Wild...Wild...Wet!

Don't know during which crazy hour I decided. To get out of my cozy home and comfortable living and to get lost amidst the sprawling western ghats that too during the pouring of monsoon charity show! Some people’s adrenaline doesn’t let their souls rest in peace ! Just with such a bunch of wilderness lovers; I set out for an expedition-de-Sahyadri’s this August.
It had been quite a while that I had gone for residential mountaineering. Had taken few plunges couple of years ago while the professional moss hadn’t gathered over my enthusiasm in form of inertia and stress, but now I knew it was high time to blow the dust off my trekking gears. Come’on! I ain’t ‘that’ old yet!

The journey to our base camp in a rural chariot provided by State Transport ensured that all our bones were loosened and warmed up! By 'base camp' don’t start visualizing a labyrinth of tents perched on banks of a river. Our investments in the project weren’t sufficient to have availed us those glamorous trekking equipments. What we carried on our backs was set of worn out minimal clothing and bedding, first aid, basic climbing gadgets, raw grocery to prepare just edible food and stove to cook it on. Our campsite was a temple centrally located in a petty village Wadghar with hardly 40 odd families dwelling within. This tiny village is settled in the bowl of rugged Sahyadri blocks. A neat river curls across its waist as if marking its territory. Two rusted bridges on this coffee stream connect the village to the main tar-road and in turn to the sophisticated world of technology, time-tables and artificiality. The road that never returns…

We set out on our mission climbing towards an ancient namesake fort Chandragarh. Why namesake is that it doesn’t have any civil structure left on it that can be regarded as a fort but just a lofty mountain piercing into the rainy clouds and concealed in substantial vegetation. The cattle trail to the top had vanished amidst waist-high grass. Before commencing the climb, I looked up and gasped at what lay ahead of me. The pinnacle of Chandragarh leaped above my eyesight could raise and felt beyond my capacity…

A real trek is different from that organized for ‘with family and friend’s. It doesn’t have a tour guide, color-coded area map, lodging boarding facilities and the assurance of assistance in case of emergency. All you can see is the summit of the mountain you’ve dreamed to conquer and all you have is the determination to do so! Your instinct is your tour GPS and confidence is the fuel of your engine. You keep walking. Along the gradients, down the dales, upon the basins through thorny foliage or soapy mud-ways, combating smacking showers, crossing stone laded vigorous torrents and resisting howling winds. With leaches sucking your blood and barbed shrubs peeling your flesh. There are no railings to clutch or shuttles to catch. No takeaway meals or crisp bed-sheets to wrap in. Your mobile phones turn as dumb as they can ever get, disconnecting you from all networks you’re entangled in. You hike with your own baggage on your back. If you carry more; its your fault. You have to fling what’s unnecessary and eliminate what’s excessive. Outsourcing isn’t possible here! Its a vacation devoid of cosmetics, confectionaries, magazines, internet or television. Its an exasperation devoid of pollution, traffic jams, stress, crowd and chaos.


All you have around you is wilderness. Nature in its most savage form is what you encounter every now and then. Unpredictable. Impregnable. Men and women flashing several masks in the civic contexts embody here as pure homo sapiens shredding the synthetic stratums they’ve gathered over and over. When you traverse 15 kilometers a day; like hungry wolves you eat whatever food is available with none of your usual tantrums, as if it were ambrosia. At the end of a hike; you’re too exhausted to be insomniac and you need no pills. A natural survival instinct overrides all ego’s, preferences, mind-blocks and you are personified in your most human form. That form which is equivalent to any other species…the apes, aves, serpents…all same in the lap of mother nature then.
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The hike to Chandragarh seemed unending and the pinnacle of it invincible. With every painful step against gravity my feet were despondent to rest. So was the case of everybody in the team. I even got jammed on middle of a 80 degree slippery slope. I could find no suitable grove to grip to pull my mass upwards. Both of my feet fumbled but could not fit in any slot to give me a confident nudge. It was a perfect trap.
One wrong movement and I could be at bottom of a deep valley perhaps deformed and lifeless. I have got goose-pimples even right now reliving that moment…of fear of death.
In a fraction of time all my life flashed in front of my eyes like a film and it was the moment to do it or die and not just metaphorically. My leader’s words of assurance gave me the courage to push myself up to catch his palm he extended just little away from me. And I had made it. The strength in his hand was as if transmitted in mine and I was over that monstrous rock. The solution was easier than the problem appeared. And the fundaa was straightforward. Once you hit the path; you have no come back. You cannot help but press on till you reach your goal. And you have no alternative but to win. You clamber huge rocks, cross vigorous streams, submerge in quick sand, withstand unkind weather or trudge hungry, sweaty, exhausted… You are fighting a battle. Of your weaker, lazier and loser self against a resolute, tough and brave character. Each time you put another tired step forward; you are tracing the path not just to the summit but to your unleashed triumphant soul. And as you reach the peak; you look around you at the heavenly panorama; you suddenly know why you have come there having accomplished an excruciating journey. This is worth it all and more…you whisper to yourself.

Do it sometime. Test-drive yourself into the woods and mountains in monsoon. Not just for the sheer thrill of an adventure but to meet a very special you who is wild, wild and wet…!!!


--- pRaDnYa jOsHi
26 September 2007