KP Conquered on debut!!!

Certain things can’t be appreciated until its experienced. I found this to be very true this weekend when I trekked to KumaraParvatha (Western Ghats) more famously known as KP…Standing at 1714m (abt 5700 feet) it’s not only the second tallest peak (the first being Mullyangiri) in Karnataka, but also supposed to be one of the toughest to trek!!! What a debut!!!

For a first timer you couldn’t have asked for more…Not only you are trekking one of the toughest peaks but you really don’t know what to expect!!! But being in the age of “web 2.0” there is nothing you can’t know beforehand…I read a few blogs trying to understand what to expect from a trek like this…But everything that I read came short of the actual experience…It just cannot be put in words even though I am trying to do the same impossible thing here!! ;)
For a guy who usually said no to such things it was a real revelation!!! Thanks to my friend Sunil who arranged everything and providing us with a list of things we would need, we didn’t face any major problem other than of-course climbing the peak..:)
We were 8 of us…An amazing group to hang out with…There was always laughter with jokes/PJs being cracked with amazing frequency…Sometimes it would be so hilarious that u will cry laughing (oxymoron!!!?).

We left on Friday night to Somvarpet on a Rajahamsa and reached there by 6.00 in the morning…After having a hot cup of coffee, we left to our staring point which is about 45 min bus drive from Somvarpet. The forest check post is about couple of km from this point. We had to pass “Hegde mane” and “Mallikarjuna Devasthana” before reaching the check post…We tried getting breakfast at both the places but to no avail…So we decided to have two and a half chapattis per head…We had to ration everything from food to water because there would be no food available anywhere and the pizza delivery guys wouldn’t come!!! Since the luggage was unevenly distributed we had to redistribute everything. Further as there were two tents we took turns carrying them every half an hour…

At around 10.30 we reached the forest check post. The forest officials there were not ready to give us permission as there was some herd of elephants which were apparently going on a rampage in the area and they didn’t want to take any risks. Half an hour of reasoning and convincing them that we were “grown-ups” and “responsible”, we got the required receipts. We had to pay 75 bucks per head and had to declare that we were responsible for our safety!!!

The trek from Somvarpet side to KP is as arduous as it can get…The distance is about 8-10 km but its very steep. The only advantage being there was forest cover throughout. Actually the entire trail is trough forests. The experience was just amazing and we met a couple of streams in between which helped us to replenish our bottles. The first stream had a lot of water and we had to remove our shoes to cross it. The water was freezing cold and it took a lot of time for the numbness to go…There is only one trail, so there is no question of getting lost unless you want to..;) and there are some helpful signboards too…We had to cross a few steep rocky hills to reach the top. We had the same chapattis for lunch but this time we had three of them…The chapattis were too good and we ate it with pickle which tasted like heaven. After a gruelling uphill climb like that, maybe everything would taste good…

We reached the peak at 4.30 P.M and the view from there was worth all the effort…There is a Shiva temple made of rocks at the top of KP which marks the distinction between KP and other peaks around…A lot of people find it very difficult in recognizing the peak and this is the only landmark available to distinguish between the numerous peaks around…

We were one of the first groups to reach the top. After some photo session, we pitched the tent. The experience of pitching the tent and living in it was just amazing…Three of us went down again, along the Subramanya route to get some water while the rest of them collected firewood for the campfire. We were all ready by 5.30 and had a cup of tea!!! One of my friends had bought mobile stove with camphor which could be used to heat the container…Neat, compact and the tea tasted awesome…

The sunset was really beautiful, but the night was even better. We had a very good time with the campfire which was used to cook our dinner too. We had MTR ready to eat and chapattis again…The night was really cold and the wind had started to pick up speed. We spent an hour gazing at the zillion stars above, the milky way and wishing for shooting stars, so that we can wish after watching one!! We could see them at amazing frequency almost one every 15 min…I am sure all of us would have run out of our wishes…

By 11.00 P.M we were too tired to even gaze at the stars and we bundled ourselves inside the sleeping bags and slept in the tent. It was getting very windy and the tent was making a lot of noise. It gave me the feeling as if it was trying to break free…Even though we had firmly tied the tents, the wind speed was too much…I don’t remember whose brain wave was it to tie both the tents together because it was the only saving grace when the first tent blew away at 2.00 A.M in the night…After this I couldn’t sleep for another hour worried that our tent would also get blown away and that we might have to pay Rs14,000 for it!!! As luck would have it I could suddenly see the stars above and I immediately knew that the tent had broken free…It was too cold outside to search alone and hence had to wake up my friend in the other tent to search for it (People in my tent were in deep sleep and the lazy guys wouldn’t get up in spite of my efforts in waking them!!) …Thankfully since the other tent was firmly tied the last time, our tent which was attached to it was lying nearby…We maid it a point to tie extra stones to the tent for safety!!! God only knows what would have happened if both the tents had blown away simultaneously!!!

The sunrise again was amazing!! I got up at 5.30 and started waking others…The view was breathtaking!!! As the sun rose amidst the mountain peaks the mist started to dissipate… It was as if the mountain peaks were being reborn…An awesome view which made the entire trek worth the effort…We packed our bags and tent by 8.00 A.M and started downhill…We had breakfast at the stream where we collected water the previous night…Had cup noodles and it tasted like heaven!! After this we continued towards Kukke Subhramanya!!! The trek down is about 14 Km in this direction and doesn’t have much of forest cover but has amazing viewing points…There is this one place where the wind gets redirected towards you because of a mountain blocking its path…The wind speed here is so much that you feel like you are getting blown away!! It’s very difficult to maintain balance and get rooted to the ground!!!

By 12.30 P.M we reached “Bhattara Mane”…It’s the only house that you will see throughout the entire trek…Its exactly midway between KP and Subramanya…We had lunch there and he has a unique system of charging people. He charges 30 bucks per head and that excludes the packet of rice that we give him…Apparently its very difficult for him to get rice so people who want to have lunch at his place needs to carry sufficient rice with them…We had carried 2 Kgs of rice for this purpose…The food was awesome and all of us ate like gluttons…We were all so tired and hungry that anything would have tasted good then…:)

After some well deserved rest we continued towards Subramanya at around 2.00 P.M…On our way back we took frequent breaks to reach our “Final Destination” at 5.00 P.M. On reaching kukke we hogged ice creams and milkshakes. The thought of having ice creams on reaching Kukke was what was motivating us to carry on…

We took a room in a nearby hotel, had a cold water bath and visited the Subhramanya temple there…After having a heavy dinner we left in our very own KSRTC Rajahamsa bus to reach for Bangalore @ 6.00 A.M the next day…

The entire trip was well planned and executed with absolutely no problems faced. Had a great time and looking forward to more…But, right now trying the enjoy the pain prevailing all over the body…:)

Thoughts in a real train :)

Despite the sempiternal traffic jams, I was at the railway station much before the scheduled departure. Even though there was excessive demand for tickets, there were not many people in the train and there were none in my coupe…I had to use a lot of influence to get this ticket. One of my uncles had secured it as part of some emergency quota… Everything can be put as emergency…He not only confirmed my ticket but also made sure I get free dinner, pillows and bedsheets!!! I was treated like a king… That’s the advantage of knowing someone in railways!!!

As I sat alone in my coupe, one thing that I could recollect was the introductory chapter in Chetan Bhagat’s latest fiction, One Night @ call centre…I was wondering whether something like that might happen tonight…:) And maybe I could write a story on it someday…But alas nothing of that sort happened…
It was an extra coach and the list of names was not yet published and there was no way I could have known my companions. Traveling alone in a train for 12 hours was not something I was looking forward to considering the fact that I had brought nothing to read…

My curiosity was killing me until a group of army men came along with their arms and ammunition!! I am not kidding, they actually had rifles and machine guns with them…I was wondering what they were upto…After some initial introductions I managed to start a conversation with them…Since they spoke only hindi I was finding it extremely difficult to talk but I felt they were finding it even more difficult to comprehend..:)
They were apparently going for some training camp and as a result they had to carry all the accessories with them…While I was thoroughly excited holding the machine guns and examining them, they were even more excited about holding my laptop…They were very keen to know what I did with a laptop & to my surprise I found it very difficult to explain why I needed one..:) Anyway after some initial exploration they wanted to know what a software engineer actually does? They were interested about my company, work, salary etc… It was fun explaining them why we get paid so much for the kind of work that we do…

Since we were already 8 of us in the coupe I wasn’t expecting any more people. But to my horror 5 more guys boarded in the last minute. All of them were college students going to Delhi for vacation. Most of them I believe had completed their 7^th sem exams and had been placed through campus. After these people arrived I settled in my upper berth because I no longer could converse with them at their pace. Just imagine about 12 people talking continuously in hindi and you sitting on top trying to make some sense of the conversation below…That’s exactly what I was going through!!!

The first group was busy cribbing about the generals treating them like “kutthes” (dogs) for peanuts, while the second group cribbing about the HODs, lecturers and how they were bent upon sucking their blood…Since I could relate to the latter I focused my attention to their puerile episodes. Each one of them had their own set of stories to narrate and all of them were just hilarious. From how they got bashed by the HOD to how they managed to finish the exams…
There were these usual stories of copying, getting caught, hostel masala which I think has to be censored from here..:) Some of them were so farfetched it was really difficult to believe something like that could have happened...There was this guy who actually boasted about bribing his lecturer for passing him in practicals…He was apparently thrown out of the room…All these reminded me as to how much “seeda sada” I was…If you ask me to talk about my college life, I wouldn’t have much to narrate except for how regularly I used to attend college…:) (6^th sem being an exception!!!)

The noisy banter continued through the night, but I had dozed off without me realizing it…The next morning I was surprised to see 2 people sleeping in each berth with even the passage way not being spared!!! The remarkably capacious coupe had become totally cramped. I bet these things happen only in the Indian Railways!!!

The child within us…

As we surge through our hectic days, many of us are so busy being "adults" by addressing our responsibilities and obligations that we forget there is still a part of us that is essential to our well-being and happiness....the child within us.

The other day my parents had been to one of our relative’s house and the kid there was celebrating her third birthday. Since they hadn’t taken any presents, my dad gave her two 100 rupee notes to buy something for herself… To their surprise she returned one of the notes saying she was happy with only one…After she was cajoled to take both of them, she gave one each to her dad and mom…It was a simple innocent gesture from her, but tells a lot about how the mind of a child works…
I kept wondering when was the last time I had done something like that. When I couldn’t recollect any such incident I realized that I had truly grown up!!! (And for the first time I wasn’t really happy being a grown-up and the responsible guy, as the society sees it :))

As we grow older the child within us diminishes…The innocence and spontaneity is lost. Our perceptions change. The way we judge people change…We start using different scales for classifying people…Its something that happens over a period of time…Every experience will teach us to be much harder so that we can survive in this society full of “adults”!!! I remember an incident during my childhood, I was profusely crying for something and when no consolation from my parents worked they told me that I was crying like a girl…That single statement made such an impact that it made me determined not to cry unless I cant handle it any further…I try as hard as I can to avoid crying in the company of others…It is manifested even while watching movies…Unless I am alone I don’t cry irrespective of how emotional the movie is…

As “adults”, every time we do something we think hundred times whether it’s an appropriate thing to do both in our opinion and most importantly in the opinion of others…
The perception and the way of thinking are so much different. From having no expectations, to having minimal, we graduate with having expectations from everything. From self expectations to expectations from parents, relatives and friends. Even God is not spared!!! The degree of expectation is something which gets constantly revised based on how much or how far the other person meets it…

Why do we have expectation in the first place which we know ultimately lead to more harm than good? Wouldn’t it be simpler if we carry on with our chores and continue doing whatever seems best for us without expecting anything in return? Why do we feel betrayed when certain things doesn’t turn out the way we want / when someone doesn’t live upto “our” expectations?
Why cant we just maintain some kind of minimum watermark, anything beyond which is a bonus…As usual it’s a theoretical solution, with practical limitations…:). But what is life without expectations and rewards? All it has done is raise the stakes a little higher…Maybe its better to tackle them head on instead of running away from them…

When you cease to dream, you cease to live. And when you dream there are always expectations. As long as there are expectations there will be shortfalls, which in turn might cause misery. A vicious cycle that cannot be avoided and maybe must not be avoided, but instead use it to our advantage.
Defeat is not when you fall down, but when you refuse to get up!!!

I should add that in all this hangama you forget that there is a “child within us” who could be very happy with the smallest of things or should I say with almost anything…