we were appreciating the sculptures who could
build such big monuments, caves without using any complicated machines or
modern age equipment. At most of the places, we could find the stone carvings
of Lord Buddha and their disciples in meditating pose. The cave is wide spread and
you can definitely appreciate the beauty of the place from the top of the cave.
As we were near the end of one side of the journey, we thought to re-hydrate
ourselves and start the downward movement. We walked down till the foot of the
hill where we had parked our cycle.
Now the return journey started
with full energy. Once the cycles were in our hand, there was no look back as
we caught speed. The scorching heat was pinching through our skin which
motivated us to sped our cycle. However, the smooth journey was incomplete
without a small accident in between. One of the friends skidded from cycle and
fell down just to hurt herself. Although it was minor, it took the fun out of
us for some time. However, that did not demotivate us as we again picked speed
in no time to reach the end of our journey. We submitted the cycles and started
our journey back to our respective homes with beautiful memories in mind and
with appreciation for ourselves to sweat in an early Sunday morning of hot
summer.
