Weekend at Palase Water falls

Oh !!! What a lovely place !!!! Last weeks trip to Pune was a bit more enjoyable than the previous ones . Normally I do not venture out in this monsoon season to avoid inconvenience to my patients as these are the ' sickly ' months . We planned this trip for Supriya as she starts her new college on 16th. We decided to visit Mulshi Dam a new place to go as we had heard of it but not visited . From Kothrud , where we were staying with Roopa , we took the road across the bypass road heading towards Mulshi. I saw a board showing Mulshi 30 kms.

The roads and the scenery around was simply marvelous . Below a view of the Mulshi lake, on the road going to Palase water falls. Actually we had missed the dam site and were travelling further asking people on the way . All the villagers were helpful and guiding us towards this water falls presuming that we wanted this place than the actual Dam. It turned out to be a great surprise . From a distance I spotted many cars parked along the road, a few stalls and a few carts with fresh corn being roasted on charcoals. This must be the spot I thought. We got down to see breath taking view of water falls in the distant mountains . I read a board showing the directions to go to this Palase water falls. We went walking through the gushing water to reach the water falls. Very very picturesque . We were not prepared for this type of an outing as we were ignorant of such a place's existence ,and had not carried spare clothes . We were envious of the groups enjoying under the falls and in the water. We have kept it reserved for next monsoon . A wonderful day indeed .We never realised that it was almost 2 pm and had to go back home for food which Roopa had kept ready before leaving. We collected a few home made Jawari Bhakri , from one of the stalls , to eat with a deliciously prepared chicken curry.

The crowd till we left the place was quite decent but we started noticing rowdy groups arriving probably fully high on alcohol as it was the day before the month of Shravan,wherein people abstain from drinking and eating non-vegetarian items for this month. This day is known as ' Gattari Amavasya ' a new moon day where people drink to their limits and literally fall into 'Gutters' as they have to abstain from the next day . Luckily for them it was a Sunday .Today I read in the papers about arrests made in Pune by Police in many places , one of which was Mulshi.

We saw the Mulshi Dam on our return journey as we drove towards it while in the morning on the turning roads our backs were towards it and had missed it .

At last , Admission done !!!

At last the long wait is over . Supriya got admission to the 4 year degree course in Pharmaceutical Sciences [ B. Pharm ] in Saraswathi Vidya Bhavan's College of Pharma at Dombivli in the second round of Centralised Admission Process [ CAP ] . This CAP is of 3 rounds. The application is online and after applying , they display the full merit list. Next is applying for the 1st round of CAP, wherein you have to give choice of colleges and if alloted you have to report to the college and you are out of the next rounds even if you don't take the alloted college. [ Photo of college entrance from their website ]

So we applied for the best 5 in round 1 knowing fully well that wewont get in , but gamble for a better choice in the next round . That is exactly what happened as her few friends placed above her in the merit list had given all choices in the 1st round and got allotted in some college in Ulhasnagar which was not among her preferences .

We were a bit anxious till the allotments for 2nd round was displayed and were very happy to get this college as it is 5th ranked among 14 , affiliated to Mumbai University. It is convenient to approach as she will have to travel in the opposite direction to the morning local rush.The timings are from 9.30 to 5.00 and they have college bus service from Dombivli station to college which takes about 15 min by rickshaw--share a rick available @Rs 6 each. The college was inaugurated 1993 and is beautifully built .

Supriya is very happy as she got the field she wanted and also because she can interact with me in subject matters . The curriculum is quite interesting and is an amalgamation of Medicine , Engineering , Organic Chem and Bio tech. Seems very interesting .

I still feel she could have got into UDCT or Bombay College of Pharma if this reservation policy as well as the breakup of seats into home and out of home university areas was not existing. Out of acapacity of 60 seats in each colleges only about 8 to 9 seats remain for Home and Open category. That is frustrating. This topic requires another post .

Looking forward to some new interaction as none amongst our family members are in this field .