Places visited: Ranjangav
Date: 31/7/2011
Purpose: Ganapati Darshan
Persons: Harshal, Juilee.

It was a long awaited picnic. I wanted to go by scooty but Aai and Baba seemed to be worried. So we started by Car. I decided not to plan any thing for this picnic. So we also did not plan to wake up early.


We woke up late at 8:00 and we had breakfast at home - I bought pyatis from Poona Bakery. After all the ususal work at home (Juilee was doing), I pakced the bags - nothing much - just a waterbag, ladu, chakli, torch, hankees, etc.
We started at around 10:30 AM from home and headed for Shaniwarvada - and then to Nagar Road. There was not much traffic, though being Sunday. I was playing all old songs from my pendrive. After bundgarden, Juilee started feeling boared because of all those Mukesh and Manna De songs. She switched to the FM. Again on FM, I tunred VividhBharti on - and started listening good old Marathi songs. The program was "Chandukaka Saraf Hallo Madhu Malati". I also do not like this program very much because of bad anchoring, poor talking with the callers and on top of that the name of program is irritating. But, just for fun I told Juilee that this is the best program. This boiled the atmosphere in the car and we had a big quarrel. Later We both coloed down, as I played Radio City - new latest songs. HaHaHaHa.

We reached Ranjangav at around 12:30 PM. There are no significant signboards on highway. When you arrive at Ranjangav bST stand, the temple is just few steps away from highway. At highway you need to turn to right when you see a big neon sign of "SHREE MAHAGANAPATI RANJANGAV" in Marathi.

( As usual I missed that turn and went far ahead and asked a person and then had to take the turn back ).
There is separate area for parking the vehicles, few meters away from the temple. We parked the car there and walked inside the premises. I saw there is also small parking area in the temple premises. (That might be for VIP vehicles).

As we entered inside, there was a medium large queue. We stood in the queue and read through the story written on the wall about this temple. The mandir parisar is clean and neat. The Aarti and Prasad was going on, so the queue was halted for some time. We reached in the gabhara after 30 minutes. The Ganesh idol is beautiful. There are also golden and silver paper carvings of shlokas before you enter the gabhara.
After the darshan, we sat for sometime inside the gabhara. The security guard in the gabhara was taking care of the people and reminding them not to stop for longer time in the gabhara to avoid the crowd.
We came out after 5 minutes and went to the "Prasadalay". One persone gets one FREE prasad. Prasad was Rice - Dal (Amti-bhat) and Shira. It was tasty. The place was clean. Some people trying to take the prasad-coupons two times, but the security was refusing to give them - as 1 person can get only 1 FREE prasad.
There is a big well behind the temple. We sat there for a while. Did some photography and then went to the garden which is behind the temple. The garden is not so clean. There were many beggers and child-begger running behind people. They were carrying torn photographs of devi. Mi zapla eka muli la ki asla fatka photo gheun kashala alis mhanun.
We sat in the garden for a while and then returned to the temple. There is a big wall painting near the queue area which tells the story of Ranjangav Ganapati and its history.
We cam out at around 1:30 PM and in the parking lot sat in the car for a while, eating ladoo. Bhook pan lagli hoti. So thought of driving to Kalyani nagar - instead of taking lunch at any road-side dhaba. We started returning back As usual, I again missed the turn for Kalyani nagar and went few meters ahead and got lost in Vadgav Sheri. Somehow managed to get to the Gold Adlabs after wandering for 20 minutes. We went inside the gold adlabs. ( I wanted to give surprise to Juilee by taking her to Yaana's Sizzlers - That was on her wishlist since long back - but as I am very choosee for food, I was not in much favor of that thing). Juilee saw Yaana's while we were enjoying the mall, and mazya surprise item cha popat zala.
We ate paneer-shashlik - the same thing that I ate last time when I came here with Abhay Jain and Bala and other JD people. We also sat on the same table, which I sat last time..... hahahaha.

After lunch, when we were walking out of Yaana's I could not see the glass door as it was damn clean and I hit on it badly. It was an embarasting moment.
Later we (Juilee) did some shopping - I also gifted Juilee a sweet looking kasav, which she keeps at her office's desk. and then we came out and took the way to home. We were in home at 6:00 PM

Distance from my home (Sinhagad Road) = 55 Km.

Expenses:
Toll: Don't remember, but it was not more than Rs. 50
Yana: (Paneer Shashlik Rs. 360 + 2 fruit juices Rs. 160 ) = Rs.520

Maps of all the Ashtavinayak places