Trip DAY ONE

All right, I won’t speak about the hardships I faced while arranging this trip. I won’t talk about the mental trauma I went through while asking every girl of my class to come on this trip. Because after coming back, I feel every pain, trauma and hardship was worth it.

They say when good things are about to happen, then it starts with difficulties. And when best things are about to happen, it starts with impossible. For me, things were next to impossible.

Everyone feels that I was one of those guys who arranged and made sure at least half the class is on the bus. But frankly speaking, I didn’t arrange anything. None of us arranged anything. Looking at the fact that there were many people interested in coming, I didn’t want to cancel everything by saying that we are not able to arrange a hotel for stay. I thought that we should go ahead no matter what. After all, if we had no place to stay, we could use the bus. And if girls had a problem with that, we could go back to Bangalore and tell at home that we had been to a long drive (very long in fact!!!). But thank god, he had other plans for us.

My share of fun started as soon as I boarded the bus. I am not much used to being serious, but I was doing a serious job of making sure everybody is on the bus with lot of fun. It started with me stopping the bus at places where others could board the bus, this made me the conductor (that’s what the girls were calling me), except for Sahana who went a step further thinking I was the driver speaking to her over the phone. The journey was long and everybody was pulling their blanket, but not me. I was taking snaps of those who were sleeping, making them conscious and awake at the same time.

We reached Dandeli at 11:00 a.m., halting at just 2 places on the way. Now was the time when I made a little serious face. We enquired at one of the hotels for rooms and to my luck, rooms were available. We didn’t loose a second and got the rooms. We spent quite a lot of time in deciding what are we going to do in Dandeli in just one day. After lot of debating, we decided on rafting. Everything was looked after by Vinay and we were on our way after lunch.

Rafting is 2 hours of mind boggling, body aching and soul stirring, death calling fun. For fat guys like me, its money worth cause chances of you falling into the rapids is high (100% in fact). Even after training, I fell in the rapids twice. When I came back onto the raft after my first free fall, I apologized Priyanka for all those minutes that I spent irritating her and promised god that I wouldn’t trouble anybody again (remember, promises are meant to be broken). And then again, I fall in one of the rapids. I can exactly explain how I felt both the times I fell. The first moment was of panic, the next moment was for prayers and the third moment, you realize that you aren’t sinking, so it of happiness and fun. The second time, we were going against the water flow which was a little more difficult. The first time going against the flow made me realize how powerful Mother Nature is. I felt her power right on my face with water gushing on it. I felt I was sinking even though I was way above water level (I would like to mention Sahana’s expression when she was feeling the same force of Mother Nature). It was the fifth instance of going against the rapids that I fell again. This time it was for a longer duration. It was a kind of fun that I won’t find anywhere else, other than hanging onto the raft ropes when going against the rapids. Our trainer was all keen to pull me up, but I was not at all interested and told him to pull me after we reach still water. Finally, our rafting adventure ends and I was the only guy who got more than his money’s worth.

On our way to rafting spot, we were singing bhajans to please the almighty, but on our way back, we were tired enough to not to speak much, except for Apoorva who cracked some really bad jokes (she needs lot of training). On reaching hotel, we had a small debate again on whether should we move on to our next destination, or halt at Dandeli for the night. We decided on the latter. Dinner took a lot of our precious time. Everybody planned to hit the sack after dinner. I tried to pull all of them for a game of Q&A. some of them missed out even then. The person whose name would be picked was supposed to answer whatever asked. In my honest and truthful opinion, the game plan flopped like Tashan. To be critical about my plan, it flopped because most of the players were half asleep and much of the time was spent by me and Mitesh arguing over why I lost weight. Nevertheless, one should never cry if his efforts fail, its time to be happy thinking that you atleast tried.

Finally, the game ended and all were on their way to their rooms. But the night didn’t end for some of the boys (Me, Bhupendra, Vivek and Vinay). We spent another one and half hour talking and talking and talking. Then they gave up too, leaving me alone. I spent some time lying down, waiting for any kind of sleep to fall on my eyes.

To be continued…….

Statuary Warning: Rafting can be injurious to health. Faint hearted and pregnant ladies, don’t even think about it.

P.S: I have planned to blog about each day of my trip. So, keep watching this space everyday for the next coming days. The fun has just started.

As usual, I again request you to post your comments if you read this. They are my source of inspiration that pushes me to keep writing. PLEASE, do post your comments.