Dare to be there?

You are at least eight kilometers above ground level, you are sweating all over, there is hardly any sugar left in your blood stream, your vasa pulsates at a rate higher than ever, you don’t feel your legs, your thighs are singing rhymes (London bridge is falling down), the light is getting bleaker and you see dark clouds forcing towards you,. Whom would you call upon to save you? I am afraid no one will ever respond to your call, because your peers are as jeopardized as you are, and they too are TREKKERS just like you. Jeopardy is the name of the game.

As we fellow SEVENS footslogged our way up the heap, we became restless and were on a desperate lookout for a shelter. We had to hide our heads somewhere to be assured of what they call a ‘return’ (if not safe though). Luckily the forest that surrounded us was quite co-operative, except for few chuddy dost monkeys of ours, who were a little upset about the intrusion. However one of my teammates, “peter”(name changed), (who was leading us at around four in the evening) squinted to notice a dark spot on a green lush. We all let a sigh of relief, for we were finally been able to spot the silver lining. That was the refuge camp for us soldiers.

A small hovel made of stone of dimensions 5X5X5,with a stony top and rough stony base. It was pitch black in colour (God knows how old the structure was). This was where we fellow SEVENS took rest for the whole night. The mega-structure is called the MANATAPA.

Before talking about our stay in the lavish lounge ‘MANTAPA’, I would like to recall a scenario, by the time we got close to the hideout, one of our other teammates, “yamraj” (name changed again) took the lead and dragged us up the elevation .The toughest terrain we have ever experienced was perhaps the one very close to MANTAPA, as per statistics it was an eighty seven degree tilt. Yamraj reached the destination first and was calling out on the second person from BIT who will make it home, but there was this guy “oorbaglu”(name changed) who took the challenge pretty seriously and chose to attempt a feat, although he was quite far from the place. He stopped for a second, looked around, did some calculations and then like a sport he said to himself that he is not going to give up. The Spartan chose to take a detour, which perhaps was an unfold door to the so-called death, and then he hopped, skipped and did a lot of balancing maneuver and finally made it to the base.

Well there is a twist in the story; the scene presented above is not the one I was intending to share with you when I said, “I would like to recall a scenario”.

The SEVENS reached the adobe and were celebrating the ‘partial success’; yamraj said he wants to freshen up and wanted to slue to the portion just below, for it had a small pond. This guy was so elated to have reached the MANTAPA that he went singing down the slant only later to realize that he was loosing balance .In a flash the lush disappeared and all he could see was rocks that were approximately 2 kilometers below him. In a second his memory refreshed and he visualized everything he has done so far in his life. His conscious mind told him “you are done!!!” however the unconscious mind brought out such reflexes out of his body that he was able to hang on with a perfect coincidence of his shoe’s tip and the pinnacle. I am very proud of this guy, for he has given a fair F**K U to the death. Name “yamraj” suites him the best, who else can tease the demise saying, “kiss my ass” and get away with that.

BON VOYAGE

We the ‘Super Sevens’ rolled up our sleeves (we were all wearing T-shirts though) and flexed our muscles. Did a bit of warm up exercise, looked at each other like those girls in the movie ‘Chakde India’ (The final match) and said ‘LETS DO IT!!!’. The spirit ran high in the souls and the roar reverberated across the high peak mountains. Last time when I felt such an emotion was when i watched the movie ‘Lion King’. It gave me goose flesh.

The excitement lasted only a few seconds, for only later did we realize that there were only four of us .All the adrenaline went slipping down to those tiny glands on our kidneys and our heart beats came back to normal. The other three had gone shopping and we had to wait at the starting point right in the front of the temple. They came back in a while.

And now we were literally ’super sevens’ we rolled up sleeves (we were all wearing T-shirts though) well, let me not make you scratch your butt and say “oh come on!”. Let me just say we started our journey up the steep.

Guess who was there to welcome us? It was none other than the Lord himself!!!!! and I am not joking, foxed? Well the Lord did welcome us in the form of his bosom friend ‘The great serpent’. She was a reptile roughly about 5 feet long. Black in Colour with yellow stripes that looked so Taylor made that we were left speechless. We guys ogle at long sexy legs of women, but you have got to take it from us the legs stand no where in front of what they call a natural beauty. She got us bedazzled to an extent that we forgot to take a snap of her, we just could not take our eyes off her wavy crusade. I wondered if she had ever taken lessons on belly dancing.

This is the point, when my teammate Kashi (name changed) gave us instructions on how to behave during this course of slogging (I must say i was again reminded of ‘Chakde India’). In a feel of exaltation we stepped our way up the realms. In about five minutes we had our tongues dangling down our mouths (believe me dogs look far cuter than men). Luckily we were well equipped with resources that helped us re-energize our tasteless blood and turn it back into sweet blood. Carbohydrates are a must.

We took breaks regularly, had one or two sips of water, or glucose, or a slice of fruit and then we go again. Not to mention the team cheer, it was the best part. A guy in the front used to take the lead and call every person in the league with his name (nick name) and the later used to reply with a loud battle cry, once every soldier responded to the call, we all exclaimed in unison “Super Sevens!!!!”.WOW!!! If you really want to understand what teamwork is all about? Go for a TREK and see how bad one suffers if he is not backed up with support, and this is what TREKKING all about ,its about lending your shoulders to the one weaker not only physically, but also mentally!!!!.

I Wonder how those cheer girls help our players beat the stress.we were still amateur TREKKERS and did not dare to have those girls cheer for us, for we would have got carked by their beauteous curves and would have got marooned for bad.By the way none of us owned a beverage company or an airways to afford those ‘Chicks!!!’.

The breaks, the cheers, the photo sessions became a common maneuver for us Spartans (mind you there were only seven of us, not 300!!) and we finally reached the top of the first mountain only later to realize that we were yet to conquer seven such mountains.

We went on and on an on and on singing, shouting, crying, cursing, abusing and most importantly sweating. For a moment I was caught in a cook and started wondering why all the rivers take birth up above mountains? And perhaps it must be the sweat of TREKKERS that keeps flowing down to make up a river. Well i am just sharing my thoughts; do not call me a retard this, for every TREKKER is special (TREKKERS Zameen Par).

Then as usual, we reached ‘TREKKERS paradise’ the humble hut of a person well known as ‘BHATTA’. We freshened up, had our lunch (forty bucks for unlimited rice sambar onion pickles and butter milk, finger licking good!!!), fastened our shoe lace and set out for the post lunch session of ‘Road to Success’.

“SeVeNs”The Saga

jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water

Jack fell down and broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

Up got Jack,and home did trot.

As fast as he could caper

He went to bed and bound his head

with vinegar and brown paper.

well by now if you have anticipated the theme of this very post as one of those,in which one would get nostalgic about his childhood and tell you about all the cute little things he would play around with.You are quite spot on.

Legend of the Rhyme presented above is not a complete fiction.This might be a redundant information for a few of you.It sure got me to ponder over it for quite a sometime when i found out the inside story of it.

This supposedly simple rhyme reflects the cult of France ironically.Jack to king Louis XVI and Jill to his soul mate Gill are the indirections as history claims it to be.It narrates how the king fought back his failure and how Jill stood by him.

By the way that is history for us.As mentioned above I shall share some of the “cute little” things that i fiddled with, along with six fellow mates of mine.We were a group of kids just 21 years old, who went on to peep into the mouth of so called danger.

The group is called “SUPER SEVENS”.Each in the group looked up at the other as an incarnation of the fabled Jack.You might wonder who was representing Jill!.Fortunately or unfortunately we had none.

Trekking!

The word seemed nothing more than just walking up a narrow lane with huge bags on one’s shoulders and sturdy sport shoes buckled up one’s feet.

I always wondered what really fascinates the so called trekkers,for it looked like an voyage that has no real destination.What exactly are the trekkers craving for?why do they do this?what motivates them to slog along the footpath which looked so narrow and long with the course extended beyond horizons?

These were a few but musings of mine that kept developing as and when I heard about or looked at the very activity of trekking.One other important revelation I have made is that th trekkers are by large the “GO GETTERS”.They appreciate hard work and have this attitude of “NEVER SAY DIE”.

Having made such observations,it triggered a pampering kid in me,i became more curious as to whether there is really something to it or what!

As my days are now tending towards the big Graduation Day,Something which a freshers dreams about and something a senior is vexed about,we the final years decided to have something done adventurous,something out of the box,something that prompts us to forget all the odds,makes us think about the future.That was the time we fellow amigos decided to have a trial of TREKKING!

The day started with us having carried out the mundane and then we set out to attempt the feat which seemed way too daunting for a starter.I say this because every piece of mire that we were about to step on resounded risk.We were quite aware of situation out there, thanks to our good old internet and fellow bloggers who have shared their experiences and have made us aware of possible jeopardy .

The stretch that we had decided to stroll on was quite capricious.It boasts about having doomed a IISc scientist who was lost in the jungle and was picked up by the locals a month later in a rather hapless condition.

As suggested by the professional trekkers who helped us online,we first sought the blessings of the Lord Subramanya ,for he is the royal sheriff of the town “KUKKE”and set out to make foray into the jungle.

This is just an appetizer.I must say the experience was amazing.I shall try to make u feel the tempo in my next post.