Our Nashik Shiridi Trip (Part - III)

Back to sweet home

The second memorable event is a sad one. With a satisfaction, all of us were returning happily via ahmednagar where we stopped for lunch and had an excellent gujarathi thali and started our trip home bound via pune with a full stomach & content heart. Both the sides of the narrow road was spread with a carpet of orange flower amidst the greenery. Have captured it in my camera for you.

In the pune express highway, we had a brief halt for hot tea enjoying the view of surrounding hills. Here I captured a pair of sparrows happily sitting in a small tree.

After we left this place, after 25 minutes, we were on ghats section crossing Lonavla and it was dark and to our amazement, it was foggy and raining too. The driver who was a sardar kept receiving calls in between, was telling us that his daughter’s marriage was fast approaching. We could make out that he was in a hurry.  Despite our repeated requests to slow down in the ghats section, he was speeding.

I was sitting in the middle of the back seat and had a good view of the road ahead. I am a person who is always on vigil observing the traffic while travelling irrespective of who drives the vehicle or in which vehicle I am on.  My MIL was asleep and my FIL has already started to doze as there was nothing to see out in the dark. For a fraction of a second my brain realized something was going wrong and soon the car hit the divider and that impact made it swirl backwards and again it hit the mountain wall & came to a halt. All of us were in the shock and when we realized what happened to us in the dark night we started to pull ourselves out of the car which got stop luckily because one of its front tyre got stuck between two rocks, beneath which lied a pit of nearly 6 meters deep with water falling from above. Otherwise, the accident would have been much worser if that car ran down or if hit by a following vehicle. But luckily no vehicle passed by for atleast 5 minutes.

I ensured that my MIL & FIL were ok. And My husband was even more worried.  Through the little light that our cell phone threw, we found some injuries on FIL’S head who was not wearing a seat belt that time. His bleeding didn’t stop because he takes 'Asprin'. 

When we got down, it was pouring heavily, no lights and it was cold. In that chaos, me and my husband never observed what happened to us as we had three people now to take care in that dark ghat section of the highway with the heavy downpour.

My husband pulled the driver who was luckily alive and soon regained consciousness.  My FIL who was sitting in the front was not wearing his seat belt and had head injuries but with god’s grace nothing major happned to any of us including the driver. I was standing in the pouring rain in the dark ghat section asking for help but no vehicles stopped. When my husband told that there was a huge pit of atleast 6 meters deep beneath those helping rocks into which the front tyre got stuck, we were thanking god for saving us from a great mishap that too with two old people with us.

After 20 minutes, a good hearted taxi driver in his premier padmini gave us all a free ride till a near by town where we showed to doctor, took first aid and hired a taxi and reached home by 11.30 pm. All of us were tired, injured and were weak. It took us a week to come out of the shock and a month or two to recover from the injuries.

Our Nashik Shiridi Trip (Part - II)

Our Nasik-Shirdi Trip – Part-II

The road to Nasik is not much enjoyable like the one we took to Trimabakeshwar as lot of settlement and developments have happened in that stretch. We made a short halt at panchvati by 3.00 pm. If you are born there, the place will bring you wonderful nostalgic moments, as so many old buildings with wooden work, dated back to centuries lined up amidst the tar coated narrow hilly roads. We visited kalaram mandir and on the way back to had a brief halt at a chai shop near kala ram mandir. It was a old house converted into a chai shop with all its charm inside. The place was cozy as it had lot of olden day’s woodden pillar and structures and a warm ginger tea welcomed us. The shop was run by a young couple with two benches and tables. It was so soothing to our heart and to our throad. Missed to take a picture of that place. We then started our journey towards, Shirdi – temple of Sai baba.

When we reached shirdi, its already 9 pm and was finding it difficult to get an accommodation as our trip was an unplanned one. After many tries in various hotels, With Baba’s blessings, finally we got a double bed room and all four of us made ourselves comfortable by ordering additional bed which we laid on floor and spent the night there. Food was not so good, but it satisfied our hunger after the tiring journey and the hunt for rest house. Morning got up early and went to the temple, had the Darshan of the Shiridi baba and came out with a satisfied look on our face because we didn’t stand in the long queue as my inlaws were old, the security personnel allowed us to accompany each and take the special senior citizen queue through which we reached the baba’s abode quickly.

Then we started to Shani Shignapur. Whomever vists shirdi, never goes without paying a visit to Shani bhagwan here.  In the village of Shani shignapur, no house has a door. Its their belief that if anyone steals will meet a very bad end. So no fear of robberies or theft in that village is what a localite told us. How nice it would be if our country has its every town like this.

(continued in Part-III)

Padi kolams / Maakolam/Naalu moolai Kolam designs - friday special

Design-6

Rawa Kesari

RAWA KESARI

Its a traditional south indian sweet which is easy to prepare.

Ingridients

• Rawa - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1 cup
• Elachi powder - 1/2 tsp
• Melted Ghee - 1/4 cup
• Orange food colour - less than 1/4 tsp
• Water - 2 cups (this may vary as per the variety of rawa so keep a cup of Hot water ready)

1. Heat a wok, pour a tbsp of ghee, roast rawa till the raw small goes. remove and let it cool.
2. Heat a kadai, add two & a half cups of hot water to it, add the food colour mix well
3. Pour 1/4 cup ghee into the hot water, add the rava slowly little by little while you keep stirring (to prevent form lumps)
4. When it is almost dry and forming just bubbles and the rawa is cooked, add sugar and mix well.
5. Keep it covered for 15 minutes.
6. Yummy hot kesari is ready. You can garnish it with cashews and raisins (optional)