Atlast, it happened, the long awaited trip, unplanned and undecided till the last minute. The prolonged wait was worth the enjoyment and fun.
It all started some months back, when I came up with an idea of trekking, instead of just a normal outing.After a lot of deciding which weekend is the most feasible, I almost gave up the idea, as someone or the other had some important work on the planned day. A lot of postponing and last week Pavi messaged me "Lets make a one day trekking trip this saturday". This message instilled some encouragement in me.Friday,September 30, 2005 :
I called up Harish and asked him if he is ok with saturday, he was all ready as usual and also sent a group SMS expecting more people to join. I called Div soon after, and my excitement knew no bounds to hear that she is looking forward to the trip more than anyone of us. Thats 4 up. I then dialled Vinay's cell, it wouldnt want to get picked up, I guess, but we (all 4 of us) kept trying to get in touch with Vinny. Pavi told me she would contact Karma, Krithika and anyone else she can get hold of. I asked Div to check out some cool places that are good for trekking.
Called Girish(Dot - the workaholic), he was busy working at first, but surprisingly responded and was more than ready for it, after all he's the most adventurous and experienced in these sort of trips, and I asked him to tug his girlfriend along. So the count reached 6. Harish called back saying Mercy and Venki would join too. Count - 8. Vinay still not reachable. Damn We havent decided the place. Asked the experienced Dot, and he suggested mekedaatu. Since the count was confirmed at 8, or 9 if we do get through to Vinay, I booked a Sumo.
Minutes later, Divi dear called up to inform that due to the cyclonic rain, Mekedaatu is not a safe place. Harish a.k.a Plumpy wanted to drop the idea, reasoning that it would be raining everywhere. Hmmm since me and giving up dont go together, I started hunting to find some suitable places to trek. I got many, but the one that looked safest to me was Manchinbelle Dam, 15 kms from The Big Banyan tree,off Mysore road, and 60 from Bangalore.
Saturday October 1, 2005 :
The day dawned to a clouded morning, but my eyes wanted sleep, for they remained open from yesterday afternoon. I work in night shifts, so had to report to office, though had avery bad day at office (thats another story), the excitement of the trek kept me from losing my energy. Girish and Anu (his girlfriend), too worked all night.
The Sumo cab, we booked, came direct to my office, and I took it home as I had to freshen up a little, I called others to make sure they woke up on time. Girish then came up with a suggestion to try mountain trekking in Sivaganga. He had already been there and described it as a huge rocky mountain, with temples, and we had to walk or rather climb the mountain. Sounds interesting ?? Thats how it did to me. I called the others to let them know the change in plans, Div and Pavi were more than happy, as they wanted the same. Harish, wanted to go to some newly opened amusement park, "Wonder la"!!! - Overruled !.
I reached home, had a bath and light breakfast to refresh, and took the cab to Harish's place to pick him up. Its 9:25 am, and he had just woken up. My anger could be calmed by a punch on his sleepy face, but his innocent statement of excuse "I have a bad back ache da, so could not sleep well", calmed me faster. Mercy and Venki dropped out for their own reasons, and so did the count- 6 people.
Left Harish's place, and picked Pavi at 10:30. Pavi and I bought some medicines, just in case. Left to Div's place, picked her up and her face showed that she waitied quite long for us, and she did not like it. Anyways being the sweet girl shes always been, she cooled down in seconds.One last call to Vinay, we finally got him, and asked him to join."Ive got work", he said. We got him to call in sick, but his manager would not allow him a leave. We had to move on without him, and yeah did miss him a lot. We drove to the other end of the city to reach Girish's house to be greeted by his ferocious pet Alsation - Shishiro. While waiting for Girish and Anu to freshen up, we had some snacks his mom served and also some tips about the place from Giri's mom.
Its 12:10 we finally set forth after picking up some eatables which included Ravalgons, Rolacolas, Poppins - Pavi's choice. Four long hours spent in bangalore itself. Thats the reason I had to blog the starting.
On our way to Sivaganga, when Girish exclaimed "Hey, thats Shivaganga, the hill we are supposed to climb." It really looked huge from the highway. The weather was hot. We reached the foothills and started to trek. Girish leading the way, we followed. I took one look at the hill and said "We can do this in two hours". "Yea right! What are you? Ben Johnson?", replied Harish - 'the man of sarcasm'. "Ha ha ha, two hours ?? Do you know its around 1200 ft high. It will take around 4." added Girish. I replied confidently "I can do it in two hours." "Ok, Ill start the timer in my watch" said Girish. We started the mountain climb. A few steps and we were already sweating. None of us remembered to get the camera, as we depended on Girish's digicam, which unfortunately had no battery charger. Anyway, we did manage to click quite a few pics with the mobile cams we had. Thanks to technology!.
A few ft high, there was a stone carved Nandi seated. Shorty Pavi wanted to whisper a secret in its ear, and the Nandi's ear was alittle too high for her to reach, so she struggled but atlast managed to get hold of its ear and whispered her secret. We moved on, and instead of taking the steps, we tried the slippery rocks, when a localite screamed in pure kannada infomring us that the its too slippery as there's growth of moss due to the water trickles. We paid no heed and managed to to climb, it was much easier than the steps.
We then reached a cave temple. Bought the tickets, removed our shoes and entered in. Harish stayed back watching over the bag and shoes. There was water on floor, and its beleived there's a river flowing underneath. In the cave temple was a hole, where we could feel the water under the rocks. Its beleived that those who cannot feel the water, have sinned a lot. Girish, Anu, Div and I did manage to get to the water and poor little Pavi, her short hand never managed too. I hit my head on the rocks a couple of times, the cave was small and we had to bend our backs to avoid anymore head damage. Pavi, Divi and I also made up a cool Gandhi's three monkeys pic. We left the cave after taking the prasad. Got our shoes on and moved ahead.
It didnt seem that difficult as we thought when we had that look from the road. It wouldve been much easier, if Harish, the funny guy, didnt make us laugh every two steps. Half the energy of specially, Div and I who tugged along with Harish, was spent on laughing. It was Pavi who asked us to split, for we three were really slowing down the speed. Half the distance covered, we rested for a second time. Snapped few more pics "on the rocks", I asked Girish "How much time up, dude?" "45 minutes" he replied. Before I could say anything he added, "the second half is steeper, and would take double the time. So dont think we'll make it in two hours". Right then Harish's back gave up on him. He complained of a bad backache and could not move on. He preferred to lie down and rest half up on the hill alone, rather than accompaning us to the top, and screwing his back. A lot of cajoling and pushing went in the attempt to tug him along, but in vain, this plump rock wouldn't budge.
So we left Harish with the bag of oranges we picked upon the way, with a warning to not finish all of them. Now, just the five of us, moved on slowly, but steadily. We came to a steep flight of steps. When I say steep, I mean real steep. We held onto the railings and slowly pushed ourselves along. The view was splendiferous (beautiful in simple words). I was in the lead, and was rebuked by Pavi for stopping every few steps to take a look at the lovely landscape beneath. According to her she was losing her momentum every time I stopped, for there was place only for a single person and we had to climb in a queue.
Finally we did managed to reach the top, greeted by cool breeze blowing on our face and whispering in our ears and welcomed by huge family of monkeys. Yea, Div and Pav were so damn scared of them. We climbed to the Nandi, and tried our best to locate Harish. We gave out loud shouts and did hear him replying. He then called me and helped us locate him. I had never seen Harish this small ever before, he looked like a grain. Clicked a few more snaps and moved to the other side of the rock. The climb was worth the view. And guess what ? I won, we reached the top in exactly 2 hrs 5 minutes. (Grinn)
We rested on the rocks for some time, enjoying the picturesque beauty of nature.Pavi,Div and I,split from the love birds,giving them some space. We called Vinay up, as we did miss him a lot, but I enjoyed making him feel bad for not making to the trip and instead working. He promised he would join us for dinner, when we return back. After spending some time and trying hard to get the lyrics right of R.Kelly's "I beleive I can fly", we clicked few more pics and were ready to tread down hill.
A few steps down and the monkey family we met at the top seemed to be fascinated by us. They started to follow us!. Sounds funny?. Well, not to Pavi and Divi, they were too scared of these apes. One of them, I guess the naughtier one, moved slowly towards Pavi. Pavi froze and covering her face with her hands, she screamed at the top of her voice. Now her screams really scared all of us. "Dont scream, stay still and quiet, it will move away", I retorted. I didnt know what to do,as any wrong move and the monkey could try attacking Pavi as she was very close to it, and I didnt want that to happen. We slowly moved towards Pavi, and the monkey sensing the movement, it moved the other way. Thank Goodness! Our sweet little shorty was safe now. We moved on, the whole ape group stil accompanying us, and the already scared girls, clinging closely in a group. After a few minutes, guess the monkeys pitied the girls and stopped following.
Harish called me and due to a small misunderstanding we started a big argument. I was pissed with him and so was he. Girish and Anu, still cooing, took a different way, while Pavi, Div and I met Harish. A little more of the argument between Harish and me and then a patch up, with who's going to light the ciggarette. Stopped for a while munching oranges and listening to some mp3s on Pavi's cell.
At the foothill, we gathered at a shop for some refreshments, overlooking that the our CAB was standing right there in front of us, though Harish did spot the cab but we were not sure it was the same. We kept walking towards the entrance.. atleast half a km, the cab followed us, overtook and stopped. Realising it was our own cab, we got in with the driver saying in Kannada "Yen sir, cab marthhogbitra?" ("What sir, Did you forget the cab?"). We rode back to bangalore, all the way discussing and deciding the place for dinner, though we had planned to play truth or dare and sing songs and neither happened.
Ending the trip sweetly and hungrily, we met Vinay at Cafe Y, Langford road, Bangalore for some steaky dinner, who patiently waited for us booking a table. The menu was italian, and the dishes were tongue twisters. Though we did manage to order our choices, we couldnt recognise or make out who ordered what, when the waitress served the dishes one by one. After a lot of confusion finally things fell in their place, and the food was good. The fun aint over yet,once we served our stomachs, it was time for some maths.
We started the calculation about whos paid how much and how much more, who should pay. Confused?. It was the same for us. To start of there was no pen or paper. Borrowed a pen from the waiter and used the back of the dinner bill. A lot of calculations, miscalculations, discussions and confusions, and also entertaining the crowd seated around, we finally settled the score.
Harish left with Vinay on the bike as he would get dropped to his office,after we gave vinay one orange as a complimentary gift from us. We dropped Girish and Anu to Convergys, poor guys, had to work another night, after a tiring fun filled day. We then moved on to drop Divi and then Pavi. Both the sweet ladies, went sweeter by taking an orange each home and leaving one for me, as a memento of the trip.
I reached home, took a note of the KM reading, and bingo! It was exactly 250 Kms. Yes, 250 is the minimum Kms for any transport hire charge. Calculated the balance and bingo again, I just had the right amount. Not a penny more or less or should I say paisa. Well the second bingo was very short lived as the driver said again in Kannada "Sir, hath ghante aadhmele driver bata double". ("Sir, The driver bata doubles after 10pm"). It was close to midnight. Called Girish to confirm as I was not sure about it, and he to agreed.I didnt want to disturb my folks at home, therefore I asked the driver to take me to the nearest ATM, about 1.5 kms. After paying the driver his due, I said "Mannege hogana" ("lets go home now"), and to my surprise, he refused. He was reluctant to drop me back home. Anyway, I had paid him his due, and it was his cab, and he was sitting at the wheel, so I was quite helpless. I got down and walked back 1.5 kms. These 1.5 kms were so damn difficult then the whole 1000 odd feet of trekking. It was pitch dark, a new moon day, no company, and my legs were screaming at me to stop torturing them.
I managed to reach home, with a little energy left though not enough to hold a glass of milk which my mom wanted me to have before I sleep. Dropped my self on the bed, and drawing the sheets on me, I slept like child, with the days memories lingering in flashback in my dreams.
Goodnight!
