Adventurous Rishikesh

Disclaimer – this is a blog entry that describes my recent trip to Rishikesh, which has been written much in detail on request of the people who were on the trip. Kindly bear with length. Hope you guys enjoy.

October 2007, with bandages all over the left part of my body, with forty of my friends from my department I have been to this place called rishikesh (250 kms from delhi) one of the best places on earth and obviously the best place I have ever been to. Well known as a holy pilgrimage place for the Hindhu’s as the river Ganges flows from this part of the country, the two suspension bridges namely Ram Jula (swing) and Laxman Jula (swing) lead you to the holy town which is famous for obviously its holy temples but also for this eat out place called Chotiwala’s which serves typical gujrathi thali. But the actual activity that attracts so many students from all over north India are the adventure sports and the river side camping. The last time I was there in October I missed out on the best part of the trip rafting for 26kms in all the scary but yet thrilling rapids of the river Ganges.

There is yet another angle to my life in the C world, the life after office, here I stay miles away from my home in Gurgaon with six other roommates, all of them who are two years senior to me and are well established in the C world (unlike me who is still not able to digest it). Initially when I boarded my flight to Gurgaon from Home I was worried about whether I will be able to adjust with my seniors, etc etc (atleast I was sure that they cant rag me J ) anyways the whole point of giving all this stuff is to say that we guys are a well knit group having regular weekend trips and having fun pulling each others legs for the little time we spend together on weekdays. So we have decided a week ago to push off to Rishikesh on the coming weekend , three more friends from Pilani also have decided to join the bhagwanti(name of the apartments that I stay in) guys in Gurgaon.

Let me introduce you to the 9 members who have gone to the trip, you must be wondering that its 10 along with me, but no one of our roommates has gone to Pune on some personal work over the weekend(I think I am being too indirect he has gone to meet his girl friend). So now we are nine people who have decided to start off to rishikesh at around 7am on the previous Friday, but unfortunately our three friends from Pilani got struck in a record breaking traffic jam 20 kms from Gurgaon, they spent the whole night in the jam, they were supposed to reach at 2am but ended up reaching at around 10am (yeah 8hrs in the traffic jam). The GR8K (non stop fart machine, the fattest among the 9 with obviously the biggest ass), Jockey(a Karnataka guy,born and brought up in hyd and now stays in the loci land of jaipur) and Puttar (as the name suggests he is “A SURD” Sardar Preet Kamal Singh) are among the three. Among the remaining six one is obviously me, the others are Body (fattest in the gang joint winner with kavi the GR8K who is also a finance stud), Jittu (“he was the b’day boy”, well known for his PJ’s and supposedly he writes down all the jokes he cracks), Pasha (the firangi, and the runners up among the fat men after kavi and body), Anil oops Candy (he is the person who gets the maximum share of jacking, for reasons which I better not mention and he is half of Body’s weight) last but not the least Gowda (another a Karnataka guy, born and brought up in hyd and still stays in hyd whom we finally jacked in the trip…..an amazing cook ). I think I am boring u guys with all this descriptions but I feel its important to give a build up to my blog entry.

Gurgaon, March 21, 2008, 10 AM , the guys from pilani arrived half dead even before the trip started, we had an heavy south Indian breakfast at home as we knew we cant afford to stop for lunch as we had to reach Rishikesh before seven as the road towards the camp closes in the night because of security reasons. We were all set we pushed off to Rishikesh in two vehicles. The initial part of the trip was tiring with the typical delhi traffic to beat on a hot summer afternoon, we somehow managed to cross delhi in three hours i.e we traveled just 50kms in the first three hours, as soon as we left Delhi we saw boards saying Jain Shikanji (lemon water) every two hundred meters and so we decided to stop to see what this Shikanji is all about, we bought Shikanji in one of Indias oldest Shikanji shops which started it operations way back before independence in 1932 and the shop beside it was a competitor and the second best Shikanji shop in that area for over 70 years now which started off in 1933 J . The shikanji was amazing a perfect refresher in the hot summer, after a while we picked up some burgers from Mc Donald’s and were all set to cover the remaining 120 kms with less than two hours to go. With all the efforts we could only manage to reach Rishikesh by 8pm, with our camp guy doing some arrangements with the security guards we could take the narrow road to the camp even at that time in the night, after hour long of bumps, twists and turns we reached our camp site in a village called Bhyasi (25 kms from Rishikesh), the camp was owned by Adventours so the first adjective for this trip “its was definitely promising something Advent(O)urouS ”

This is the second time for two of us, but the rest of them were spell bound as we both were the last time we saw a camp in white sand along the banks of river Ganges adjacent a hill, the full moon that day added to the amazing look the place already had and body kept saying the whole night “this place is mesmerizing”. One best thing about the trip was that the place didn’t have any cell-phone network, away from all the daily crap(unlike what the Airtel Ad shows). After having our dinners and stretching our bodies for a while after the long car journey we rested our asses on the white sand and discussed random stuff. “About why the water level increases on a full moon day” and other random topics which I somehow am not able to recollect as I was half asleep then. So we decided to crash so that we can have an amazing raft the next morning.

The camp looked different the next morning, with the sun almost ready to rise and cool breeze blowing we have decided to go a bit closer to the Ganges and feel the water. We hogged a lot during the break-fast we also drank loads of OJ only realizing later that it belonged to the Firangis who were staying the camp along with us. It was Holi so we dressed ourselves up for the rafting after playing volleyball for a while in the white sand and then started playing with colors for a while unlike what we used to do in college, we thought the Firangis what holi is and they suddenly went crazy they were playing around with colors more than that we Indians were doing out there. After all this gen enthu we have left to Rishikesh on our raft , this is the best part of the trip which cannot be described in words I would say the best experience any adventure lover can have, and is advised to do with friends during college. After crossing the scary but rather amazing rapids namely golf course, butterfly, three blind mice, roller coaster and surfing our bodies in the Ganges for over four hours of amazing raft guided by our caption Pradeep (he was our trainer) we reached this place where we were supposed to jump off a 50m cliff into the Ganges with all of us being amateurs to swimming rather more than half of us didn’t know how to swim we all jumped into the Ganges in weird ways. It took time for us to get used to all the instructions initially , all front,left-front right-back,right-front left-back ,all back, halt etc and the next big task was to synchronize once we got an hang of it there was no looking behind we covered the rafting distance with ease. meanwhile while rafting we did other crazy stuff like comparing all the families that we saw to the friend of ours in Pune who would be visiting later in his life, and wishing both Indians a happy holi , over taking rafts and pouring water on to them.

After the experience of our lifetime we all got back to the camp had our lunch with all of us eating atleast four times more than what we normally do. Some how we pushed our limits by not taking a nap in the afternoon coz we were sure that that wouldn’t be a nap once we hit the bed. So we stared at these creatures on the hill initially mistaken to be leopards but later realizing that they were deer. We were staring at them for almost half an hour later went for another volley ball session and then sat down with non-veg joke session, with Sardar Preet Kamal Singh in full form. Then we sat down for an -OH session with just a lantern with five of us sitting with our share of -OH with a strong determination to go on a high. Pitch dark sky initially as the moon was behind the hill, white sand, roaring Ganga, sounds of land sliding, one lantern and 9 people around it. Once we reached the state that we wanted to the GR8K started off with his so called BS about life with many statements like “life is a compromise” being repeated by jockey after every minute. Weird stuff again like what the rabbit was doing on the moon and how “everything that we did can be covered up……. With sand” were discussed.

After an amazing session and a great night sleep, we realized all good things have to come to an end and started off to Gurgaon with memories that cannot be erased by anything, with just one feeling in all our hearts “Rishikesh rox”. By doing random stuff on our way back like rating girls and by stealing sugarcane we reached home late in the night only realizing that we all needed to shave and go to office the next morning.

Maturity??!!

I would like to describe a small incident that happened long-long ago in a little kids life, he was told by his teacher how his country men fought for its independence and how the current politicians are looting the same country now, and how these little kids will have to serve the country once they grow up and become adults like the teacher. The kid dreamt of being an adult he thought he would at-least joint the military if not politics and do his contribution to the nation. He felt for it then. But slowly priorities changed as days passed by he just thought about his friends and the fun involved in hanging out with them, he was into high school now and he thought he was not grown enough to start thinking about the nation etc, I am not writing this to create a Yuva sort of a feeling in the readers I am just penning down the autobiography of this kid whose priorities changed rapidly. Let me get back now, in high school this guy at-least thought about his friends and group and slowly as days passed it became himself, his best buddy and his family. He didn’t give a shit for what was happening to others forget the country he wasn’t bothered about what was happening to the person saying in the adjacent room of his hostel. He got all his support that he needed from his best friend on campus so he never bothered to give a shit about what the others felt about him, now all of them are out of college busy with their own lives so busy that they don’t even have the time to talk to each other, now this kid feels lonely, he now thinks about what next in life who will replace his best buddies from college, perhaps a girl friend, that doesn’t seem to be working out in a environment where people are at-least five years elder to him or the typical DC’s. Now if I look back and think the way priorities changed in my life I see the same kid in me, perhaps all of u will be feeling the same. Within the next few years priorities will narrow down to only me and my family I suppose. Hard to digest but it needs to be digested at times. Now if my teacher who told me to serve the nation comes to me I can do nothing but bend my head in shame and say,” Mam, I have been selfish as that’s the key for survival”. Be selfish but do spare a thought to all the good people you meet in life, because they made you to the person that you are today.

Signing off
Kiddo
Bharat Bongu

The Endless Journey

There is an unavoidable journey which each one of us are going through, the journey of life the journey which takes u places , which makes you meet loads and loads of people. Perhaps at the end of the little part of my journey so far I feel I lost myself, there is small thought at the end of my heart, that I started living for this world, for the people around me. I enjoy every moment but at the end of the day I feel this is not the same me that I was couple of years ago. Perhaps college changes people, I miss the kiddo in myself(where have you gone ??), I wanna go back to the bachpan days where there is so much ignorance and innocence involved, where you implement a lot but never bother to think, but no! Now I don’t ever have time away from thinking. Weird thoughts run through my head all day, what next in life? the biggest question in life, carrier or family is the next? Amongst all this shit and much more u still have to move around normally faking all day long, they expect you to reach deadlines but they are never bothered to know what u are going through. Yes, this is yet another entry where I am writing to vent out my frustration. A small disclaimer before I continue, I am not always in such moods. “Dead Inside”- by thermal and a quarter inspired me in writing this entry. Though none of you agree all of us are “doing, walking, smiling and faking” for the most of our lives. We all are living less and faking more.

I always thought about this when, people bless you asking to live for hundred odd years, I felt like asking them “are you blessing me or cursing me”. I am no Jim Morrison to die soon so here is the beginning of this endless journey called life. “all the best to all those who are sailing along with me in the same boat” for the rest you will be our guests one day so enjoy this moment.