Skandagiri...... The memory still lives fresh!!!!!!
The day started.... oops.... or rather the night started with a dinner at Nagarjuna, then we reach 'My Name Is Khan' the movie was an emotional torture again by Karan Johar. All of us who reached the first day release, realized... never trust the rating in the media, for a Karan Johar movie at least. Seriously the movie was dragged in all ways possible.
Next started our expedition to Skandagiri. Why i call it an expedition, you will know it very soon ....:)
People who have trekked skandagiri, would feel; 'Why an expedition?' True....even we had a few from the group, who had trekked the place and felt the same. There started the problem, we din't hire a guide, as few of our friends were ultra confident of being able to reach the place easily and few had their own doubts. We guess even you would agree with the fact, if you have trekked the place.
The trek started with another group who started the trek at the same time. It is a night trek and people felt the person ahead must be right. As usual, we followed. Then the risk factor started taking the quotient higher. There was one small rock, we climbed and then came another and another. The torches were of real help though. We reach a point where in the rock in front slides upwards 60 degrees approximately and the supporting rock had not much to hold on it too. Then the expedition began, one after the other started the attempt to climb, Akshay was successful, Pramod started to slide at a certain point, due to the sand. Nervousness started creeping in. Now, you should have seen our faces, we were just hoping that no one slid. Then was the turn of our own Rajeev, he tried and then came back..'Nahi yaar, we need to climb bare foot' and removed his shoes, this was a picturesque scene; Rajeev with shoes in one hand and torch in the other. This was becoming dangerous by every step ahead. Imagine guys, you don’t know where you would fall, if one footing went wrong.
Then came the best of them all.....Rajendra started to climb and some where in the middle, there was a space where a man could hide himself; amongst the rocks. Just like one of our Hindi bollywood movie, military scenes. We were noticing Rajendra and immediately, he slid a little and went into the hiding, he was not speaking a word though. I was reminded of 'Border' as there were an enemy army and our commander in chief was trying to find a place and attack. Then where are we going to hide. No ways..... I remember all of us watching him with open eyes, so big that the eyes could have fallen off, if they had a little more shock to take. Then, Vignesh our tall little boy, had his mouth open, seeing his Team Lead hanging. Now imagine the state of the people to climb next
Next was me, another idiot, when it came to taking any risks and luckily by now... another guy from the other group had landed to help and I some how escaped. In between all this was our Mr. Western Ghats alias Shashank, who kept moving ahead and telling.... 'Haan there is a path, we can go'.
In between all this at a juncture Rajendra and Stalin started, 'No Boss, we'll stay here and watch the sunrise from here and leave'. It was becoming treacherous, with all the thorns and people getting injured
The next one was fun.... we were all crawling holding dry grass and one grass root not holding on... would have marked the end of the people following behind. Then came a point, where we were supposed to lift ourselves and in between two rocks. It was getting tough friends and being awake the whole night wouldn't help the cause either. I was screaming, 'Naa yaar, this is not happening' and loosing hold of the grip in between the rocks, while Krish is trying to pull me up and suddenly a sahara, I felt myself lifted, to see Akshay from behind helping me up. Thanks to Ashay, this is the time when we remembered our friend Shawn and everyone at one voice, 'Good yaar, shawn missed..... it would have been very difficult'.
This was happening and then came a path, or rather we had reached a situation, where we started thinking .... the only way out is the WAY UP!!!.... yes, Up.... either up the mountain or up to the heavens, if we were going to be allowed inside. The path had a very narrow passage, where probably the slimmest could move easily, then the ray of hope, where we joined the actual path which we should have taken came along. Oh, this was a happier moment than seeing water in the midst of a desert.
By now, it was already 6am and the sun started rising and Akshay shooting it with his Handy cam and Krish with that camera and Raj, becoming the photographer he is. The best moments started a little later, when the clouds started moving from right to left. The best place for a shoot.
Then started the expedition back to Bangalore and coming down the hill.... we realized what a mistake it was to not take the guide and take a path that went straight up. If not for our enthusiasm to live and get back in one piece, we would not have reached the mountain top, or reached back to Bangalore.
Then the bike ride again and few bikes getting trapped for over speeding and if I was caught, would have had to pay more as all my documents were in Stalin's car which was already at Hebbal junction. Lucky escape. Both from the cops and the God of Death.
The ABC kick off trip, really got kicked off :)
