a beautiful city called AMBY VALLEY!

My good friend Tej turned 27 last Saturday and decided to spend the weekend with his close friends at Amby Valley! It pays to know a diamond merchant or people who work for diamond merchants ;) Tej belongs to the second category. He is an extremely hardworking boy and has this fantastic ability to dramatize the most trivial things and have you rolling in laughter … things that I otherwise wouldn’t have even smirked at ... you know what I mean?!

Anyway, the drive to Amby Valley from Lonavala was almost as long as the drive from Mumbai to Lonavala! We spent the journey laughing at Imran’s conversations. Actually we were laughing at Imran! Imran is one of the nicest people I know. He’s a sure short stress buster and the amazing part is that he doesn’t even know it. The drive was beautiful. Tree clad mountain tops interspersed with the occasional waterfall. Some of the not so impressive waterfalls were described by Imran as ‘nature’s call’. It was more like the ‘call’ that ‘nature’ didn’t answer for a year :)! The road to Amby Valley was incredible! We couldn’t see anything that was 10 mts away AND IMRAN WAS DRIVING (he drove surprisingly well though)! When we finally reached Amby Valley, my jaw dropped at the sheer size of the arched gates and I began imagining what it would be like inside. It felt like an achievement to be there (one of those gifts parents give you when you do well in an exam :) … more so because the last time I visited Amby Valley with a group of college friends, we were thrown right out (the place is open only to members and their guests)!

As the gates opened for us, they unveiled one of the most incredible places I had seen. Amby Valley is heaven away from home (Bangalore Ashram qualifies as home for me :)) There were hills and lakes and rivers and mountains... 10,000 acres of sheer peace. We were put up in cozy timber chalets with even cozier bathrooms :) (the first thing I do when I enter a room is check out the bathroom!).

We dropped our bags and rushed to the ‘paint balling’ field. Paint balling is an extremely challenging yet exciting game where two teams equipped with loaded guns compete against each other to capture a red flag in the middle of the ‘battle field’. The guns are loaded with paint balls instead of bullets which burst into a splash of paint when they hit you. The instructor briefing us took a look at my pink ashram rubber chappals and I could guage he wasn’t to happy with my footwear :) “Are you okay with falling?” he asked and I vigorously nodded as I fondly remembered how i played “dahi handi” at the Pune YES!++ course two years back! The whistle (or the conch during the Mahabharata) was blown and both sides began shooting at ach other in the pouring rain. Suddenly I was reminded of a war that we had to win for the sake of our dignity and self respect (it was boys versus girls :))! The first game got over in two minutes and it took us time to recover from the sheer speed with which the boys had captured the red flag! The second game and every game after that (except for one) was won by us … never mind that we were given a bit of a lead by the referee ;) . Sure enough, I fell in the muck and injured my back real bad. Nevertheless, the important thing is that we won!

… more to come tomorrow!
love Pooja