It was yet another
weekend. Rather let’s call it the same mundane, deterministic, weekend.The craze
about Bangalore had vanished in 2 years and everything seemed to induce boredom.
Be it going to malls or Weekend parties or simply lazing around in your room. A
change was inevitable and an acute necessity.
While I was
pondering on this million dollar question about “What to do on weekend” my phone started blinking .It was Rajeev calling.
I picked it up and before even I said hello he spoke my mind
”Yaar bahut bore mar raha hai.” To fight boredom our initial
plan was to jam since Rajeev is a guitarist and I am a singer; but then we
decided against it. After a quick brain storming we decided to go out for a trip.
But we were not able to decide on the location.
I called up Abhi,
another close friend and our bassist .I briefed him the idea of trip and also
about the inability to come up with a suitable location. He quickly thought
over and proclaimed that “We are going to Doodhsagar...”
basing his selection over the fact that “Ravi” (another) close friend stayed in
Belgaum and he possessed the “Mahindra
Classic Jeep” (yes because travelling in Mahindra Classic Jeep is itself a
big pleasure).. By the way he is our “percussionist”
(Image taken from Google)
Myself and Rajeev left
Bangalore that night.”Abhi told he would be joining late since he had to attend
some “random date”. And as for Ravi he was waiting to receive us .
Belgaum
We both
reached Belgaum at 7.Ravi had already arrived and was waiting for us.
It’s always a
treat to be in Belgaum. There is kind of “apnapan” in everything be it in the air,
soil, houses, shops. Everything in Belgaum seems to be breathing a life of
ecstatic joy yet possesses unruffled calmness.
And as far as
Doodhsagar is concerned, it is one of those places which God made when he was
at his architectural best. If you consider Nature as feminine then “Doodhsagar”
is an illustration of nature’s finest feminine grace and if you consider Nature
as Masculine “Doodhsagar” is one of the strongest of nature’s masculine
manifestations.
(Image taken from Google)
There is a train from Belgaum every Sunday that drops
you to Doodhsagar in the morning. It’s the easiest of the routes. But yet there
is another route filled with excitement and adventure and in this case there is
no train. As you predicted right we chose the latter one. And moreover we had
Ravi’s legendary “Mahindra classic”.
How could we think of tripping without it.
We were
actually supposed to leave for Doodhsagar at 9 am. But since our Friend Abhi’s
date lasted longer than expected, (:P),he delayed his departure from Bangalore
that resulted in cumulative delay in the start of our trip.
Till our
“punctual” friend arrived we had to somehow pass time. And you see we were all
musicians me being a singer, Ravi a percussionist and Rajeev a guitarist. We
started jamming and singing all the popular songs.
After a few hours,Abhi called up and told
that he is directly coming to Ramnagar and asked us to pick him there.We
decided to leave for Ramnagar.Our
Mahindra Classic was loaded with all the stuff required for the Road
trip and further trekking .We also carried our music instruments with us…Just
in case. Little did we know that the very act of carrying musical instruments
would make our trip the most memorable experience of our life .
Doodhsagar..The adventure begins
We were waiting at ramnagar for abhi to join. It was 2 p.m.when he
finally arrived. He had to face verbal consequence for his delay. But it didn’t
last long as we had to begin our adventure…
We then drove from Ramnagar to
Castlerock. CastleRock is a small village which is famous for two reasons .One
because it is a busy railway junction and other due to the presence of
Doodhsagar falls. From Castle rock you have to further cover a terrain of about
15 kms. Only vehicles of the sort of Mahindra Classic would have made it through
this difficult terrain. To describe the road- it was a patch of land abundant
in sharp stones, scattered over a muddy surface which eventually had turned
into clay due to incessant rains. The road was guarded on both the sides by
thick forest.
After having covered 15kms, we
Gasped a sigh in response to the meager achievement of crossing our first hurdle.
But soon the next hurdle was in sight. We had to cross another terrain, but
this time the state of matter being “liquid”. Yes we then had to cross a river
of around 1 km .The very sight of this made us furious as well as pumped
excitement in all of us.The river wasn't
that deep though. We entered inside with full acceleration. The
very splash of water on the face when the wheels collided with river was like a
prelude to the adventures that were about to come.
After a slow,
yet steady and limping drive we crossed the river. There was secret celebration
in everyone’s heart .Especially in that of the driver. After riding for about 3
more kms on a comparatively easier terrain (land)we came across a tree which
for some reason had slept on the road. It literally blocked the way. And that
meant we had to part away from our dear “Mahindra Classic” momentarily and
continue the journey by walk…If put in a right way- Our trek began.
After walking
for a kilometer more we met an old man who is supposed to be the only guide in
this unknown area. Well what was amusing was his fees for the guidance. He just
demanded a bottle of wine for his guidance. There was yet another noticeable thing.
The old man had a dog …It seemed as though the dog was the guides guide. IT
knew the terrain much better than the old man …It was our Trek lead for that
day.
Next up we had to
cover a thick forest which literally had no road .and this time we had to walk
through the forest .It was pretty dark. There were all sorts of sounds an
indicative to the presence of wide range of animals. And then there were the
smaller creatures like the leeches, and the mosquitoes. The smaller the
creature is the more the trouble they cause. We slowly moved step by step
cautious and alert yet internalizing and perceiving the beauty and jeopardy.
Once we covered the land next up there was a water body challenging us.
There was no
way we could have walked through the water. The depths were unkown ,and the
slippery rocks would have made us dance. Luckily we found a kind of wooden bridge made by some
ingenious .With its assistance we crossed the 500m wide stretch . The dog on
other hand couldn’t climb the bridge as it couldn’t get a grip of it. He
heroically swam the waters and reached the other side.
All this adventure had withered the sap out of our body
.We were tired. We kept moving though slowly. After walking about 1 more km we
saw something that took us to an apex of
elation. The tantalizing sight of Doodhsagar was there in front of us.
We reached the
point where the falls originated from. If you look down ,u could see a valley
which has no ends,In day time you could also see(from that spot) the Doodhsagar
visitors who come via train and watch the falls from down. We had a sense of
accomplishment standing beside the falls.
It seemed like the
nature was conversing with us.”I can
make u furious with the terror yet I present to you so much of beauty. Unless
you surrender to me completely I won’t let you sense my beauty”. And we
having literally surrender to her, were soaked and mesmerized by her beauty.
Back from the falls –Surprise awaits
It was about 6 o clock when we finally had to
take a leave from this wonderful place. We were elated yet tired. The “night”
had slowly begun to establish its empire. We came to the place where we had
left our vehicle. We gave our guide his “fees” and began to headback.We were
pleased that we had great experience and were relieved that the adventure came
to an end. But wait the adventure was not over yet…Read along …
On the way back we
entered the river in our vehicle .I think we would have moved about 100 mts,a
disaster happened .Instead of taking the left .The driver moved the steering to
the right thus inviting a disaster. The wheels got stuck. The engine couldn’t
pull the wheels up. We were panic stricken .Unaware as what to do. It was
slowly getting dark too. Since the river was not that deep we jumped from our
vehicle and tried to use muscle power to take the wheels out. But the strength
was not enough. Moreover the slippery rocks were not supporting our
endeavour.After much effort we decided to quit and leave the vehicle there and
collect it the next day. We took our musical instruments; some left over
biscuits; a small torch and decided to move on…
But then something
amazing happened. Read along to know….what was it
Amazing stuff happens
Once we started moving, suddenly
out of the blue our guitarist strummed his guitar. Listening to this our bassist came up with a very crazy idea. He
was like let’s jam in this beautiful place for a while before we leave. I and
Ravi gave a terrible look at his statement. The night was taking over and the
forest was thick enough to have all possible terrors in it. It was insane to
have done something like jam there. But somehow our hearts had silently agreed
to what abhi said. We looked at our
watch and it was 6 30.We decided to jam for exactly 30 min….and the fun then
began….
Song of Hope
We came up with
some random chord patterns and leads…for around 10 mins.But no tune was
touching our heart. Then I gestured everyone to close their eyes for a while.
We closed our eyes surrendering ourselves to the divine sounds.
The forest was full of haunting sounds, yet there was that sweet sound
of the river flowing amidst rocks. The sky was almost dark, yet there was that
small torch that gave light. The scenic beauty which we had seen a while ago
was reminded.
After 5 minutes of
utter silence our guitarist played the first chord, and then the subsequent two
chords. The chords were exotic and the strumming pattern was alluring. Our
percussionist then followed on his djembe with a catchy pattern that acknowledged
the guitar riff. Then abhi came in with his acoustic base and embellished the arrangement.
It was time for melody now. The pattern kept on playing, and we together
figured out the melody.
The lyrics also
happened very quickly .The sweet sound of river, amidst the forest’s haunting sounds,
the torch light amidst darkness, the scenic beauty, the adventure everything
amalgamated and brought one theme to the surface and that’s “Hope”.The lyrics
came out as follows
I am music
Amidst austere Cacophony
I am torch
Amidst Scaring Darkness
I am your friend
When you have none
Remember me
And I shall be there
I am Called
Hope
We sang these lines with our heart.We were much more than elated .We were experiencing
something more than ecstacy.After having a wonderful adventure ,the song was
like an icing on the cake.
But soon we
realized that it was 7 15 p.m.And it was time to leave now.We continued our journey fighting leeches and
hunger.We finally reached castle rock at around 9 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment