In case you are having doubts as to whether this story is worth reading, this story (non-fictional characters, real places and almost real incidents) also has anecdotes about the magical connection between an exotic butterfly and a muddy shoe (rated by critics as the next best love story after Wall-e).
For those of you who are genuinely interested and those who are too lazy to click 'back' in your browser, here it goes.
Long long ago, two days ago, there lived a team of 15 united engineers. They lived happily in spite of their grey cubicles, green waveforms and gingery evening tea. A visionary*1 had convinced them to explore the great mountains of Kodachadri where dog-sized cows lived among flying jeeps. They had for them planned a gorgeous weekend and a fulfilling trek.
*1 - Avinash
----- End of fancy fairy tale language -----
Chapter 1: Getting there (Warning: Uneventful)
Didn't I say uneventful in the chapter title, the logical thing to do would be jump to the next chapter. Still here you are.. so the summary is we just got on the bus reached Nittur and walked 2 kms to the place where we were supposed to stay. Also, The leader of the short cow community (yep, the leader of the dog-sized cows indigenous to this locality) came to invite us. Not to brag but I should say he was quite smitten by my charms.
Lessons learnt:
1) The best strategy for the game 'Chain reaction' is to hold the corners. Courtesy: Pranay + Sudha + Sundeep
2) Never order Mushroom pepper dry at Swati Deluxe @ the Majestic Bus junction in Bangalore unless you are into rotten looking, absolutely unhealthy still yummy food.
Chapter 2: Hungry Dogs and Hovercraft Jeeps
On reaching 'NisargaDharma' - the place where we were to stay, we found company - two puppies joined later by two bigger dogs and even later by a greedy uncle dog (who was later proven to be a auntie dog - still greedy). The dogs looked so impossibly thin that I almost thought it was a different dog species. Pallavi being the candle-hearted one started melting at the sight of the adorable puppies with their wont-you-feed-me eyes and started throwing bread to them. That's when it hit me that generosity and chivalry don't go well with food - not among humans and not among dogs.
Finally we got our fancy elevated bamboo huts and we started getting ready.
The plan was to start at 8 and when has a well-executed plan ever lead to a good story. We got ready by 9 (the bus was late by an hour too) and then realized that we had to wait for 45 minutes to get a Jeep (or two) which would get us to a waterfall 10 Kms away from which our real trek would start. So in the meanwhile we decided to drop by a hanging bridge around 2 kms from the homestay. I should say the bridge far exceeded any of our expectations. It was serenity at its best, non-polluted bluish green waters, a scenic hanging bridge and random small boats parked around the still disputed lake/reservoir/'River backwater' - (eh? My expression too!) looked like a scene stolen out of a famous five book. We had a competition of bouncing stones off the water surface and some were really good, some were okay and most like me were just lucky enough to get one or two stones to bounce once.
Having had enough of the lake (or the lake having had enough of our stone throwing) we left the place and walked backed to our homestay and found a Jeep and a jeep driver waiting for us. And we were wondering "Didn't we order for two of each?". Anyway we could only get the services of one, so we were forced by circumstances to split in two groups. The lazy ones wanting to sleep some more stayed back and the eager ones hopped on. This was the decision that each of us had to make and would haunt us for the rest of the trip. The Eager ones obviously are the protagonists/heroes/super heroes in this story and the lazy ones played the miscellaneous yet critical supporting roles. In case the reason my bias didnt come through clearly in the earlier sentences, I was part of the eager group.
So, our jeep took off and raced through the uneven roads dusting the dusty roads and slushing the endless mud slush. At one point the jeep even drove through the underwater river roads (believe me, this isn't exaggerated) and getting past all that glorious nature, we can be hardly reproached for expecting to be dropped off at an awesome cascading waterfall (like ones in Soap advertisements). And we weren't mentally prepared for it when the driver asked us to get off at a place which looked like a highway tea stall. Seeing us confused the driver told us, the eager ones, that we were to wait while the other group arrived and we would start the trek together. One of the locals shared knowledge that waterfall was very close to where we are. Eager as we were and as hyped up as our expectations were, we couldn't stand the idea of waiting at the tea stall and decided to wait at the waterfall.
Chapter 3: And then there were eight
We (the eight eager ones) went to the waterfall. It was a very small one. We tried to be happy about the view and stayed awhile there. But eagerness (euphemism for greed) soon got the best of us and we decided to find the actual waterfall and stay there. So we started climbing the hill in the lookout for the bigger waterfall that we signed up for. We would wait for the rest of teh group at the main water fall we convinced ourselves. We climbed what seemed like eternity (though it was only 2 Kms according to our all knowing Decider SRK). It was a half baked path and where we saw a clearing we put our feet and kept climbing on the insistence of Pranayraj Maharana, our chief navigator, He had the credentials of having climbed the Kodachadri peak already and we like true followers trusted our leader and climbed the impossible climb (More because the descent looked scarier). The fabulous grasslands are a 100 ft ahead he said and after a few more of such promises and seeing none of the promised grass we had lost hope. There were leeches crawling all around the place and when they weren't we assumed every bit of small dried stem was one and the more paranoid ones assumed bigger branches to be snakes. In spite of having had all the triggers for a rebellion, we like true democrats did a re-vote on the major decision - to go or not go ahead. The 'Not Go's won against the 'Go's five to three. It was decided that the unconquered peak we had proceeded to climb shall be called the Broadcom Peak (that we got lost and climbed the wrong mountain is an allegation that we can neither confirm nor deny).
Though the descent was slippery as hell and climbing down seemed like a crazy idea once we decided to do it, we saw that it wasn't so bad. Yes, we were very much prone to fall but there were branches and thick roots every few feet and a fall wouldn't be disastrous. Hence falls scraped egos (atleast mine!) and far lesser skin. But like true warriors we stepped, crawled, slid, jumped and ran as we undid the one and a half hour sweaty climb. When we reached the bottom, we dug into our survival kit/food bag and devoured bread, tubs of butter, bananas and dates (instant energy they said!). After the tarzan climb and the nomadic meal, we were too pleased with life to be disappointed with the size of the waterfall.
After an hour more of hanging around the falls, we decided to get out and get dry. SRK being named such couldn't help getting cocky and tripped on one of the slippery stones and cut his hand on a sharp stone. Blood came gushing out and the river turned a deep red. The sacrifice to the mountain gods for helping us conquer the Broadcom Peak was done.
The eager group shall hence forth be called "The Lost and Found Group". The other group shall be for lack of creativity be called "The Not lost Not found group".
| Allegiance |
Name |
Trekking style |
Optimism |
Primary task |
Leech Bites |
Falls |
Dangerous falls |
| Lost And Found group |
Pranayraj |
Expert |
10 |
Navigator |
4 |
2+? |
0 |
| Sandeep |
Cross
Stepper |
6 |
Decider |
3 |
2+? |
1 |
| Sandhya |
Stick
marcher |
5 |
Photographer |
1 |
2 |
0 |
| Saranya |
Slider |
4 |
Cautioner |
0 |
5 |
0 |
| Piyush |
Runner |
9 |
Yes-Man
(Chamcha) |
? |
? |
0 |
| Gyana |
Crawler |
5 |
Pose-master |
? |
? |
0 |
| Jayadev |
Anchor |
7 |
Path
finder |
? |
? |
0 |
| Akshay |
Survivor |
6 |
Moderator |
? |
? |
0 |
| Not lost not found group |
Avinash |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker 1 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Jasmine |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
2 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Pallavi |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
3 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Garima |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
4 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Sudha |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
5 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Sundeep |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
6 |
0 |
? |
0 |
| Shiva |
Normal |
2 |
Trekker
7 |
0 |
? |
0 |
