Manic Monsoon In Mabi

Go to Mahableshwar they said. Its lovely in the monsoons. All the honeymoon couples go there. That should have stopped me – but it didn’t. Not having had a honeymoon myself I had dreams of walking with my husband under a canopy of trees in all their verdant splendor. I had visions of little droplets of water on my children’s eyelashes glinting like little diamonds in the watery sunshine. I had secret plans of snuggling under a warm blanket when the fog rolled in at early morn. In my mind’s eye I saw us enjoying waffles while drawing smiley faces on the window glass of a little bistro.

Boy! I was in for a rude shock. The Gods decided to entice us with a dry and sunny journey to this hill station, famed for its strawberries and everything Mapro. Uneventful journey to Mabi and me bragging all the way about how beautiful the scenery was and how the rains let up so we could have a nice 2 day break. Into Panchgani and while sipping coffee at a road side stall we experienced a little drizzle. Still upbeat I walked into the famed Roach’s bakery to buy some otherwise taboo baked goods. Was ‘not greeted’ by the owner; roach by name, roach by appearance. I understood – the claim to fame being his ability to be as ‘customer friendly’ as our very own local Iranian bakeries on East Street and MG road. I should have taken that as an omen of things to come – dark and cloudy. For the entire 5 minutes that I stood in his shop not a word was uttered. Unnerved I left without buying a single thing – wondering if he was silently reproaching me for venturing to buy things I had no business eating – but I digress. So onward we pushed towards Sherwood Mahableshwar with a song in our hearts and a swig from our hip flask.

The road to Mahableshwar was as slippery as a uniform waiting at a no entry sign. Positive people that we are – in hindsight foolhardy, we believed the rain would stop. The rain did not stop but we were stopped by the numerous people littering the road asking us for any and every tax known to Homo sapiens. Pay up we did not knowing which tax was legit and which was not. Of course I drew the line when they stopped us and asked for a tax for using our wipers!!!!( ok you get the idea) Anyway, we reached our destination and were warmly ensconced in our room – until the roof started leaking. 2 complaints later we were warmly ensconced in another room - sans phone. sans TV, sans view, sans hot water, sans our sanity! Wait a minute – was this not supposed to be holiday? So a dozen complaints later – we had a phone – line dead, hot water – wait for it..wait for it…wait for it.. “ok ma’am we will send you 2 buckets” and a TV – no English channels (we were informed that the ‘loyal to our horse riding hero’ people had put the kibosh on airing any programme in the Queen’s language )

Fast forward to 2 days later – 2 days of staying in our room – watching the weather go from drizzle to rain to heavy rain to thunder storm to someone up there emptying buckets of water on us mere mortals – and I was ready to build an ark! The thing I could not understand was that during the entire 2 days that we were there – physically at least cos mentally we were in sunny bloody wherever it was sunny, people kept coming and coming and the resort was full! Are people nuts or is it that we are from Mars? Enough was enough. Checked out in the morning ready to flee this dismal, wet, money grabbing hill station. 20 minutes out and we were told that the road between Mabi and Panchgani was closed due to water flooding. I have to say I thought I was in some horror movie where the place does not let you leave. (yes, yes. I do have a wild imagination and you would too if you were told “ vapas jao – rasta bund hai!”)

Vapas?? No way. My very own Indie and myself decided to gather our wits about us and find another way out of this wash out of a holiday. So through the mountains we went, intrepid adventurers, following a convoy of cars none of who really knew where we they headed just that they needed to get out. Perseverance always pays and after 60 minutes of driving in ways that would have us on Top Gear we found ourselves in Panchgani. Crying tears of joy we were on our way home. Slowly but steadily we wound our way down the Y and into the more familiar plains. 4 hours later we reached home. Tired but dry. Shaken but wiser. Still bewildered at why people go to Mahableshwar in the monsoons.

Me? Been there. Done that. Never again.