Into the Horizon – III

After stopping for a sumptuous Maharashtrian lunch of Bhakhri, Brinjal, Kadhi rice, Lahsun ki Chatni, dal and Pyaaz at a comfortable place before Pune and confessing home about the trip, we landed in Pune. I had been drenched and dried up innumerable number of times. While the moisture goes from your clothes, the dirt which the rainwater carried with it doesn’t. And you only bother to, in fact you only can, wash your face and eyes at the roadside Dhabas.

Thoroughly shivering, I stopped for a mug of hot chocolate in Pune. The receptionist of the mall gave us strange looks. I headed straight to the washroom, and as I looked into the mirror, I knew why that had been so. And I had a sudden, secret two minute crush on my friend for hugging me when she had met me a few minutes back. I wouldn’t hug someone who looked like I was looking now. And never in my life if I were a girl.

—–x—–x—–

It was the second straight night on the bike. Dusk fell as the lights from Pune were left behind. Climbing the Western Ghats, it grew chilly. The socks which had been adorning the tail lights, the shoes slung on the front bumper, and the windsheeter which been tied around the waist all came back to serve their purpose.

Upon the Ghats and later was a journey I do not wish to describe in full detail. There were the two of us riding for well over  24 hours now, now under a thundering Western Ghats rain, over bad, treacherous mountain roads, in the Mumbai Pune highway (and not the expressway) traffic in the night. On top of it was a fog thick enough to facilitate a view of your own shadow formed by your own headlight right in front of you.  If you compare our journey to that of the fast bowler’s spell, this was the time when under 45 degree centigrade temperature, Sachin and Sehwag were blazing away at full throttle and there were Chris Gayle, Ricky Ponting, and Kevin Pieterson oiling their willows in the pavilion. With the added clause that one wrong delivery and the bowler, alongwith all his balls, will go for a long, long toss. Full marks to Daddu for his bikesmanship. In terms of real adventure, this was the only patch on the whole trip where we encountered any.

—–x—–x—–

There are numerous ways to enter the huge Megapolis, and a wrong turn can cost you another hour or so in reaching your destination. The road turns ugly on the ghats near Mumbai. Because of so many trucks plying on the road, and not less because of the heavy rains, and not the least because no government gives a shit about mountains and mountain roads, it is often broken. And for most of the way smells sickeningly of oil. Stopping trucks that are hurtling down the hills in the middle of the night under a roaring sky, and asking them for directions was one remarkable feature of this patch.

—–x—–x—–

From the height on the edge of the Ghat, when you first look down on the patchwork of islands and reclaimed land stitching them together lying below, it looks like a forest on fire. So much light that against the darkness of the forested Ghats, it is positively blinding. As we rode towards it, I couldn’t have enough of looking at the  sun which is always risen in India’s west. The heart and soul of India’s economy, the city which never sleeps, where lights never go off. Mumbai.

We reached Vashi at around 12. It was Ramzan time, and I got packed a Tandoori chicken from Sion. We reached Narsi Monji after a full three hour bike ride, this time over the still busy expressways and flyovers, dark lanes and lonely bylanes of Mumbai. The hot bath I then had at Sanket’s brother’s flat, after which the entire bathroom was under a layer of  gooey blackness, was the best I’ve ever had. After that, the Tandoori chicken was the best I had ever eaten. And after that, the crash on the simple mattress in that cramped students’ apartment in Juhu, resulted in the best sleep that I ever remember having.

—–x—–x—–

I lived a whole life in those 53 hours. A few things I’ll always remember. The shopkeeper in Karnataka who gave us water melon flavoured ‘medium class chocolates’, four for one rupee.  The Dhaba owner in the middle of absolutely nowhere, who gave me a tattered chatai to sleep on. And where moisture seeped into the ground due to the rains outside and I practically froze from the cold wave coming in from the earth while I was lying face down on that chatai, using my jacket as a blanket. All this, while Daddu slept on two plastic chairs in the rain outside.

The dhaba owner boy refusing the tip I offered. And telling us to ride carefully as we took leave.

Finding a drunkard crawling on the highway near Solapur, and passing him by. A while later realizing that one simple act of dragging him to the side could have been a possible life saver, and that in our hurry to reach home fast, we had left him for dead from our side. Being condemned to live with that thought for the rest of our lives.

Coming across places called ‘Bhosari’ and ‘Shitole’.

Leaving home from mumbai, all set for a 750 km long journey, and getting wet inside out within the first five. And then realizing that there was no polythene to protect the cellphone, picking up a cover from the drain overflowing nearby and putting the cellphone in it and keeping it in the pocket.

Almost getting stamped upon the highway by a truck gone mad. And a few kilometers down the line, finding out that it actually had stamped a few people to death.

Riding into the setting sun for two days straight, riding into the full moon on the third night.

And on the fourth morning, to finally reach Hyderabad, our new home, riding into the rising sun.

Like the Hindu mythology says, the end itself contains the seeds of a next beginning.

 

Into the horizon – II

What do I write about my Mumbai bike trip?

What do you write about the British teenage pacer who bowled for two days on a flat Indian test match pitch, and returned figures of 60-20-100-2? Except for the two wicket taking deliveries, the odd half chance which ‘could have been’, maybe one or two misfields, or the odd LB appeals, what did the bowler do, really?

We hit the highway at around five, and were pretty much drenched by six. It were the monsoons, and rains were not something we could make an excuse for stopping. so the sky became our washing machine, and the wind our dryer. I was the smart one here. Wearing sleeveless gym T-shirt over my drip dry track pants, which I had rolled up to my knees. Like the Hindu cycles of births and rebirths, I would get wet, dry up, then get wet and dry up again. There were no such cycles for Sanket, though. Wearing a cotton shirt and vest over his thick denim jeans and jogging shoes and socks, he was accepting with aplomb, and then not letting go of, any of Allah’s offerings.

Well, to each one his own. As long as the other one remains beside you and does not ram you into the truck passing from the side. That’s the first lesson you learn on the road.

—–x—–x—–

We both tend to get a little high on the open roads. The mind leaves behind all the clutter of the corporate life, and the vision is clearer. The thoughts which come gushing in then, are more neutral and plenty, and make for some mind blowing BC. The only problem is that although you are able to soak in the rain, and are able to see the skyline five kilometers to your left and five to your right, and can look up and count exactly how many stars are in the galaxy, and can scream ‘Hey you up there, I’m down here’  without thinking about your manager, other people still are  not looking beyond their desktop monitors a few inches away. They don’t have any reason to look up, ‘coz they would only see the ceiling (often false, that too), so they don’t even do that, and thus the computer screen remains their world, and thus…

Conversations like this happen.

Boy: Hey, how’re you doing?
Girl: I’m good. Do you know what time it is?
Boy: Um, hmm, I’ve kinda lost track (Checks his mobile)…yeah it’s around twelve.
Girl: Okay forget it. Where are you?
Boy: Umm, somewhere in Karnataka.
Girl: What? Where in Karnataka?
Boy: Somewhere. Some place you won’t know.
Girl: Okay okay. What are you doing there?
Boy: Right now? I’m lying down, face up.
Girl: Where are you lying down?
Boy: Umm, see there’s this grass on the side of the highway.
Girl: Okay.
Boy: Yeah, so that’s where I’m lying down.
Girl: What? Aniket! ANIKET! ANIKET!
Boy: Hey, hey! Hold it. I’m gonna visit you tomorrow.
Girl: Okay! When do you reach here?
Boy: It depends.
Girl: Depends? On what?
Boy: On how fast we ride the bike.
Girl: Bike? what bike?
Boy: Ohho… tumko to har cheez samjhaani padti hai… what bike can it be? Vahi jispe hum aa rahe hain!
Girl: Aniket! ANIKET! ANIKET!
And this would go on.

If you notice the number of exclamations and question marks on the ‘Girl’ side, and the corresponding lack thereof on the ‘Boy’, you would realize how much was the difference in the states of mind. It’s mind boggling that the conversation actually took place.

——x——x——–

Tired of riding slowly in the rains, we slept off in the dorm of a roadside motel, and were on the highway in four hour’s time. While we had been heading west, into the setting sun the evening before (which had made for some awesomeness), and I had sung practically all the Lucky Ali I knew, this was dawn. Time for spiritual, soul stirring Mantra Chanting, and Kailash Kher, and Piya Basanti. And it became a new journey again.

We would pass by a tree, where the birds were a bit lively. The sound of the Royal Enfield, solace to lonely ears in the stillness of the night, was then the roar of a hungry lion intruding into a Wordsworthian pasture, and so we would kill it. And let the birds have their say. We would stop by a hillock I would find particularly interesting to climb, and we would park the bike at the side of the highway and climb the hill. And the gazing at the vast, flat Vidarbha countryside, so covered with young, freshly washed grass shining under the cloud cover, we would smell the air. And then we would do nothing but close our eyes and feel the air filling our insides with all the promise of a new birth, till we felt as if we had been born again.

We would see a mandir, and bow to the one who has made it all.

And then we would move on. It was the most beautiful morning of my life.

 

Into the horizon

It was one o’clock in the night. All through the previous day, people had been closely following what looked at that time to be the strange and increasingly worrisome disappearance of Dr. YSR from over the Nallamalla forests. Sanket and myself, along with Sanket’s cousin were closely following each and every second of coverage of the disappearance over the net, while BCing away to glory into the night. Out of our fertile imaginations, various theories about what could have happened, what will happen next and the reasons for them were emerging.

Out of the blue, Sanket suggested that we went to Kurnool and took a first hand look at the search operations going on. We looked up the search area on Wikimapia, and realized that it was some 100 km farther from Kurnool. Kurnool is some 250 km from Hyderabad. We figured out that the round trip from our home in Kondapur, Hyderabad to the search area and back would take the entire next day. We still decided to go ahead and leave at 2 o’clock in the night, i.e. in half an hour from then. I went downstairs to clean my bike to get it ready for the trip.

It was only then that Sanket’s elder cousin, who had been a party to all the planning we were doing realized that we seriously intended to go. He firmly put his foot down on the plan, saying that there was no way he was going to let us go at 2o’clock in the night to cover 700 km on bikes, in the middle of the monsoon season to the Naxal infested Nallamalla forests on a wild goose chase. We decided to reason with him, but realized that it was futile. So with our tails firmly between our legs, we went to sleep at around 2:30.

—–x——x—–

As soon as the news of Dr. YSR’s death reached Hyderabad,  there was mourning all around. In addition, there were chaos. Congress workers started shutting down shops. They sent home all the public transport and beat to pulp anyone who dared protest. Our managers sent us home as a precautionary measure. Since office had closed for the next day, which happened to be a friday, also, this translated into an extra long weekend for us. Both of us had been wanting to go to Mumbai for some time, so we decided that this was the best time to do that.

We left at around 4:00 in the evening from our flat on Sanket’s Thunderbird. We looked for an ATM to withdraw some cash, but realized that even the ATMs had not been spared the bandh. Similar was the case with petrol pumps too. Along the roads, there were signs of violence. Tyres were burning here and there.

We reached a deserted Allwyn Circle, halted our bike and shouted questioningly over the roar of the Royal Enfield to a lone 7-Seater driver -

“MUMBAI???”

Looking us up and down with some curiosity, he pointed out towards what I already knew was the direction on the highway.

We set sail for Mumbai. With exactly Three Hundred and Sixty bucks in our combined pockets and 80 kilometers’ worth of fuel in our tank, with no source of cash and/or fuel nearby, and faced with a situation unprecedented in the history of India due to which we did not have a clue as to how far we’d have to go before we found any of these. But none of it mattered, really.

‘Coz we were on the road. Under the boundless sky.

 

Scribe

“Hello, Where are you, sir?”
“I’m in front of the school building, Shekar, where are you?”
“Even I’m in front of the building, sir…”
I raised a hand, and moving it so as to catch attention, I did a full 360 degrees, looking around for someone talking on the phone. I registered no one.
Still waving, I said, “Shekar, do you see me…?”
“Uh, umm…”
And almost as soon as I’d said it, I wished I could eat those words.
Of course Shekar didn’t see me.
That was because Shekar couldn’t see. If he could, there was no need for me to be there.
He was one of the students of the Special School for whom a group of us from Samvedana were acting as ’scribes’, for their intermediate AP Board examinations.

Lost for words, I raced my mind for another plausible question which he could answer to reveal his location to me.
“Uh, okay, what colour shirt are you wearing, Shekar?”
“Umm, black sir, it’s black.”
I was out of the school campus now. Looking around, I saw at some distance what appeared to me to be a group of visually impaired kids. One of them was talking animatedly on his cellphone. I went to him.
“Hey, are you Shekar?”
The voice recognition was instant. “Ohh, Aniket sir.”
“Yes, Shekar, how are you?”
I held out a hand, only to keep staring at it for about ten seconds. Finally, I extended the arm and patted him on the shoulder.

He was wearing a maroon-colored T Shirt.

The exam was Hindi, and by conventional standards, Shekar wasn’t very good at it. Neither had I expected him to be. After all, hailing from a village in Andhra, he isn’t supposed to know Hindi in the first place. But far above anything else, he doesn’t read, and he doesn’t write. Whatever he knew was what he had remembered from what a dedicated teacher had read to him.

He knew the Antonyms and Synonyms very well. But when it came to doing sentence correction, he simply fluttered his blank eyes with all the more fervor. And had all of them wrong. I had anticipated this situation, and had planned to write as much as I could for him. Also, I had resolved to let this be his knowledge that I was writing whatever he was telling me to. But now I was mired in dilemma. Didn’t Shekar deserve to know the exact place he had carved out for himself in this world full of kids more advantaged than himself? Should the chance of this one humble, but true pride be denied to him? Or should it be the case that given his condition, he should be allowed to use as much luck as came his way? Will it be luck at all to get more marks than what he actually deserved? Or did he deserve more than what he actually would have got under a neutral scribe, and thus a partial scribe was only a fair thing to have?

What will be better for him? Knowing exactly where he stood in the world, or the confidence boost that inevitably comes after a good score in the exams, howsoever may it have been acquired?

The exam got over, we gave them chocolates and packed their bags, and Sushant, my co-scribe for another kid and I asked them who was coming to take them home. There was some confusion at first, but a few phone calls here and there (the kids kept some important phone numbers to memory) confirmed that they were going on their own.

Sushant and I were worried, and asked them whether we could walk them to the nearest bus stop at least. But they insisted on going by themselves. Concerned, we kept watching as they walked down the road for some distance, and then stopped. Sushant and I, convinced that they were in trouble, went to them to offer help, but we needn’t have worried; as soon as we came within earshot, we realized that they had stopped only to do some BC and to discuss about the paper.

We, the eyed ones entered a nearby shop to have a pepsi. The three and a half hour exam had been tiring for us, too. As we came out of the shop, we saw the kids at the far end of the road, barely visible now.

While on the way to IIIT, Sushant revealed to me that Sujaykar, the kid he had been writing for, had solved almost the entire Sanskrit paper, and could easily expect 95+ marks. Sushant had assured him that his paper had been written in a very legible hand, and that he could expect excellent marks from the paper. At this, Sujaykar had told him that he wasn’t worried about passing or failing. That the results were all up to God.

Indeed it must be this faith which keeps their hopes and sincerity up in these times when people with everything provided for are giving up. As the picture of the kids, walking down the far end of the road and farther away from us came to my mind, I wondered how far would I have gone.

Thanks, Samvedana, for providing me with this wonderful experience. Let’s go some distance along the steps we have taken.

 

Expressive expletives

Warning: This post contains explicit content. Parental advisory advised. Those (biologically and/or emotionally) below 18 years are of age strictly prohibited from proceeding further. Ladies and former nice boys of girly-girly co-ed schools warned to proceed at their own peril.

Those from all-boys/ government schools, try not to get too nostalgic.

 

I’ve been fascinated by expletives ever since I was introduced to them in class VI by my friend who used to sit next to me in the class. This friend, Arun, was a born teacher, and very patiently explained to me the meaning and usage of each and every in-vogue word and also helped me out with the pronunciations. These free of charge classes of his, which used to run parallel to the regular classes which our parents were paying fees for, later advanced to using visual and textual demonstrations for those generalities of which the expletives are but a part. I got away with just a 5% decrease in my percentage at the end of the year. Arun failed all the subjects and had to start off as my junior the next year.

Anyways, coming back to expletives, I’ve always been fascinated by them. Not of the form as such, but of the content and purpose. I’ve also always been a fan of creativity and subtlety. Put two and two together, and you have a combination that well and truly turns me on.

Yeah, improvised expletives, (nothing to admire in the normal bolvachan, any bum can pronounce them) the epitomes of cheek, the heights of creativity. The lethal weapon which turns tree trunk like legs to jellybeans and makes chameleons (of the type that only turn to various shades of red) out of thoroughbred Homo Sapiens. Aaahhhh… the beauty, the wonder, the creativity!

——x——x——

This incidence happened in class VIII. It so happened that two of my classmates, Vicky (Vikkee) and Vikas, if I remember their names correctly, started arguing. The argument soon transcended the physical boundaries set by the school authorities, went beyond the principles of decency (of the banal type) set by the society as well as defied the laws of physics set by the almighty and reached a transcendental plane where the focus of the debate shifted over (from whatever it was) to who was capable of giving more pleasure to the feminine members of the other’s ilk. Fisticuffs soon began to fly, and it wasn’t too late when the next teacher’s appearance at the other end of the corridor caused swarms of classmates to grab and push away from each other the protagonists of this philosophical, metaphysical debate.

While they were being pushed away, and each was still trying his level best to have a go at the other’s chin, hair, tie or shirt, Vikkee swung his fist desperately in thin air. Frustrated at the little contact that the efforts of the referee classmates permitted, he roared at Vikas threateningly,

“Saale tu ruk, mein aaj raat ko tere ghar mein ghus jaoonga!” (Just wait, O you-whose-sister-I’ve-married, I’ll forcefully enter your house tonight).

Biting, pushing and scratching against a wall of humans trying to push him behind, Vikas then spontaneously delivered the line which, some of my south Indian friends might argue, depicts the typical north Indian sense of justice, but which remains the epitome of creativity and timing for me to this day.

Vikas simply shouted this, and no more, to Vikkee over the din and clamour on the classroom –

“Apni Ma ko bhi leta aaiyo!” (Come with your mother).

I think Vikas said something further, and the remaining part of the sentence got lost in the uproar. But maybe it was just I whose senses could work no more, as the brain was too awestruck with the pure genius hidden behind the veil of a seemingly innocent dinner invitation.

——x——x——

In Kota, where I went for IIT coaching, my building was shared by a group of Bengali guys from Farakka.

Living in a city where no one speaks your language can be a very liberating experience, as one of those guys, Anirban, revealed to me. While we Hindi speakers were a bit circumspect in throwing endearments on one another in public, the Bengalis found that they had no such inhibitions in a Hindi city like Kota. So they talked in endearments as the rule rather than as the exception and relentlessly tried to outdo each other, since they had little else to do all day. (For the uninformed, studying is one thing that comes last to an average guy preparing for JEE in Kota, be it a Bengali or a Haryanvi). The sense of innovation crossed the barrier of language and several Hindi endearments which they threw around still arouse a sense of warmth in me as and when I recall them. Ahhh!

Anyways once it so happened that my room partner, Rahul, was demanding a treat from one of the Bengali guys, also named Rahul. This Rahul Mukherjee had recently won an ESPN school quiz and was going to New Zealand to spectate a test match between India and New Zealand. Rahul Choudhary was requesting, cajoling, coaxing Mukherjee to give us all a treat in Convenio, a popular hangout in Kota.

Mukherjee was restrained in his replies, as he still didn’t talk much in terms of endearments outside his Bengali group. Occupants of the communist Bengal, the usually fixed-incomed Bengalis are known to keep their money well, and this particular group was penny pincher to the extreme. They would think five times before giving 5 bucks to the guy who came and cleaned toilets for them. Spending more than 50 bucks on a meal would play havoc on their digestion.

Choudhary, the quintessential Jat from Haryana, fell a little short in the art of cajoling.

“Kya yaar Mukherjee, tu New Zealand jaane lag raha hai fokat mein. Hamein Convenio hi le chal. 400-500 rupaye toh kharch karde!” (What pal Mukherjee, you’re being taken for a free ride to New Zealand. Atleast take us to Convenio. Spend 400-500 bucks atleast!)

As soon as the figure was quoted, a hush fell over the room. The 6 Bengalis, in permutation and combination of any of the acts of talking, laughing and scowling fell silent and looked at Choudhary, dumbstruck, as if he’d just given to each one of them a Jat version of the friendly ’slap on the back’, knocking the wind out of their lungs in the process.

Mukherjee himself took a step back from where he was standing and regarded Choudhary as if he was an alien from outer space. Then slowly, he thrust his hand inside his pants.

We all looked on, our mouths open, as Mukherjee’s hand did some halchal (activity) inside his pants. It then came out as a fist. Stuck between and emerging out from the tightly clenched fingers were some small, shiny hairs.

Sticking out his fist at Choudhary’s face level so that the small hairs emerging from the fingers almost touched Choudhary’s nose and tantalisingly threatened to reach inside his open mouth, Mukherjee looked straight into Choudhary’s wide eyes and stated very firmly in a very matter of fact manner,

“Le, le le, le. Treat Chahiye na, kha le treat.” (Take, take take, take. You want a treat, huh, eat the treat.)

Needless to say, Mukherjee was never asked for a treat again.

——x——x——

PS: I really, really regret this. I forgot to mention earlier that this post has been inspired by GB’s post on expletives. By inspired I mean that the incidences and narration are entirely my own, but the idea of writing on expletives I got from his post. It’s sort of like, a small band covering a legend. And I should have made this acknowledgement while posting the first draft. Will keep this in mind in the future.

 

Under the boundless sky (III)

In the last two posts, I’ve talked about my experiences in Devabhoomi. I argued in the last post about the shortcomings of photographs, and then gave a supporting example.

I don’t deny the importance of photographs. A picture does speak a thousand words. But words themselves have their own significance, and it’s important we keep our words close and not let them get lost in the maze of pictures that we’re bombarded with nowadays.

Here are some things which words cannot do justice to:

1.

.

Standing at the edge of Parvati river was our base camp, and this was the view of the mountain we were gonna climb. Just looking at it snapped us into euphoria, and if you think that this looks fabricated, cliched, straight out of a picture postcard and so on, you’re not alone. We thought so, too.

2.

From the base camp, we proceeded to higher camps and were put up in tents like these which were located in some clearing in the forests. 10-12 people shared each tent. The tents not only provided for some much needed warmth and protection during the night, but were also witness to some of the most insane, mind-blowing BC I’ve ever seen.

3.

Finding a suitably well-hidden, clean and level spot behind some rock or tree in the mornings was one big ordeal. Here I am suggesting a possible alternative to our group members.

4.

I had climbed this ascent bare handed till about the highest point you can see in this pic, when I was ordered down by our team leader Sanjay Ji. I was proud of my climbing skills, till Ravi (the little pahadi boy beside me in this pic) ran down this slope. I repeat, Ravi ran down this rock. Quite a humbling experience.

5.

This was Zirmi, a paradise nestled deep in the hills. The place was so enchanting that Suneja and I went on to explore this bhaloo-infested valley unarmed and on our own. While climbing back up, I gave Suneja the scare of his life.

Also, this was the place where I got the biggest craving for poetry I’ve ever had. I literally rolled on the groud, beat my fists against rocks, recited one of my self-composed poems to a lady and grabbed a girl by the shoulders and made her listen to some Yeats I remembered after assuring her that the poetry wasn’t intended for her. I could have killed for some Wordsworth or Yeats then. The high wasn’t quite settled till I finally scribbled about a hundred lines of poetry, sitting on a rock which provided a view of the artistry of the clouds…

And while I was writing, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one bitten by the poetry bug. Sitting on nearby rocks were Pradeep and Vishal, scribbling away to glory.

6.

As we took our first step in the snow, our hearts filled with apprehension and overflowed with reverence. The pure whiteness of the snow told me that this wasnt an ordinary place, but a ‘Bhagwan ki Jageh’. I’m not particularly religious, but the shouts of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ spontaneously escaped me as I started walking up this patch. Others around me followed suit, but no, the valley didn’t reverberate with the sounds of our ‘Har Har Mahadev’s. Rather, our sounds just got lost in the vastness of the surroundings.

7.

This stone structure is a ‘Monument of Estranged Love’ created by the humble villagers. The guide told me that if someone who has got estranged from his love prays with a true heart and places a stone on this structure in her memory, God soothes the agony of both the ex-lovers’ hearts. I’ve never had a love which I could get estranged from, but I nevertheless said a prayer and added my stone to the pile. Maybe it’s still there.

The picture shows (from the left) myself, Pradeep and Vivek.

8.

At the height of 15000 feet, only 60% of the amount of oxygen that we normally have in the plains is available. Walking in itself is an ordeal. Here’s Doley Ram, carrying more that 20kg of load on his slender shoulders. And he does this everyday.

9.

Not everybody who comes from the city for a trek in the hills is used to the hills. Kishore just got the life scared outta him while rappling down a slope.

10.

A unique experience we had during the Sar Pass trek was sliding down a hill slope sitting on a piece of polythene.

Here’s one of us, probably Vivek, sliding down a slope.

11.

You are bombarded with snow flakes from all sides as you slide, and it’s impossible to prevent some from entering your shoes. A 4 hour trek to the camp in wet clothes and shoes follows the slide. As Vivek reached the camp, he was in no condition to walk any longer. (click on the pic to fully appreciate the contours).

12.

A trek is only as good as the company you have on it. Here are some of the wonderful people I had the pleasure of meeting on the trek. (From the left) Pratham, myself, Shobhit, Rohit, Vishal, Pradeep, Nishant, Vineet.

13.

And finally, a lot of thanks to YHAI without which this trek wouldn’t have happened. And as for the wonderful friends I met, well, it was a pleasure. I’d like every trek of mine to be with the same set of people. Wish it were possible.

And yeah, for the people who were there on this trek, guys, just one last time…

SP 16, BALLE BALLE

Baaki saare, THALLE THALLE!

 

Under the boundless sky – II

The last post describes my experiences with the people of Devabhoomi (God’s land) Himachal Pradesh. I’d never planned this post, but then Turbo asked me to write a post describing the trek itself, complete with photographs.

I do not own a camera, and whatever pics I have of the trip are courtesy a few good people I made friends with on the trek. Anyways, pics and cameras have their own limitations. Cameras can catch the snow covered mountains, but cannot describe the reverence I feel when I look at them. They can see the look of the rag-tag pahadi people, but do not have it in them to see the goodness they hold in their hearts. The blast of the mountain wind, the drowsiness of the early morning mist, the strength of the pahadi bidis and even the beauty of the Pahadi women are beyond cameras’ reach.

Here are some things that cameras could never have captured.

—–x——-x——

We were on a 6km road hike from Kasol to Manikaran Sahib, when it started raining heavily. We had no raincoats and the rain lashed against our unprotected skins. The rain was so heavy that it was difficult to see even ten feet beyond on the road. The soft ground under our feet threatened to give away every now and then, and we shivered in the below 10 temperature as chilly wind blasted against us, threatening to fling lightweights like myself lock stock and barrel into the gushing Parvati river. The hills to our right, and the stalwart Deodar trees covering them all stood surrendered against this fury of nature.

It is under such difficulties that one gets to see a hitherto prohibited side of mother nature. A stark, real picture, different from the benign, modified one one has been made accustomed to. For city dwellers like us, the sheer nakedness of contact, the brutally honest directness of the surroundings might be more difficult to handle than the actual physical sensations. With me, the connection was instant. I was in that all powerful grip of nature, in some different world all by myself; drunk on the surroundings and thrilled beyond words.

We trudged on, and came across a narrow ‘bridge’ that had been drawn across the Parvati river at the side of the road. The river was narrow at this juncture, and as a result its fury seemed to be greater than ever. The old, narrow, weather beaten bridge was charming in a very rustic way, and I simply had to explore it in spite of everything. It was swaying left and right in the storm when we stepped on its wooden boards. Tightly gripping the ropes holding it in place, we tottered, shivering and almost tumbling from excitement, to the center of the bridge. We were directly above the middle of the river now. Clenching the rope tighter in both my fists, I peered down to the river.

And then I lost control.

The excitement, the nervousness, the overpowering feeling to break free and the immense reverence that had been building up inside me for so long, suddenly could not be contained any longer. I gripped the ropes, and looking down the length of the roaring river, facing the lashing rain square on the face, I screamed and continued to scream, for some reason I cannot explain, ‘JAAAAAI BHAAARAAAT MAATAAAA’, ‘JAAAAAI BHAAARAAAT MAATAAAA’, ‘JAAAAAI BHAAARAAAT MAATAAAA’ …

And in that one moment, with the rain slapping my face left and right with all its fury, the wind threatening to take me away with itself, the bridge swaying and the floorboards creaking, and the mighty river flowing white with a deafening roar some fifty feet below me, I pictured in my mind’s eye the passage of the river waters right from the mountains of Himachal, through the plains of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal right till the Bay of Bengal and I imagined that the river waters were carrying my voice along with them. And in that one moment, I felt the whole country reverberating with the sounds of my Jai Bharat Mata…

—–x——x—–

This incidence took place at Tilalottni, our highest camp. It was at a height of 13,000 feet, where dusk sets in at 6:00 in the evening. It was drizzling but I didn’t want to waste a single moment of the mountain view sitting inside the tent.

Vinay and I sat on a rock some distance from the camp, to avoid the artificial camp lights. At 15,000 feet, this hill was the highest among all the nearby peaks. We were sitting at 13,000 feet and there was nothing except snow above us. Below us rolled soggy, green pastures till the the edge of the hill. The thick green forests and small villages dotting the countryside were in the valley below, out of our sight. From what we could see, there was just the two of us, equally high mountains in front and snow above and grass below us under the boundless sky.

Dragging on the head spinning pahadi bidis to keep ourselves warm, we talked while we looked at the view before us. In the dark background of the formidable, forbidding mountains, white, frisky clouds hovered in front of us, forming and unforming into different shapes. We were deep in conversation, when I noticed small white flakes streaming soundlessly down from behind us. Both of us looked behind, up the hill, and realized that clouds were forming around us. We shut our mouths and looked in awe as the world quickly started getting misty.

Vinay resumed the conversation, but this time I shushed him. I had noticed something else.

I strained my ears to listen. To something. To anything. Anything at all. I whispered to Vinay to listen. Both of us strained our ears as the calm wind wordlessly carried on with its task of creating clouds around us in that virgin territory.

We could not hear a single sound.

The Cloud started to envelope us. Dusk had fallen and the visibility was negligible. I closed my eyes and strained and strained, but except for Vinay’s heavy breathing, I could not hear anything. No sight, no sound. Just the profoundness of silence overflowing everywhere.

I never felt more distant from the world. And I never felt freer.

—–x——x—–

 

Under the boundless sky – I

I love wilderness and open spaces. Any place which offers a horizon unmarred by buildings and establishments instantly makes me feel at peace with myself. Be it the green farms near Agra, the vast, continuous desert sands of Bikaner under a full moon, the endless snow on the mountains of Himachal and the lush green valleys beneath, the infinite waters of the Bay of Bengal and the virgin beaches at the Vizag coast, the rugged, rocky, thorny hill slopes of the Aravalis around my Ajmer, even the simple two lane road which leads from my home to the dozens of villages nestled in the flat pockets scattered among the nearby Aravali ranges. I love it all.

I’ve come to believe, after years of thinking that ultimately it’s your peace of mind which measures the quality of your life. God rests inside every human, and if a person is at peace with himself, he’s living a good life. The people inhabiting the open (mostly rural) spaces, I am of the opinion, tend to be much at peace with themselves, and as such I have high regards for the rural life. It’s a delight to meet people from the villages, and meeting new people is as essential a part of my trip as sightseeing.

In this series ‘Under the boundless sky’, I’ll bring to light my experiences in the above mentioned kind of places and with the people living there. Credit goes to Mr. Ruskin Bond, whose book ‘Tales of the Open Road’ inspired me to pen down such experiences. They’re noting special, these experiences. Just random pickings about common people from everyday life. But then every human is special, and life itself is a great gift!

——x—–x——

As the bus rolled, leaving Kullu behind, I forgot all the miseries I’d endured during the night. The Himachal Tourism buses have wooden seats (I’m not joking). The topography is as would be in the hills, with turns at every 100m or so and each sharp enough to pump your bile right up to your mouth. Not much transport is available in the hills, and so the buses often get a bit too full of the handsome Pahadi people. But what takes the cake is the surface of the roads.

A single lane road, which offers the magnificent view of a several thousand feet deep gorge on one side is expected to have been paved with at least some tar; but that doesn’t often seem to be the case. A jolt would come every few minutes, which even minus the three above mentioned factors, would be strong enough to rouse someone like me from deep slumber.

How I spent the night can easily be imagined. But the story doesn’t just end here. Every time I opened my eyes, my miseries would be further compounded with stark jealousy. I was surrounded by the local Pahadi people on all sides, and wonder of wonders! Despite all the turns, jolts, and human pushes, everyone remained sound asleep. Even those who were standing. Some of those who had the privilege to sit were even snoring.

—–x——x——

But as the bus rolled away from the rising sun, I forgot all my miseries. The bus was emptier now, and the sight of the majestic snow covered peaks in the distance shot all my fatigue to the four winds. On one side of the road were the continuous hills, some bare and others lush green, and on the other side was the Parvati river, flowing on a trickle, en route to meeting Beas. Ensconced among the hills were villages, full of pretty houses dotted with colourful flowers.

There was no concept of a bus-stop in the villages. As we would pass through a village, every several dozen meters, someone standing at the side of the road would wave his hand and the driver would dutifully, nonchalantly stop the bus to let him hop aboard. A ‘Ram Ram Bha’ji’ would be exchanged and the bus would move on. Just round the corner would be another fellow waiting for the bus, and the process would repeat. I started comparing it to the Hyderabad buses which give precious little time to their passengers even to board and alight, and that too at designated stops. Life, I realised, was certainly calm and relaxed in Himachal. People had time on their hands and didn’t mind waiting for their fellow beings.

——x——-x——

The people in the village where we stayed were laid back and relaxed. I doubt if they were even aware of the concepts of deceit and cheating. Once, a group of 5-6 of us tourists had breakfast at a small dhaba. After the meal, the dhaba owner asked us what we had taken. We told him that we’d had 5 omelettes and 6 chais.

“Theek hai bha’ji, 160 rupaye de deo”, he replied after some calculation.

One of us suddenly realised that the tab had actually been 4 omelettes and 5 chais. So we told him so.

“Achchha achchha bha’ji, aapne 4 omelette aur 5 chai li hai,” came the reply, without any sign of any effort to recall anything. “Theek hai ji, 4 omelette ke 80, aur 5 chai ke 50. 130 rupaye de deo…” concluded the nonchalant reply.

Another such incidence occurred as we were checking out of the hotel. We gave the Hotel wale Sardarji 800 bucks. Then again, one of us remembered that we’d given him 100 bucks in advance while checking in. So we told him ki Sardarji humne aapko 100 rupaye de diye the.

As cool as a cucumber, the old Sardarji replied, “Hein ji, aapne mujhe 100 rupaye dene hein? Toh de deo ji!”

“Nahi nahi sardarji, humne aapko 100 rupaye pehle de diye the, aapne hamein 100 rupaye wapas dene hein”

Without as much as ruffling a single hair of his face, and even cooler than last time, pat replied the Sardarji, “Achchha achcha, meine aapko 100 rupaye dene hein! Toh le leo ji.”. With this he produced a hundred rupee note from his pocket, hailed down a passing bus (it wasn’t the bus stand, of course) and bade us goodbye and asked us to come again some other time.

——x—–x——

The trip back to Kullu from Kasol was easily the most beautiful trip of my life. The bus was packed as usual, so the conductor asked us to sit on the roof. As I was climbing up the iron ladder, I noticed an inscription at the rear windshield. It said that travelling on the roof was a criminal offence.

On the left side of us for a height of thousands of feet, were the hills, densely forested and lush green in these parts. On the other side was the Parvati river valley, again several thousand feet deep and equally well-forested. With the Parvati river gushing in full-flow after last night’s heavy rains, and the slight drizzle that was there, the weather was just perfect for a ride atop a bus. I broke into ‘Aadat’, to everyone else’s delight, and did an encore on everyone’s request. Here were 5 leather jacketed, cigarette smoking dudes singing rock songs travelling atop a bus and thinking all the time how macho they were.

The bus stopped at some point (which wasn’t a bus stop, of course), and three very old Pahadi men approached it. One of us sniggered that they all looked exactly alike, and the others broke into laughter. One of the men looked up, saw us laughing, and blissfully ignorant that a racial remark aimed at him had caused the laughter, joined in with a smile.

The bus was packed, and there was no place inside to sit. The old men started climbing the ladder to the roof. Alarmed at the prospect of the old men invading our privacy, the guy sitting near the ladder told the uppermost gentleman, as he was climbing up, that there was no room for them there.

The old man, upon hearing this, without a second’s hesitation, told the one below him that there was no room. The second man automatically repeated this to the third, who unquestioningly obeyed and within 5 seconds all three, back on the road, had resumed their patient wait for another bus.

The uppermost man had been just one step below the top. Anyone would atleast have climbed that extra step to check whether what we were saying was true or not. But not these people. They hadn’t even imagined that something could be wrong; that we could lie to them. Their trust had been impulsive, natural. Lie and deceit had probably never entered their system.

Until we came along.

 

Vella

Time: 1:30 PM

Place: A small shaded patch under a tree, in front of GH.

(Me and sashidhar are five minutes into a conversation)

Me: So Sashidhar, where are you going right now? Lab, I suppose?

Sashi (with complete sincerity): Man, I was going to the lab, but as I started talking to y0u, I no longer feel like going to the lab and working again. I just want to go to the hostel and relaaaaxx. Chal let’s walk to the OBH, na…

Me: (Needless to say, speechless. With a five inches wider chest.)

Wow! The aura of vellapanti around me is so strong that its five minutes’ rub-off is enough to put even CVITians off their work. And I have to live with it, 24/7. I just hope someone up there is looking after me…

 

My most memorable moments of the Sports’ Day ‘07

This sports day will remain one of the most cherished episodes of my life. Those entire two days seem like a dream. Like an unforgettable book you read which impacts you so much you remember it all your life. Like one of the prized firsts: The moments of the first profession you made to a girl, the few hours of your first date, the few hours of your first successful job interview… the memories are that precious.

Genius entertains, mesmerizes and enthralls. But it’s the underdog which captures the imagination. There’s a special kind of euphoria associated with seeing someone down coming up with a stupendous performance which beats them all. Although books are written about geniuses, bookmarks are placed at the events where someone comes out of the blue and stumps everyone. Bookmarks in the book of your memory are also placed at the events which involve yourself. However ordinary those events and achievements may be, they’re yours and will be remembered by you, if none else.

Here’s a list of my most memorable events from the Sports’ day ‘07. I haven’t mentioned any specific event of Nishanth or Chakrapani, as every single one of their efforts was special and will always be remembered. They make up the entire ‘book’ of memories. Here are the ‘bookmarks’.

5. Men’s 1500m: There were a thousand butterflies creating a deadly havoc in my stomach as I entered this race. This was the first event of the Sports day. We were 280 points behind Prithvi, and needed to cover up fast. I personally had anticipated that my doing well was essential for Agni winning (which turned out to be false, after all. Agni would still have won even without me!) and was a bit under pressure to perform here. The biggest worry were the muscle pulls in both my calves, due to which I had hardly had any practice in the past two weeks, and thus was short on both stamina and endurance. The pain from the pulls was still there despite endless massages and pain-relief sprays. Add to all this the fact that a medal from this most favorite event of mine had been eluding me for the past two years, the presence of the highest no. of athletes I’d ever seen for a 1500 race, and the gun not going off after two ‘on your marks’s, and you have an idea about the state my stomach was in as the race started.

5 minutes and 30 seconds later, I kissed the ground, tearful, as I finished some 11 seconds behind Chakri to clinch the silver. The first 4 rounds had been excruciatingly painful, and I had seriously contemplated quitting the race in the middle. But I had persevered, and in the end the ghosts of the past two years got buried. Most importantly, Agni covered 80 points from the race. The gap got reduced to 200 straight from 280 and now there was no doubt at all whatsoever as to who was going to lift the Overall Trophy. This race set the tone for a complete Agni rout of the track events.

4. Men’s 4×400 relay: The most painful memory from last year was not losing the overall trophy, but losing the 4×400 relay. ‘How could we have lost that race? We’re a house of runners. Losing a relay is like losing our identity, the unthinkable.’ These and similar thoughts had kept me awake on many a night this past year.

I decided to take the lead in this edition. Usually the captains/senior most athletes take the lead in relays for Agni. This was the test of captaincy material. And after my two laps, after I had handed over the baton to Jeetinder, I fell to the ground and looked at the track, completely spent. The Vayu athlete was still some 60m behind the finish line. I had given Jeetinder some 65-70 m lead. The race was well and truly over; the remainder of it but a formality. I lay back and gazed at the sky. The biggest wish for this sports day had just been fulfilled. I had performed my most wanton duty.

3. Men’s Shot Put: This was where another captain’s spirit shone. Last year’s record was 8.18m. Satya threw a huge 8.79 in his second attempt. Prudhvi, in his third attempt, let out a war-cry and threw the mother of all Shot Put throws that I’ve ever seen. A humongous 9.1m! My heart drooped, for I thought that Satya had missed his gold, but at the same time, there was a flood of appreciation, for this was probably the longest Shot Put IIIT had ever seen.

2. Men’s Triple Jump: There was no doubt at all whatsoever in anybody’s mind as to who will clinch the gold in this event. Nishanth was the favorite and he justified everyone’s belief by jumping a record breaking 11.20 m, with the two Rahuls coming in after him. This was when only 5 more athletes were left to finish their third attempt. The event was thought to be over.

This was till Suman’s last chance had not come. He had fouled in his first two attempts, but I’ve learnt to not give up hope wherever Suman is involved.

Suman ran in, and I drew a sigh of relief as he took a perfect hop from the start board. But wait, for the show had just begun! The longish hop was followed by a MASSIVE step, which landed our hero almost at the beginning of the sand pit! A huge leap then sealed the fate. Suman had jumped 11.32m! This was the mother of all Triple Jumps I’d seen in IIIT.

We’d routed the opposition in yet another event. Nishanth had begun his one-year-long wait to stake a claim at the Triple Jump gold.

1. Women’s 100m: Frankly speaking, I hadn’t expected Sunanda to win a gold in any event other than the 400m. And that’s exactly what makes the 100m race special.

After her coming 2nd in 400 and doing stupendously in girls’ 4×100, I persuaded Sunanda to run 100m. Still, I was betting on Priyanshu to retain her gold, and was hoping against hope that Sunanda beats either Prashasti or Manasi and comes third. The race started, and Sunanda was last at around 50m in the 6th lane, with Manasi leading the pack from the 5th. Priyanshu was doing her best to catch up, from the 2nd lane.

This was when magic happened. With nobody’s attention to her, Sunanda broke into a deadly run. Overtaking one athlete after another, she broke even with Manasi at around 85m. Manasi, who’d been looking over her left shoulder for Priyanshu, was visibly shocked as Sunanda shot ahead for a clear win. Priyanshu too, overtook Manasi in a photo finish to clinch the silver.

Sunanda didn’t stop screaming for around 10 minutes after that. And the hug that we shared after that was the longest and the tightest we have ever. This, and much more makes it the best and most memorable event of this sports day.

PS1: I dedicate my 1500 silver to Aditya. While I was doing my rounds, writhing in pain, he would just look at me in the eyes, and mutter something like ‘Go on, just 4 more left’. The amount of confidence he had in me gave me a lot of strength during the race. Among the most encouraging seniors I’ve ever had, Aditya played a major role in me finishing that race.

PS2: Now that the Sports Day is behind us, I’d suggest you to take a look at this .This was my list of the Top 10 athletes in IIIT. Also go through the comments. I think you’ll get to draw some interesting parrallels, now that the Sports Day is over.

PS3: These are my most memorable events. Would be delighted if someone else comes up here with their own.

PS4: Why am I writing this??? Haven’t played for a month now what with the injury I carried into the sports day having completely screwed both my feet after 2 days of incessant running and running around. Am getting frustoo just sitting around. Maybe I’ll play soon. Amen.