The thin line

This was the day when I , rather we (I and chandak) realized the thin line between life and death. The plan for the day was to go to Mysore in a group of seven (which was of eight till 9 of the last night and that of nine prior to it). The size of group went on shrinking till it was completely collapsed. Getting into the reasons of this collapse would be an intresting thing to do, but is out of the scope of this blog :D .

The day before the concerned day was the one we really enjoyed, went to a lot of places Ramohalli (The Big Banyan Tree), Ramnagaram (The place were Sholey was shot) and Channapatnam. The next day we had the plans for Mysore. Suddenly, there was an intution in my mind and I just told Chandak that the next day there will be some problem and we might not be able to enjoy it atleast half of the intution came to be true.

The morning started with a small arguement between me and Chandak , ignore the details. Then the next blow of the day was the cancellation of the trip. However, Chandak and I decided to leave for the places that we were to cover in the route to Mysore. There we two places ... MekeDatu (None of the pronunciation that we heard for this name were same :) ) . Morever, there is big problem with Bangalore, that the knowledge base of the people is drastically low. They know nothing about the famous excursion places around Bangalore. The knowledgeable person have problems with their input output system (not only because of the language problem). But, they are eager to help and help as much as they can.

However, after spending time at the enquiry, consulting with 3-4 conductors and bus drivers and uncountable public we got the little idea of the route and got a bus for Kanakpura. The plan was to first go to MekeDatu (repeating the same spelling). The quality of buses in the region around is diverse. The buses here have a high range of quality with charges the same regardless of whether you take a Volvo or some local bus that is in the last days of its existence. When we took the bus to kanakpura, we thought it to be the bus of the second category , but later in the journey we had to recorrect ourselevs almost every time. The quality of buses went on decreasing exponentially.

Reaching kanakpura we strongly felt that there should be a rule that all the buses or any other public transport should have the source and destination of the vehical written in Hindi or English. Kanakpura was a great place. No one knew Hindi. There were some people who knew a little English. The worst thing is that even the person at the enquiry don't know any of the Hindi or English. Luckilly, we met a guy who knew a little english and he guided us to the bus to a place called Sangam, which is 5 kms from MakaDatu. The road to that place were such that it seemed that the road itself was an obstacle in the travelling. The bus quality was right on the graph. The conductor didnot know Hindi or English, so we conversed almost in signs.

We reached Sangam. I was expecting some big river with huge amount of water flowing, as there was supposed to be Cauvery river. We asked for Mekedatu, but to our surprise no one there knew about that. Then some guy told us to go in a bus. Not to mention about the quality of the bus. But when we reached Mekedatu we forget all the stress we had in reaching there. It was my first visit to any river ( I am from Rajasthan :) ) . Cauvery was flowing through the rocks making pleasant sounds of water. The people their told that this not the best time to come to this place. A person should go there in monsoons when the Cauvery is in full flow. However we liked the place and it is really a nice place to visit. We just roamed around there on the rocks nearby. After spending about an hour at that place we returned to Sangam.

Our next mission was to go to Shivasamudram, the waterfalls populary known as "Bluff" in the region. It was around 12 in the noon and the next bus to kanakpura was scheduled to come at 1. We thought of having lunch at Sangam, but there was only one dish ... fish. Then, we decided to go to kanakpura free of cost ... take a lift. Lift please..... to every bus , taxi , auto , car on the way. Try try and you will get. We got a lift.

We were moving towards Kanakpura in the car which was about 35 kms form this place. Everything was going fine untill the car had a crash with an auto. Luckilly, only the rear view mirror of the car was broken. We thanked god and then it seemed that god was too happy with this thanks that he demanded for it again and again :D. After spending say about half an hour at that place, we moved towards kanakpura and reached there at about two. We went to a restaurent to have lunch.

Just imagine that you are in a hotel where no one can understand what you say, neither you can understand them and there is no "menu". However, we had our lunch and went for the bus station. Same language problem at the bus station. Waiting for say 45 minuts we got a bus to Rokikatta, ( a place not to go for reaching Sivasamudram.....). However, we went to Rotikatta. Hired an auto from that place to Shivasamudram falls for the return journey. We reached the falls in about half an hour. Went down the hill to the falls.

There were staircases made to go down, as the staircases ended, there was small pool, where people were boating. From that place we went to the falls by taking some arbitray path. There were many people at the falls. Now, the natural calls started worrying us. We went to some palce from were we could see that pool and made it our restroom. We also had bath in the falls. However, water was deep near the best of those falls. I was sad that I didnot know swimming. We spent around 45 minutes under the falls. Then it was getting dark and auto driver had told us that it not advisable to stay there in the dark. We started to pack up after a small photography session. I and Chandak had a discussion whether this place is better than Water Kingdom or not. It was better afterall it was natural. You can't compete with natural things.

Suddenly all the people disappeared and we were left alone with just two more guys near by. We thought of asking them to wait for a while, but I was under the misconception that i knew the way back. I am generally good with the directions, but not this time. We were alone near the falls and we took a way that I assumed to be the correct one. After going through that way for about 15 minuts we realized that we are heading towards no where. The tension started building for the first time. We both were in panic. We were randomly taking arbit ways that were ending into dead ends.

There were two main hurdles, stress was increasing and the light was deacreasing. This is not fair. Atleast one of the things should be in our favour. It would have been great if we were searching for the way at about 4 in the morning. But, you don't have the option to customize your disasters. We didnot know that whether there were some wild animals in the forest or not, but it was a forest and forest in the night. Even a dog would be enough to frigthen us. We were lost completely and we could not get any help as there were no network coverage there. Water Kingdom was much more better than this place. At least all who go there come back.

I had gone to many tough trekking and they were risky enough (like the Rajmanchi trek near bombay in the rains). But, we were helpless here. I was cursing me for the whole scenario. If I had remembered the route or atleast were aware of that I didnot know it, we would have been safe out of the forest. Strange thoughts were coming into mind, most of them negative. God is the only you remember at such a point of time. There was one hope that the auto driver who was waiting for us above the falls may get some help.

We were rushing here and there in stress. I fell down many times same was the case with Chandak. We both were consoling each other however we both knew that we are in a big trouble. I was feeling to cry and same was the case with Chandak as he told me afterwards. One tear from eye at that moment of time would have costed us a lot. The negative feelings are induced at a much faster rate and that even at such a point of time.

Chandak is the person worst with directions. But, I had a feeling that he should be given the charge. May be "beginners luck" comes into action and also I had a faint idea about the route whereas Chandak could start from scratch based on intutions. May be it would help. But, it didn't. We walked for about 10-15 minutes and met with a dead end again. There was a hill in front of us. The stress was showing its effect and I told Chandak that we should climb the hill. I soon realised that this can't be done.

The feeling that we would have to spend the whole night here, was becoming more and more stronger with every second after that. Chandak suggested that we should go back to the falls, think for the way with cool head and then proceed. At this point of time chandak's mobile phone came to help. It had a torch. The light was not very much, but enough to make us see what was near our feet. We went to the falls listening to the noise of the falls. Good thing with ears is that they are not time dependent. After reaching the falls, we planned to go to the place where we had our "restroom", because from that place we could see the pool. We were not sure that whether we would be able to locate the pool in dark, but we had no other option and know it was completely dark so were not short time. We had the whole night.

While crossing the river, Chandak fell down and hurt his right leg on the knee. His mobile went into water and was no more in the working condition. Now, we had no light. His knee was hurt badly, but I came to know about it ony when we reached back on the top. I would really admire him for that. I don't know what anybody else would have done, but his courage and pain bearing capability deserves special mention.

We reached to the restroom and we saw something shining. That was the pool. Now, I remembered that when we came down by the staircases the first thing that we saw was the pool. So, if we move around the circumference of the pool, then we may get the staircases. Cool headed thinking helps a lot. Now, I thought that we should go by the circumference of the pool. The pool might not be deep at the borders. We went around the pool this way, there were some places where the water was upto our thighs. The sign was that there can be places with more depth, but we had no other choice. Finally, we saw an open place that resembled the place where the staircases ended. I saw a staircase kind to thing and proceeded that way, but soon was corrected by Chandak as he saw the staircases near by. We went on that and thanked god that we had made it. It were really on the thin line between the two worlds, atleast we were thinking so.

Auto driver was waiting for us and when we told him about the whole thing, he told that we were lucky enough that we were able to come back. He told that there is cheetah down in the forest. The driver was planning to come down to look for us. Then it was the whole dark and we proceeded towards the bus stop, called the End Post. After reaching the End Post the auto driver told that along with the danger of Cheetah, their was also an issue of local tribal village people who just come there and rob the people and kill them. The fear of tribals was also in the way back from the falls to the End Post, but he didn't tell us about this on the way. He was a nice guy and also warned us to be aware at that place. His name was Khalid Aslam. We had dinner there and waited for the bus.

The last bus to bangalore from that place left in front of us. Now, it was 9 in the night and we were 120 kms from bangalore with no no vehical to go back. Then we got a "Tempo" that left us to a place called "Madhur" 80 kms from bangalore. There we were walking on the footpath and Chandak was taking my support as he was not able to walk properly because of the injury on his knee. There was an opening in the foothpath and he fell into that hurting him again on the same knee. He shouted with pain.

Luckilly, we got a bus to bangalore and reached bagalore at around 12 in the night and were at our room at 12:30.

The trip ended, but left us a lot of memories. When I try to remind myself about the time we were in the forest I am frightened. But, in the end it matters how it ends. All is well know except Chandak's knee. I truly admire his efforts.