Day 2 - Trekking up the mountain

15th March 2006

Surprisingly, I woke up at 6. Never before in recent memory have I ever woken up at 6 feeling so fresh. Probably, the oxygen reaching to my brain was much more than the oxygen available in Bombay. Promising Rajan and my badimaa, that I would not be trekking up the mountain, I left with badepapa. “Badepapa, I will be trekking up Kutachadri” I told badepapa. He smiled back “I know you will” He got down at a bus stop and I waved him good bye. The bus rocked its way to Kundapur bus stand, the next stop to switch to a bus headed to Kollur.

I looked around. A few people made the bus look relatively full. All of them silent, dancing in rhythm to the potholes in the road. Ahead in the seat reserved for ladies, there were two old ladies with dark glasses, probably they might have had a cataract operation, both of them dressed in a green saree and flowers planted in their hair. It looked as if both of them were twins and completely controlled by a remote control. Whenever the bus stopped, they would look in the direction of the door and as the bus started, they would turn back almost simultaneously and rock again in similar patterns to the rocking of the bus. With most of the passengers women, there was hardly anything to observe except women. Almost all the women had flowers in their hair, from anything as simple as a hibiscus flower to gajra, the flowers formed a day-to-day regular head gear for the women. The bus stopped at Kundapur.

Alternatively, if you want to go to Kutachadri, you can also come from Mumbai, get down at Kundapur station and rick it up to the bus stand. There are busses every 30 minutes from here to Kollur. Talking in a mix of English and Malayalam and Hindi, I managed to spot out the bus that headed to Kollur. You could ask the same with three words… “Kollur… bus… kidhar???” You will be shown the bus. It takes another hour from here to Kollur.

The bus was relatively empty. A few women chatting in some language, probably kannada and two guys behind me. I dug myself into Tokyo cancelled again… It was a new story, about how a girl got transformed into a store using a cookie mixed with some milk.. After another rocking ride, the bus stopped.

A mountain stood towering ahead of me. The top looked like a summit of Everest, though the trek was one of the most simplest ones. But what made it more interesting was the challenge of going up there alone. Tigers, Naxalites, robbers… the odds of meeting danger was more with meeting people who did not have best interests in mind, I thought. I had a quick visit to the temple. The temple was beautiful, with nicely carved chariot that donned the entrance. I was told that the same day the chariot festival began. I took out the digital camera and started clicking.

I must tell you this, I was now scared to walk up the summit alone. There was a fear in my mind. Fear of being robbed, being torn down to shreds, fear of a snake bite in the middle of the forest. But more than anything, I had to go up there. I walked up to a jeep driver. For your information, there are jeeps that take you up there and get you back down for Rs. 190/ per person. But you have to have atleast 8 people with you. He gave me a figure of 1200. I walked down to the bus stop. I called up home, telling that there were people with me, so they did not have to worry about me going alone. A bus went past. I had missed the bus. I called up Karan, and told him the truth, lest anything happens, someone had to know the truth. I called up Suresh and told him there were two doctors along with me. (I had no clue, why I told him this, and that too, two DOCTORS?) At 2.00 there was another bus. It took me to the stop from where it was a 12 km trek up the mountain. The bus passed. I waited on the road for full 5 minutes. Not a single person in sight! A monkey jumped from one tree to the other as if it was giving a message to someone that I am coming. This was the point of no return. Once I go in, there was no looking back.

So taking a deep breath, I took my first steps into the wide path that lead into the forest. With trees tall as 100 feet donning both the sides, the forest sounded full of sweet chirpings of some birds. An animal that looked like a cross of a mongoose and a squirrel crossed the way. By the time I aimed the camera at the animal, it had disappeared and all that remained was a brisque movement of the bushes. The tension that was in my heart, eased down a bit. The loneliness of the space intrigued me, and gave a sense of calmness beyond apprehension.

The suns rays trickled down beneath the dense tree cover. And suddenly the path opened into a huge clearing and the two guys who I had seen on the bus from Kundapur to Kollur and later in the temple, sat there. Somehow, deep down in my sub conscious, I had a feeling that their destination was as good as mine on the day. Perhaps, it was a part of a plan. I was indeed not to go there alone! I thought of walking past them, since this was my own quest. But something stopped me and I introduced myself. We exchanged pleasantries. They had the same plan as I did. Go up Kutachadri, stay the night and leave next morning. It looked as if everything was a part of a broader plan. So we walked together.

So we spoke, spoke about what we do. And that was when I had another shock. They both were doctors! Doctors from Trichur! Just as I had informed Suresh. Somehow, that is when I realized there was an entire force working for me to get there. Everything seemed fitting in well into its place. Just like it was meant to be. On the way we clicked more photographs, sometimes of a dry tree and sometimes of little red berries that bunched in an insignificant little plant creeping up the trunk of the tree.

On the way around an hour after we had started the trek came a little shop. In the middle of nowhere, there lay a shop. With a little garden around it. There was a dish antenna in the centre of the vegetable garden. An old frail woman came out. She offered us tea and bananas. The tea was cold and the banana old. Rs. 9 was the bill. I asked whether they had electricity. They didn’t. I asked how they managed to have a television without electricity. She pointed upwards as if to God. I saw solar panels decked on top. There was a pipe bringing water from the top reservoir. It would dry up in a month, she said and then she would have to walk an hour down to the nearest village to get a pot of water. There were two more houses around, she informed. And that is why they built a school in the vincinity. A teacher would come for two days in a week to teach their children, 8 in all including the close by houses. We left them saying we should stop by during the return next morning.

The climb, now got steeper. Huge fallen trees with chameleons camoflagued on it awaited us. Carefully we climbed the steps, occasionally stopping for a breath of fresh air and a gulp of H2O.

Many times the little path would divide into two. We would follow our instincts. On going ahead we realized both the paths lead to the same point. The path we skipped always seemed to be the easier way, just like our lives, we always think, if we had done this some other way, it would have been easier. But the moral of the story was, it was never supposed to be easy. If we had taken the other way, probably we would have felt that the route we missed was easier. That is the way the mind plays tricks on us when you are tired, always.

From the heavy trekking in the woods, again the path opened to an entirely open valley. The valley was full of dry grass. Rakhin and Sujith mentioned that during the rainy season, the entire valley was completely green with grass as tall as 8 feet. “We could hardly see the way, he said, and while on top, the valley was full of rare flowers.”

As I turned to look back, it was a breath taking view. I grabbed my camera and snapped as many snaps as I could. I looked through the viewfinder and saw the figure of a man with a beard created by the light and shadows on the rock. Clicked some more. The last stretch was the most difficult stretch. Probably, because of the tiredness of walking for so long and the lack of practice of walking. As we crawled towards the top, which now looked like a summit, the sun started moving down very fast. Soon there were steps in front of us. Water flowing down the steps as if it was a cascaded waterfall, which later we came to know as a leaking pipe. On top was a little hut, which was a hotel cum house of a poojari and a temple. Further down there was another small temple with a bigger house that had a naturally formed pool next to it.

As we rose the steps and had the view of the shop, we hurried asking for water. They said they had buttermilk. We were more than happy to gulp two glasses each. Two glasses were enough for us to regain our senses. Another glass for the vice. I turned around, and the scene was the most spectacular, I had ever seen in my life. The sun sinking into the horizon, slowly.

As the sun set, it was a time we decided to have a bath in the pond. We stripped and jumped in. The view from the pond was even more spectacular. When in my life had I ever imagined, bathing in a pond, on a mountain, just on the brink of a beautiful valley and watching the Sun go down and the misty cloud enter the valleys? As the sun went down, the water got chillier and my fingers numb. So we climbed out and headed to the rooms where we changed. By the time we came out, there was another enthralling landscape ahead of us.

The valleys covered with snow and a full moon that had risen in the back kissed the landscape in shades of greys and whites. Being limited by a Digital camera, I felt momentarily that the digital camera was a curse. I couldn’t take a snap of it, but then I realized, in life there are some things special, just for you, for your hard work, for your efforts. These rewards cannot be shared with anyone, and this, was the essence of the place. I sat there alone looking into the vastness of the silence that enveloped me. After a long time, I felt, I was with myself. My thoughts started running up my mind, the sequence the events had occurred. My mothers hesitation, my getting to the airport late, S's worry on my going alone, my bade papa’s talk about naxalites, Rajan’s strict warnings, bade ma’s pleas of not going up. And then I remembered the series of events when I left home. The lucky ride to the airport that got me on time, the trip with the weird guy from Mangalore airport to Udupi, the craving of climbing up the mountain, and the decision to do it alone, the meeting of two new friends and the trek itself. Everything was so breathtaking. I wished I could carry the feeling to all the people I cared for. I tried to connect the entire episodes that had transpired to the philosophy of life.

The reason people are afraid to scale new heights on their own, is the fear of unknown. Every one tries to dissuade themselves to go up unchartered territories in the fear of losing. Only once you go through the entire climb in life do you realize, there was absolutely nothing to fear at all, except for the hesitation to take the first step. Once the first step is taken, the entire journey of life is just amazing, like a trek. You get tired, you feel why you did it. Midway, you might think of going back, but the fact remains that, you have to go to the end to enjoy the fruits of your hardships. There is no shortcut for that!

The two temples on the top of the mountain are taken care by two different sects. The temple at the entrance is taken care by the Vanglis while the other temple is taken care by the Bhatts. The temple taken care by the Vanglis has the thrishul, that killed the Mookasura embedded and now emboldened in concrete. The temple taken care by the Bhatts are in fact the temple of the Himalayas fame that has traveled three yugas in mythology.

As the moon climbed higher, the air grew colder. So finally I decided to cuddle up in the blanket provided. A word of caution, do not expect 5 star treatment. These rooms are hardly used and hardly dusted. 300 Rs. looks like a bomb. A wonderful plate of home cooked food was served by the pujaris of the temple downstairs after which we went off to sleep.