No Taking Chances

Kishor Babani (below) likes to play safe. Unsure about how the picnic plans for Mahabaleshwar would play out, he wants to book his tickets right away. Shekhawat today announced that we can wait till Monday (October 3) before finalising bookings. Kishor feels it will be too late by then. Chances are the bus seats and hotel rooms for October 14/15 will evaporate by then.
Meanwhile, Ved Prakash Grover became the first member today to make his contribution of Rs2,500 for the trip. Santosh Tyagi, her friend Mrs Chandra and Razia Khan have also verbally confirmed. Others who can be counted on are Mrs and Mr Shekhawat, Mrs and Mr Bose, and Kajal and Dilip Babani. So if it is a question of numbers, in a worst case scenario we can rustle up a dozen-odd members who should be ready to make the trip.
Problems however, lie elsewhere. According to Kishor, the last Volvo bus leaving Mumbai at 9:30 p.m. would reach Mahabaleshwar around 6:30 a.m. the next day. (Members like Santosh Tyagi and Bhaswati Bose, who suffer from acute travel sickness, are already contemplating a train trip.) Check-in time there is at 10:30 a.m. After the nine-hour bus journey, expecting everybody to wait for another four hours in the open would be cruel. In any event, the day would be wasted because it is highly unlikely anybody would be in a mood for sight-seeing. And then, next morning, at 9:30 would be check-out time! Surely, this is no way to enjoy a holiday.
One way out, as suggested by Dilip Babani, is to save sight-seeing for the second day i.e. after checking out (“Mahabaleshwar is a small place”) and then continue with the night bus back to Mumbai. For that, we leave Mumbai at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and reach there after 3:30 in the evening. Another possibility is to extend the trip by a day so that nobody feels rushed. (A couple of members might opt out, not to mention, per head costs going up.) A third option is to coordinate with train timings so that we get to rest at night.
All this requires serious, in-depth discussions – something we are not having.
Renu Babani:
Many members do not seem too keen in regards to the trip. However, as decided, best is to wait till Monday and then do the needful. Waiting for everyone to respond will take time, thus resulting in cancellation of the trip. So, let's hope that those interested do pay up and things can be finalised. Let's hope for the best and surely it will work out.