I am Here too!!!

Ah.....Here I go like those 50 million five lakh four thousand and thirty two other people. I always knew, try as hard as i might to be different from others, I had this mob mentality pre-installed into my system!! I now am in the esteemed company of my fellow bloggers like Kiran Kumbhar, Manas Gupta, C Kartik Vaidyanath, Arun Singh, Aamir Khan, Bachchan uncle and Preity aunty... :-O, though I have to say I dont follow the blogs of the last three mentioned people as regularly as they would like me to, but, no hard feelings,I invite them too to read this space and give their valuable suggestions.

I heartily welcome all to read my rantings here if you have nothing better to do and are bored with what you usually do in your free times :-P.

Hrafting @ Hrishikesh

Flash-Back: 31 May 2007, at home.

Me: Oh fish...Now what am I gonna do. Is this rank any good? Wish I

 had studied a bit more sincerely for the JEE. My life is ruined.

Present Day: IIT Roorkee

Me: God has given me the best gift for the "hard" work I put in. Four years of holidays in this scenic hill-state of Uttarakhand. 

What brought about this change?

The answer, my friends, are my recent trips to Mussoorie and Hrishikesh.

You know, there are certain memories that remain etched in your minds for ever. I have a few of them...like watching Ajooba ( Amitabh Bachchan's flick "inspired" by Zorro) on the black and white TV that we owned way back in 1994 when we lived in Mithapur, Gujarat. The memories are there, for ever, just like snapshots, permanently engraved onto my brain cells.

Well, these two trips have given me a lot of those snapshots which I will be remembering from time to time over the years to come. 

While Mussoorie was a serene, pristine and peaceful getaway ( now I know why Sachin Tendulkar goes there so often) HRishikesh was diametrically opposite. It's a pilgrimage centre and like all holy places it is filled with devotees.

Hrishikesh is just a couple of hours away from Roorkee and I am surprised that we dont go there more often to wash away our sins in the mighty Ganges. Hrishikesh is one of those few places where Ganga can still be termed as "pure".

The main purpose of the Rishikesh trip was "Rafting".White water rafting in India is offerered at two places, one at Rishikesh (the Ganga coming down from the Himalayas) and the other in Karnataka at Dandeli.  But more about that later.

Easiest way to get to Rishikesh would be a flight to Dehradun. You might also want to consider getting to Delhi and taking a overnight bus to Hrishikesh. You will get nice-comfortable Volvo busses. It takes about 8 hrs from Delhi. Your other option would be to get to take a Dehradun bus and travel to Rishikesh on a bus from there.

We hreached Hrishikesh at dinner time. As it usually is at the beginning of any journey, we were all full of energy (don't worry nothing bad is going to happen....sentences like these are used to ease in bad news, aren't they?). We went to Chotiwala for dinner. Chotiwala is a restaurant near Ram Jhula...oh yeah, Ram jhoola and Lakshman Jhoola are two suspension bridges built across the Ganges and are one of the main attractions in Hrishikesh. A lot of Ashrams and meditation centres have sprung up around them and these places attract a lot of foreigners. Lakshman Jhoola is dimensionally smaller than Ram Jhoola but is probably more popular for the temples near it.

Coming Back to Chotiwala....It is a 50 year old, famous restaurant...Actaully there are two of them, side-by-side. Nobody knows which is the original one, not even the owners. The food served although doesn't deserve much of my blog space.

After that began the fun part....no not Hrafting....that wasn't untill the following afternoon (we had made reservations for the same...rush season, you see). The fun we are talking about here is room hunting. Unaware that the dharamshalas' offices closed at 8.30 pm we were leisurely having our dinner. When we finally set out to look for a place to spend the night it was too late and the prospect of spending the night on the banks of the Ganga was looming large.

Actually we had also finalised the benches where we would be spending the chilly night when we got a call from our saviours. Kakkar and Niraj had decided not to give up and they went on and on in search of a roof. Miles to go before I sleep!! Finally they had found a hall on a hilltop ( okay now I am dramatising things) which could accomodate us, 13 people.

But not all were relieved. Some of us like Vibhav and Arun actually wanted to spend the night in the open!! Vibhav had started narrating his oh-so-touching love story to whoever cared to listen. But that was cut short by the call and we went to the hall.

When in a group as big as 13 in the same room, sleep is the last thing on your mind so Murarka started narrating a horror story and I have to say he is a good story-teller and I also have to mention that Arkapol (yeah that is a name of a boy) is a very good spoilsport!! His comments laced with double entendres kept on coming at every twist in Murarka's story which had found avid listeners in Vibhav ( who started listening to Murarka's story as people had stopped listening to his love-story) and Niraj. Inspired by Murarka, others too joined in narrating their horror stories. Finally C ( that's Kartik Vaidyanath's hostel ka naam) who had been urging other's to stay awake went off into a deep slumber at around 2 am and the rest followed.

The next day we woke up at 6 am and went of to see the beautiful sunrise as described by Arun. We went to the Ram Jhoola. Not many people were up then. We went to a beach like place on the banks of the Ganga. We had the entire place to ourselves as not many people had ventured out then. We took a holy dip in the chilly Ganges and I daresay that this experience was on par with the rafting experience itself. 

Coming to  the rafting part....we set off in a vehicle to Shivpuri from where the rafting begins. As we moved uphill we could see the Ganga flowing downhill . The calm Ganges in which we had taken a dip that morning was becoming more violent. The water was becoming whiter and whiter.

We reached Shivpuri. We put on our protective gear like the helmet and life jacket and received our instructions from the instructor who was to accompany us. Then we set out on our adventure.

Here I would like to tell you about the grades in which the rapids are classified

Class 1: an easy, slow-moving current

Class 2: small waves

Class 3: rapids have medium waves with some technical maneuvers required

Class 4: rapids occur in a faster current, with bigger waves that are technical and scouting is sometimes recommended

Class 5: rapids have a very fast current, large waves and scouting is necessary

Class 6: rapids are virtually un-runnable, only attempted by professional racing teams

Just minutes after we had set forth we encountered our first rapid of Class 3. This is the snapshot which can never be erased of my memories even if a "Ghajini" were to happen to me. Being tossed about by the mighty Ganges like a ninpin was a lesson in humility. It made me realise that there are forces much more powerful and stronger than I could ever imagine. I was, but just a dust particle in this universe.

As we got out of our first rapid soon came the second one. This time Class 4. This time we knew what to expect but still the sheer power of the waves took us by surprise. I heard some waves were as big as seven feet!! 

Manouevering through the many rapids and for some time even jumping from the raft into the 50 feet deep Ganga we reached the spot where it was to end. Surely, all of us were left wanting more. Also due to time constraints we couldn't do th cliff diving. But I have decided that I would do that atleast once in the next two years.......Also I am looking forward to the trips to Vaishno Devi and skiing in Auli next winter...