What does August 15th mean for a common man?

India as a nation grew one more year older today. Today we are a 64 year old nation in whose blood patriotism is still running. My question is what does a Independence day mean to you and me? I am in the process of finding an answer to this question.

You will find school kids going to their schools to hoist national flag, Shops will be decorated with tricolor, will see people wearing the tri-coloured  dress, Rickshaws with flags, some societies conducting their annual gathering, some hurriedly preparing for upcoming festivals, loud speakers playing patriotic songs (mile sur tera hamara included), TV channels featuring patriotic films, news channels conducting debates on topics of growth India has made so far,  tourists find 15th August as a day of discounted day for their vaccation, some happily sleeping till noon as they got a day off from usual schedule, some visiting relatives and so on.

How many of us including me has gone for a flag hoist ceremony once they are out of school? As people are constantly hearing national anthem in cinema halls, else many of us would have forgotten national anthem till now.

Lets not forget the pain and torture people bore so that today we can walk and speak freely. Patriotism should not be a one day thing for an Indian. Patriotism is not about hearing PM speech or watching Border 100th time or posting patriotic messages on wall. Also, it should not be something that comes up on 15th August and 26th January.

Let this devotion remain in our behavior even on other days excluding differences among us and live in harmony Let each one of us do our part to this nation- may be its the smallest ever thing anyone can do- to furnish the gift that we got.

Jai Hind.

Trek to Naneghat

A totally unplanned trek to naneghat - just to have a change from the daily hustle and bustle was decided at about 11.30 pm on friday night.
We started our journey to Naneghat from Kalyan - Murbad - Naneghat at about 8 in the morning. Reached the base of mountain by around 10.15.

Naneghat view from  the base

It took us about 3 hours of hard core trek to reach the top. Many places you may not find a way to go ahead. That is interesting. Proper footwear is a must for this place as you will have to hop from one rock to the another during the trek.
As there were no rains during our uphill travel, we all were sweating out while climbing.

This ghat was used as a trade route in olden times between kalyan & pune.

view from top- kalyan side

By about 1.15 we reached the top. There is a cave carved at the top where about 50 people can stay at a time. Its safe to stay there during night because of the grills and doors constructed by the villagers.There are inscriptions written on the walls of the cave.

Cave

At the pinnacle there was very less visibility because of fog. You can hardly identify any objects more than 10 meters away.
The name nane means "coin" and ghat means "pass". This is because,this path was used as a tollbooth to collect toll from traders crossing the hills.

Tollbooth

We got a small stall where we had tea & bhajiya which was very helpful as all of us were getting cold because of the strong cold winds and rain.

We changed our plan and decided to descend to the other side of the mountain- Junnar, Pune. About 1 and half hour of walking through dense fog, we reached a village named Ghatghar.

On the return journey

From ghatghr we got a bus to Junnar- which is about 30 Km away. From Junnar we went to Bunkar Phata- which is about 10 Km from Junnar by Jeep. 17 people were stuffed into one jeep. From Bunkar phata we got a bus to kalyan- A journey of more than 100 Km excess travelled.

As someone rightly said
"A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to" - We actually experienced this statement.

On the way back we came through Malshej ghat.

Malshej view

Malshej 

 It was really refreshing and adventurous with lots of images clicked and lots of memories to cherish in the days to come.

And the Caravan............