A WEEKEND TRIP- FINAL PART(4)

A WEEKEND TRIP- FINAL PART(4)

I woke up with a start when I heard the 4 0 clock alarm ring in Sukumar’s phone, it was still dark.  I mumbled that even the rooster don’t get up so frigging early. Surprisingly most of them were up reasonably quickly. Christeen was the first one to get ready, surprisingly fast for a girl I must say. We got ready in another hour or so and were geared up for a quick trek to explore the nearby areas.  We got into our cars to go to the place we were to trek. It was a very bumpy ride; the car speared its way through the army of mud. The roads were very poorly constructed; even Kalmadi could have made better roads I felt. After about 30 minutes of experiencing what it was like to be in a blender we were relieved when the car came to a halt. We got down and started walking. The ground was a bit steep.  Aaseesh was walking right in front of me and I kid you not, I saw it with my own eyes this time, he fell. I don’t know how but he just fell.  But nothing happened though; he just got up and continued to walk to fall another day. There was a set of staircase built, how convenient I thought, to go up to the hill, where there was a view point. When we finally reached up there, we were blown away by the breath taking panorama the view point offered.  The pristine clouds that gingerly draped the vast expanse of the green mountain made my heart skip a beat and when I looked around to see the faces of my friends I found I wasn’t the only one. 

We explored the territory a little more and discovered some wild mushrooms, interesting looking spiders, worms and other arachnids.  We didn’t disturb them as was the GHAC policy-not to disturb any forest inhabitants and not to litter in the forest especially plastic, we were more than happy to abide by them of course.  The little kid Sivam was brimming with energy, we were sure that he could run around the Earth twice and come back and still have more energy left. He could put Mowgli to shame, so it’s not hard to imagine what his mom’s fitness secret is.

When we came back from the trek we immediately went to the breakfast table where breakfast awaited us in the casserole.  I was starving. Shubam opened the casserole and I was glad when I heard him say ‘Thank God it’s not upma again’. When I went up to serve myself whatever there was in the casserole, my hands paused mid-air  and had this incredulous look on my face when I was reaching for the serving spoon. I couldn’t believe my luck, can you imagine what was in it………. It was POHA!!!!  I had this suspicious feeling that these guys were somehow reading my mind and plotting against me or something.  Shubam told me to have it with a little sugar, but I loved those pickles as well, so I had half poha with sugar and half with pickle. I was eating it like a stubborn child eating broccoli forced in his mouth by his mother. The cook was kind enough to make a bread- omelet for me after that.  I could do with the extra bit of proteins and energy.The main attraction in Dandelli is the rafting and that happens only when the damns are open and the damns are open only when the government authorities ask it to be opened and they do that only when there is a power requirement (Simple equation right :p). But to our misfortune there was no power requirement that day (I thought power was required everyday) anyway we decided to make the most of what we could do and we decided to go for rappelling.

Now rappelling, for those who don’t know, to simply put it, is an activity where you go up a hill by yourself but come down using a rope. Sounds simple? Yeah I thought so too.  We were taken to the rappelling site in the car. We were to do a climb a hill of about 75-80 feet and rope ourselves down. We climbed   helping each other out on the way up. Our hands were all black after the climb because of the bauxite deposits on the rocks. Climbing the hill was an achievement in itself.  The view from up there was spectacular and scary at the same time. Suresh, who as usual decided to stay behind the lens and a few others who were down there looked like small stubs on the ground from where I was standing. The instructor was showing us how to go about it. He asked us to push our legs against the rock at a 45 degree angle and at the same time releasing the ropes to make our way down. The assistant showed a demo, he made it look so easy.  He gave us a word of caution to stay away from the ropes while some one was rappelling so that our legs don’t get tangled in there.  Everyone wanted their pictures taken while they were rappelling. So there I was standing right at the edge of the cliff with a digi-cam looking downwards and taking pictures. I just had to make sure that I didn’t make any sudden unnecessary movements and take care the gusts of winds don’t blow me off the edge. I had my share of fear of heights alright, but this trip was all about overcoming those fears. Man, that concoction of excitement, fear and adrenaline hitting you all at once is something else I tell you!!

Our organizer, Sukumar, who was experienced in rappelling, was standing there, guiding and giving us the moral boost.  Soon people started going one after the other. One of them lost balance and was on one side but Sukuamr said “I have seen this happen, nothing to worry” and it went like that for almost everyone, with Sukumar reassuring it was perfectly safe and he had seen it happen before.  And now came the turn of Aaseesh, he was among the guys who decided to go early on.  Now when Aaseesh decides to do something everyone instinctively takes their cameras out, zooms in, focus and are ready to click because rest assured something is going to happen. But now he was suspended with a rope and a safety rope, so there was no scope for him to fall . . . Or so I thought. But boy did he prove me wrong! He pulled a stunt that gave all of us a heart attack.  He was so focused and determined he would not fall this time around  that he did not move his legs at all, but even then  released the rope, as a result he was hanging upside down now holding the rope, very much like spider man, with his head facing downwards  and both the feet pointing up in the sky. If it was in water, since he knew how to swim no tension but now since he did not how to fly full tension, but Sukumar  reassuringly said “I have seen this happen, nothing to worry” and so I started taking pictures of him in this precarious position (This pic is uploaded in facebook :P). But he stayed calm, regained position after some time and completed his descent. Nobody was more relieved than us to see him on the ground (not that he was any safer there, but still :- P) When his feet safely  touched the ground ,  we gave him an applause so  thunderous  that we made him feel he was the first person to  land on the moon. I kinda admired that dude because everywhere we went he showed us the worst possible thing that can happen:-p.

[ I even made a PJ after him, it went something like

 *Knock Knock* Whose There?

Aaseesh!

Aaseesh who?

Aah! Sheesh! I fell] :-p

And so people started rappelling one after the other.  But when there were around 6 or 7 of us left it suddenly started raining, it was pouring down heavily and we decided not to rappel and started going down the hill. But the instructor told us it would be dangerous if we went down the hill as it would be slippery. The safest way being the ropes we decided to rappel. (Great! my first time rappelling and that too in rain, but I was up for the challenge). We waited for the rains to slow down and show mercy and when it did after sometime we continued our rappelling. As a result of this delay we had taken more time than we had anticipated. We planned to reach back at the farm house by 5 and head to the depot to catch the 7o clock bus back to Hyderabad.  It was already 4:30 so those who had finished left for the farm house to freshen up and be ready.  It was Satish’s turn now, he geared up and all but pulled out at the last moment as he said he couldn’t do it, he was too frightened of heights so he unbuckled and I geared up. I wanted to finish it off fast as we were getting late, and as a result I ended up doing something stupid which made even Sukumar say “Ok! I have never see THIS before” and trust me everyone’s hearts were in their mouth when I rappelled.  When  I was at the edge of the cliff and was about to push myself back from the point where the rock jutted out…..I slipped, but this was not the ‘Oh my God! Part’.

Ok before I tell you what happened after I slipped let me tell you what was going through my mind. First, I wanted to finish it off as quickly as I could as we were getting late. Secondly instead of holding the rope to regain my position I thought ‘Well! I have to go down anyway so instead of going toing- toing karke why not go straight down, it would save time na, so I went straaaight Down!!! :-p. Sukumar up there when he heard the hissing sound of the rope going down at a speed it wasn’t supposed to go, had a heart attack. The instructor tried to stop my descent, but couldn’t take my weight; Suresh had a tough time getting me into focus of his camera, but in spite of the speed fall he could capture a frame or two of my fall (even this is uploaded in facebook:p). I locked the rope and brought myself to a halt just a few feet above the ground. I ended up scraping my elbows, cuts weren’t that deep though. No one was happy with this stunt I pulled especially the instructor as he ended up with a bruised hand because of me. Well if not anyone, I’m sure if Rajnikanth was my father, he would have been proud of me right now: p. Ok jokes apart rappelling is a serious sport, and should be done carefully under proper supervision.

When I came down I told Satish I was ok and nothing had happened to me, told him it was easy and there was absolutely nothing to worry about, I did not want to dissolve his already fragile confidence. I walked up to Suresh where he was patiently taking pictures.  Then Cristeen followed, she did it without much difficulty and finally after receiving a lot of pep talk Satish agreed to come down the rope. He looked like Sylvester Stallone in Cliff Hanger with those huge biceps. What few of us were left, cheered him on and when he made it safely down all of us were glad he got over his acrophobia. We knew it was a big thing for him. After the rappelling we looked like mine workers coming after a shift, covered with mud and dirt all over. We quickly headed for the car to take us back to the farm house. I sat at the back gingerly placing my bruised elbows on the seat and talking to Cristeen and Sukumar about the whole free-fall episodes, I so wanted to do this one more time when I got back to Hyderabad. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere there was this torrential rain beating down on the glass of the car threatening to break it open. But what worried me was when I looked at the driver’s windshield, the rain was pouring down so heavily that I couldn’t see a squat. I just hoped for all our sakes that the driver was able to see. Even though he might know the roads like the back of his hand the streets were filled with more cattle than motor vehicles, so I had every reason to be worried. But he took us safely to the farm house in one piece, which was good enough for me. I had a quick clean up shower, packed my bags and came down for lunch. Word gets around like fire, when I reached the table all people were talking about was my ‘free-fall’. I guess Aaseesh was not the only one who could show the worst thing that can happen, ahh well he needed a break once in a while too ,lol.

We all finished up our packing, did a last minute check to make sure we didn’t forget anything-Clothes, phone chargers, cameras, valuables, memories. Yep we had it all. We had to hurry now as we were running a bit late, the normal laid back drivers suddenly transformed into Schumachers and Lewis Hamiltons and raced us to our bus depot. We cheered them by singing old Govinda songs to the driver on our way back. Had a super blast even in the car, lotta fun man!  Even with the good driving we were late by a good 45 minutes, but the bus guy kind of new the GHAC guys plus he couldn’t leave without 19 of us, so he was waiting. Once we reached the depot, we quickly hurled our luggage into the luggage compartment of the Volvo, thanked the driver for waiting and gave him a nice warm GHAC smile and quickly took our seats. I sat there in my seat, my heart still beating briskly, trying to soak in the moments of that day; must say it was one eventful day for me.  It’s been ages since I had this much fun, met some nice people, wanted to capture every moment of this trip and hence was conceived the idea of writing it down and  I promised myself that as soon as I get back to Hyderabad I’ll write about it no matter how indolent I felt.

On our way back in the bus even though we were all drained we did not sleep early, we sat there checking out all the pictures taken by everyone, and having a laugh of hilarious moments we had because we knew some of these memories would be etched in our minds for a long time to come J After a lot of talking and laughing, more of a courtesy to the other people on the bus, we went to our respective seats, sitting in silent contemplation. I could sense that everyone was thinking about their special moments of the trips, as I could see smiles pasted on many of the faces. As for me, I enjoyed every passing moment of it. I don’t know when I fell asleep but when I woke up it was morning with the sun shining in my eyes welcoming me back to Hyderabad. Ever had those mornings when you woke up with a smile on your face because you had a bunch of happy memories but you look around only to realize that it was just a dream, well this morning was something similar to that, just that it wasn’t a dream. This trip was fruitful as whatever we wanted to achieve, be it overcoming our fear of heights, fear of waters, taking some interesting pictures, learning new things, just getting a new experience or just making new friends I think all of us found something or the other we were looking for from this trip.

I got down at MGBS, bid adieu to everyone and took a bus back home from there. I knew where this bus was taking me had no river streams, no tall trees, no place where you could feel as one with nature. It was with a heavy heart that I resigned to the fact that I was back to the heavy traffic, pollution, deadlines and rat race, back to the concrete walls of our home where you seldom find beautiful stars to gaze at night. I felt like I had left behind a very dear friend of mine L

I’m glad I wrote this, as it gave me a chance to recollect and relive those moments. I don’t know if my next trip is going to be as memorable as this one, but I won’t know it if I don’t try, can’t wait for my next one. J

As for you I thank you for taking your invaluable time to read my humble writing. Don’t be so busy working all the time that you forget to live your life. Even a winning race car needs a pit-stop to refuel without which it’s of no use having even the most powerful of engines.

So don’t forget to refuel yourself every once in a while J

Cheers,

Kandathil Easaw Alexander.