I am back in Toronto. My 2006 Expedition entitled Aneil 2K6 is over. Today is Christmas day and there is less than 1 week remaining in this year. I have had an amazing year filled with so many wonderful experiences. I have grown so much closer to my family and met a tonne of new people from all sorts of countries along the way.

 

- I flew on 33 different airplanes in 2006

- I visited 9 different countries in 2006

- I summited a mountain (Mera Peak) at a height of approximately 6,400 metres, jumped out of a plane from 12,000 feet, white water rafted in Grade 5 rapids, sailed for 3 days on an America's Cup yacht, snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef, climbed Ayers Rock, hiked around on a glacier, snowboarded on Canada Day, sheared a sheep, rode a horse along the beach, kayaked in a Rain Forest and slept overnight in a desert

- I went to Wimbledon, saw an All Blacks rugby match in New Zealand, attended an English Premiership Football match in London, went to an ICC Cricket Tournament match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, watched an AFL Footy match in Melbourne and the State of Origin Rugby match in Sydney

- I took part and attended my brother's tri-continental wedding in India, Australia and Canada

- I saw at least 10 wonderfully beautiful sunrises and sunsets from various vantage points around the world (including the far east coast of New Zealand where I was one of the first people in the world to see the sunrise)

- I encountered camels, crocodiles, alligators, monkeys, huge fish, dingos, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, koalas, horses, dogs and cats

- I rode on several different modes of transport including planes (large and small), trains, buses, cars, motorcycles, scooters, horses, camels, canoes, yachts and 4X4 vehicles

- I ate sev puri, haggis, strawberries and cream, deep fried prawns, "fush and chups", neeps and tatties, masala dosa, kangaroo steaks, corn fritters, pav bhaji, momos, shwarma, Naturals ice cream, Pooran Polee/Kata Amtee, Yak steaks, fresh sashimi, fresh jilabi and several other amazing types of cuisine

- I read 4 books (Down Under by Bill Bryson, Londonstani by Gautam Malkani, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich and am on the verge of completing 2 more - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

- I volunteered with an excellent organization and got to help about 20 under-privledged students with computer skills, grammer skills and preparing for job interviews

 

I think I will always look back at this year and never regret one second of it. Okay, well maybe a couple seconds here and there but we don't have to get into that ;o) Overall, this has been just an amazing experience and it's come at the perfect time. 2007 will be a new challenge and I know that I'm up for all it has to offer.

 

Thanks for coming with me on this journey.

I hope you enjoyed the ride.

I know I certainly did.

 

Happy Holidays everyone!

Sorry, the last post was cut short a little abruptly. But just to finish that thought...

 

At the end of the 30-day course that the students are enrolled in, they will be appearing for job interviews with companies like ICICI and other banks, telecoms. The jobs being offered are call centre jobs (the booming market here in India at the moment). So all of these students are really focused on improving and practicing their English. For them, hearing my Canadian accent is good because they are exposed to something different from the regular Indian English that they normally hear. I've started to develop quite a rapport with some of them so it will be sad to leave and unfortunately, my time with them was so short. I hope that I can stay in touch with many of them though and now, I have new people to visit and see the next time I come back here.

 

So over the past 4 weeks (since I got back from Nepal), I have just been visiting relatives and chilling out. I was hanging out with Vas a lot as I mentioned earlier and we got up to no good at a few places, most notably trekking (yeah I did do some more climbing) at an old fort called Sinhagad and playing golf at the Poona Golf Club where we refused Caddies (our stupid mistake) and carried our bags for 4 hours in the blistering heat! In any case, a few Kingfishers made the pain go away so there was no problem with that and then of course, we made the obligatory visit to MacDonald's for a Maharajah Mac. I also saw a few movies over the past few weeks - Casino Royale, Dhoom 2 and Lage Raho Munnabhai. In case you haven't seen them, I won't say much but let's just say that I probably won't be watching the first two ever again. I really want to see Lage Raho again cause I saw it on a small screen in a bus so the sound was bad. Also, there were no subtitles and I didn't have one my cousins with me to do any translating. My hindi still isn't that great so I sometimes miss what is going on (especially in the intricate dialogue). I've also eaten a lot and I think I've managed to put back on some of that weight that I lost while in Nepal. I'm still at a nice and sound 70 kg though so I'm happy. I hope I can maintain this when I return home so it'll be back to the gym asap (well, after the fun of Christmas and New Years of course). I have been eating all sorts of chaat (well, especially Bhel Puri and Sev Puri) like it's going out of style. I can't get enough of it. And to top it off - at our final Gokhale get together tomorrow night, we have a chaat wala coming to make for us at my cousin Saroj's place. I am really looking forward to that!!!

 

Funny story from yesterday. I had to go and meet someone in a subarb called Malad. I was going to take the train but my cousin Shekhar offered his car and driver. Sounded perfect but there was only one catch. The driver (Kasim) wasn't from Mumbai - he's from Gujurat. Also, he doesn't speak Marathi - only Hindi and Gujrathi. I only speak Marathi and English. Somehow, someway - we managed to get to Malad and back and run the errands I needed to get done. It was the blind leading the blind so to speak but it seemed to work out.

 

Yesterday was also my nephew Ashvin's Munj ceremony. It was a blast to see all of my "Gokhale" relatives at the event - always a good time with all of them and of course, I am the brunt of most of the jokes these days because I am pretty much the only one left who is still "available for marriage" as they say. The two questions I get asked the most are "When are you getting married?" and that is followed quickly by "When is your next trip to India?". I guess for them, the two are going to be hand in hand... We'll have to wait and see.

 

I can't believe that I am leaving India and heading home in a couple days. Well, I won't be going straight home as I'm stopping in Dubai for 3 days to check out that crazy, rich, oppulent city (where I'll be staying in a YHA youth hostel). Gotta save the cash for all the shopping and shisha, right?

I've had a great few weeks since returning from Nepal. It has felt quite comfortable here in Mumbai just chilling out and doing regular stuff. Vas (my buddy from home) has been here pretty much the whole time and we've hung out quite a bit, ate at some great restaurants and generally done some fun exploring.

 

I've become a regular Mumbai commuter over the past two weeks so that has been quite amusing. The reason I've been commuting regularly is because I have a job. It's a volunteer job with an organization called the Sujaya Foundation. One of my goals when I came on this crazy trip was to do some work with an NGO while I'm here in India. After returning from Nepal, I started searching for NGO's around Mumbai and I ended up finding an organization called iVolunteer in Vile Parle (the subarb where I'm staying with my aunt). I contacted them and after a little time, I was put in touch with Sujaya Foundation. The work I'm doing is with 20 - 25 year olds who come from underprivledged situations. They are enrolled in an intensive 30-day course that focuses on their english and computer skills.