MISAL Party

Mala
Itaranna
Saglyanna
Awdel
Lajjatdar............MISAL

Read Bhakti's mail in my inbit mail box.
"Misal" ?? I read her mail again. Just as I was trying to figure out what she meant, another message popped on my screen. The message was from Nik. It read, "Aaj Dupari...majhya kadun tumha saglyana MISAL".
And that’s when it struck me. Last week we had a bet going on as to who will take away the Fifa World Cup this year. Nikhil was strongly supporting Netherlands but Spain took home the FIFA cup instead and Nikhil lost the bet. So he agreed to take us all out for a Misal party.
"Wow thats great, but what do i do with my tiffin", i said as I heard about their impromptu lunch plan. Gajanan joked about it saying I should have Misal-Poli, while the rest of them would enjoy Misal-Pav.

The guys finalized a popular restaurant called Purepur Kolhapur, saying it would be a perfect place to have misal pav.
As the clock neared 1 pm, we kept telling each other to hurry and be in the parking sharp at 1pm. Sachin said he was a bit unwell, and so he wouldn't be joining us for todays lunch party.
After much "Chala na, Utha na", finally every one met in the parking lot. Suddenly there was a big confusion among the boys as to how should we go. Anu, Bhakti and me watch in amazement as to what these guys were upto. It was a simple math. 4 guys - 2 bikes. Even as Nikhil got on his Activa, Gajanan, Suresh and Vaibhav kept discussing how they should go. After much thought and discussion their confusion was cleared and we decided to move. Gajanan hopped on Nikhil's bike, Vaibhav on Suresh's bike and Anu on Bhakti's scooty. I rode my scooty alone.

As we hit the main road, the guys sped off; while Bhakti and me rode our scootys casually. Just as we crossed Girija shankar complex, I took a right turn towards Karishma, while Bhakti took the straight road ahead. Minutes later i saw Suresh and Vaibhav pulling their bike aside, searching for Nik. "Wow. This is great" i said, as all of had taken different routes. Good thing everyone knew the place. Suresh and me took the Mehendale garage road, and
reach Nalstop. Just as we struggled to find a good parking spot, i saw Nik and Gajanan waiting for us near the restaurant. They had reached way before us. We parked our vehicles and waited for Bhakti. Gajanan instructed us to go ahead and reserve a place for us to sit. Just as we settled down in our places, Bhakti and Anu arrived.

Nikhil had strictly instructed us that it was Misal party and we all would not be ordering anything else. We agreed and Nikhil placed the order. These guys then got chatting about last night's football match, and we girls sat up blankly listening to their conversation. Soon, their discussions then shifted to, the best misal-pav joints not just in pune but all over Maharashtra. Nikhil suggested that we should have more of such informal lunch parties and gettogethers. Everyone agreed and the topic once again got diverted to trips and outings. Bhakti suggested we go to her native place Satara, Gajanan suggested Khas, Nikhil suggested Ratnagiri, and the suggestions just kept pouring in. Finally everyone unanimously settled for Sinhagad.

Just then our order arrived. Every plate contained 2 big slices of pav, misal and piping red hot curry. "Whoa, this looks spicy", i said looking at the curry in the bowl. Everyone kept telling me that was just the "taree" that looks red hot, but it is not spicy at all. Only after I had tasted a spoonful of missal, was I convinced that it was actually not spicy. Soon everyone got busy eating and the conversations mostly revolved around the missal. Some of the guys felt that the misaal was not spicy enough and they asked for a refill of red hot spicy taree.

After having a swept our plates clean, Nikhil ordered some dahi for all of us. As we got busy eating dahi, the guys ordered some garma garam chai. "Is there any place for chai still left in your stomachs", I asked as I finished the last spoonful of dahi. But men are men. For them Chai peene ka koi time nahi hota and there is no limit as to how many chais they can have in a day.

As the guys sat sipping tea, I glanced at my watch. It was almost time for us to leave. Someone suggested that we should have paan, and everyone instantly agreed. Nikhil setted the bill, and we walked towards the paan-thela. Suresh and Nikhil instructed the paan wala to make some paans for us. While the rest of us waited patiently for our paan to arrive. Nikhil held a plate full of paans in front of us. Each one of us picked up a paan. With the paan in out mouths..."Hmmmm..." is all we could say to tell nikhil that the paan was really very delicious..
We started walking towards the parking, collected our bikes and headed straight for office.

So let me sum up our todays lunch party with this little kavita written by Anu describing our day. Here goes :
“Nikhil ne di aaj misal pav ki party,
kisine nahi ki na kahne ki galati.
Party thi ki netherland ke harne ki saja,
Par kuch bhi kaho aaya bada maja.

Lage haath ho gayi agle gettogether ki ghoshna,
Sinhagad, Kaas, Ananda valley, kahi bhi ho, hamko toh hai jana.
Chalo jaldi tay karte hai inmese koi ek thikana,
beet na jaye mausam ye suhana."