Whenever I remember the days when I had camped for two days near Vangani, a small village nearly 30 minutes from Kalyan by train, I recollect the happy days of my school life. Yes, I had camped with all my friends at that small village at a small farmhouse owned by a very kind man. The occasion for camping first time in school life was due to compulsory camping made by the Maharashtra cadet cops (M.C.C) in one academic year in eight and ninth standard. We were lucky as our school had implemented it and we all friends got a chance to know each other.
The schedule for camp to be held is normally in the chilly winter months of December and January. In eighth standard the camp was scheduled in the last week of December. Groups of 25 students were formed with each group headed by a Group leader. Discussions about financing things to be brought for cooking at the camp were held at our complex garden premises and accordingly funds were collected by the group leader and shopping was done. All had tough time arguing with each other what to buy and what not and all had tough time bargaining with the shopkeepers who tried to extract money from us by overcharging items but we were successful in dodging them. With all preparations over we slept a peaceful night the day before.
Finally the day arrived. My mom helped me to pack my bags and take necessary things to protect from the chilly winter and some medicines. We left our school at 8.00 a.m sharp and took a relatively less crowded local train to Vangani. The train was a bit joyful as we were travelling TICKETLESS and that also in FIRST class compartment. It took 30 minutes to reach Vangani and from there it was a small walk to reach small farmhouse. We unpacked our brought things and went to report to our head. A small parade took place which was just nominal. We ate our lunches we had bought as we had to cook on that night and the day after. Next on afternoon we had some instructors who had brought rope climbing gears and a gun to train us. We had a good time doing monkey climbing and rope climbing but the biggest embarrassment for me was that i misfired while loading the gun and I lost the chance to shoot again.
The night came quickly and we had to cook that night. It was going to be a pleasant job for boys and a nightmare for girls…OOOPs did I say the reverse… Well on that night the same thing happened as we excelled in that department. Our group had cooked ‘gajar ka halva’ (a sweet dish) and ‘pulav’ for dinner. The sweet dish was the sweetest thing of that night as I still remember the taste of it cooked on traditional ‘chullah’.The night was followed by some cultural events and the owner of the farm house played for us all the flutes he had collected before he had retired from his work. On that night we slept at 1.00 a.m. in the chilly night with just normal covering in that cold.
Unluckily we were woken up at 5.00 a.m to get ready for morning parade. We did the mandatory formal parade and some running around the village. Then we prepared tea in the cold bitter morning with a fight for getting filter as only one group had bought filter to get tea. As time passed we told to do the toughest job that is to prepare lunch. We jostled to get the ingredients from our bag and started to prepare our lunch under the guidance of our teachers. One thing that I would like you to tell us that teachers were helping us as they had to eat the food we had cooked and they had to help us!! Finally lunch was over and we tasted our potato mixed ‘bhajji’ OH NO it was still uncooked and the raw taste of potato. As time had run out of time and who takes pain to cook another vegetable curry we decided to serve it as it is to our teachers. We ate food from other groups and when our group leader went to report to our teacher he noticed that with our group our teachers had not eaten the uncooked vegetables of other groups. So everyone was unsuccessful in cooking part of the camp. Evening came quickly and we had to go to Kalyan. We took a train from the station.
In this way camping was a great experience for me and to know each other which made us to develop confidence in each other.
