Amidst the choices in Life

We get to make choices at almost each and every moment of life. Some choices we make will have lasting impact throughout the journey of our life. Some of the choices we get to choose and others, we have to and some we don’t get to. But no matter what, once we make the choice of a particular moment in life, we almost never get a chance to go back to the same point and start again. Sometimes life throws a choice at you in a platter which we choose to ignore. If only one can know the long term consequences of the choices made.

Feb 2035

With his confident ever smiling face, he decided it was the day. Some kind of cosmic connection in that month he thought. He looked out of the ‘window’ which had covered entire wall. The view did not greet him with anything new this day. There are no trees or greens in his view. There are separate dedicated places for that. His entire view was covered with skyscrapers which were covered with high efficient solar panels. He went near the ‘window’ of his flat in 158^th floor. Now he could see the sky filled with hundreds of floating spherical devices about twice the size of standard football, which are communication devices, more like artificial satellites powered by sunlight. Digital Communication has been most important aspect of the world for years now and there cannot be any delay what so ever. Those devices are carefully designed to handle communication efficiently with absolute zero loss. They can broadcast signals, they can pinpoint a device and send signals directly to the individual device by calculating fastest path which might involve multiple hops between the devices or reflection over the skyscraper’s surface, which itself is made of many such devices or a line of sight delivery. And what kind of signals does these device carry that makes it so important? Almost everything! Powered with 6^th generation communication technology with speeds up to 29 Giga bits per second, the network can be used for simple activities like browsing and casting secure vote during elections. That kind of speed is needed for the data it carries. One can make a call to another individual and see three dimensional projection in the air of the other person while they speak in real time and control the call by touching the projection. One can do all these things with a wearable device on the wrist. The cellphone of yester years have evolved into that wearable device which has the capability to project three dimensional hologram. Of course it monitors an individual’s health and can itself call emergency numbers if needed. It can do lot more! With storage capacity of 6 Petabytes, it can hold entire memory of an individual with access only to the owner of it. Every time the owner wears the device and activates memory sync option, a tiny electrode placed under the bottom of the device gets turned on and uses Electroencephalography to detect signals from brain and will start sending its own messages to get the memory in the brain and the device synced. To make sure the memory in the device is not accessed by wrong person, unique customizable encryption is used. The device throws a series of completely random questions towards the brain and expects unique response for each of the questions. The questions can be as simple as sending some random memories to the brain and ask “are these yours” or to ask to name the secret crush of the owner and to send across his/her image or memory involving him/her to the device. The brain can always choose to skip the question if it does not want to answer. The device can tell about actions taken by the owner in the past and ask for the direct consequences of that action. The owner can set the complexity of encryption he/she wants.  All these to make sure whatever is stored in the device is accessed only by the rightful owner. And what if the device is not satisfied with the answers? It won’t self-destruct in 10 seconds. It will just shutdown. Today, he again accessed his memory and gave the order to ‘show’ it directly from his brain. The device threw a three dimensional projection in air where he can see folder stacked by the years. He can now choose the exact year, the date, the time and the memory and ask the device to project the entire incident exactly the way it happened in his past. Now there is no question of memory fading away! Every single detail is there in the device. And the quality? One can view with 324 Megapixels of data with field of view of 90 degrees. In other words, real time quality.  He now started browsing through the folders and started playing his old memories one by one.

Early 1990s

The kid was running. Why? That’s what kids do. And he was not running on the road or playground or footpath. He was running on stone slabs about a feet long which covered gutter to carry waste water. And why would he do that? No reason. He was just having fun. And he was not alone. His friend was also running. And our kid was following his friend. Only few feet separated each other. The kid was blindly following his friend. Suddenly the kid observed a change in the way his friend was running. The kid could not see beyond his friend. The distance between the two was perfect to block the light reflected from what lies beyond his friend by the opaque body of his running friend.  So the kid was seeing the slab available for him to run between him and his friend. His friend changed his stance a bit. Just when the kid was wondering what was happening with his friend, his friend without slowing down a bit, pressing his left foot firmly on the slab, jumped. Just when the kid was about to think his friend has gone crazy, he saw what was waiting for him. By this time his brain had already decided to let go of freeze and flight, and chose to fight. His pupils had already dilated allowing maximum light into his retina from the single point allowing him to concentrate on what lies straight ahead of him at the same time blurring his peripheral vision completely. He would not even be able to recognize face or the expression on it if he sees one at this point. Though he is tired from running fast for past few seconds, sudden adrenaline rush gave him enough energy to make the jump. He had already gathered enough horizontal velocity needed for the jump by virtue of his fast running for past few seconds. Now he had to use fresh adrenaline in his body to get vertical velocity and jump across the missing slabs over the gutter!! The gap was 6 feet long which his friend had already crossed the gap with his jump. Now it was his turn. Just before he reached the start of the gap, he pressed the slab hard putting pressure on it, and thanks to Newton’s third law of motion, the ground pushed him back with equal force. This allowed him to create some vertical velocity. By pushing off the ground and allowing the ground reaction force to become greater than that of the force his foot is putting on the ground, he transferred some of his velocity in vertical direction. Now he has attained both horizontal and vertical velocity. He threw himself as projectile with that push on the ground. While being in midair, he could see his friend continue running after making the jump successfully. With the hope of crossing what seemed like a big gap, the boy made his giant leap.

Some time ago!

Quite far away, the pretty hot guy is still burning and is about to run out of steam. Though relatively cooler than his cousins, he still has a surface temperature of about 3600 K. Throughout his life, rotating at a speed of around 5 km/s and moving around at a speed of around 30 km/s, he was rapidly burning. Under constant pressure from his own gravity, he started his life pushing gravity back by generating energy with fusion of hydrogen atom, which he had in plenty, into Helium. That was way back when he was way younger and hotter. This process of constant fight with gravity went on for few years. Soon enough, he started realizing he is running out of Hydrogen element. But he refused to give up and started fusing the elements further to garner more energy producing newer and heavier elements which started sinking because of the mass and at the same time increase his inner temperature. Before he realized he started expanding because of more and more energy being produced by the fusion of heavier elements. He thought this will go on forever and felt proud of his own never give up spirit till he fused an Iron element. That day, he realized with shock that he cannot fuse Iron any further no matter how much he tried. All his pride came down crashing. The collapse was imminent! By this time he had grown hundreds of times bigger. When most of the elements in his core has turned Iron, the energy produced can no longer resist the pressure of his gravity and the outer layer will start to collapse rapidly. It is only a matter of time, before this collapse and existing energy in the core will cause a supernova. In his last few moments, his journey of 10 million years flashed in front of him. But he knows this is not the end. He himself was born with one such Supernova. He is going to seed more stars out of him and he himself will be a minute neutron star for a very long time. By spewing all the elements inside him including carbon, he will also be responsible for the creation of life itself. A moment after the collapse of the star, large quantities of neutrinos started emerging out which was followed by a Supernova. All this happening just around 500 light years away!

Winter 2005

When he entered the hall, he could see only one seat empty. He quickly went ahead to occupy the last remaining seat. As soon as he sat down, he turned back to see more people entering the hall. They will have to now stand and listen. When he was about to consider himself kind of lucky to get to sit, fragrance of the female perfume grabbed all his attention. He could already feel couple of Flutes and Oboes playing somewhere. He turned towards his left to find her sitting next to him. That added few Violins, both 1 and 2. Along with it, some Violas too. She was looking on the other side talking to someone. Her white dress perfectly matched with her curlyish jet black hairs about a foot and half long which were held together by a black color band. Some Cellos and Double Basses joined the bandwagon. Then he could see her turning towards him slowly, and it was time for some Trumpets, Horns and Trombones to join while she was turning her head. Also there was a Tuba this time. Like the swing of slow moving trebuchet, in slow motion, swung her hairs to the other side of her shoulder when she turned towards him. “Brothers in the blind, please add Timpani, Drums and Tambourine” ordered his mind. Her entire face turned had towards him by now and all he could see were her beautiful eyes, unnaturally made extra black!! There is a billion dollar industry to help girls look more attractive. With his brain being too numb to give any new orders, he let his eyes keep looking at the beautiful black eyes while a full set early romantic orchestra being played somewhere which only he could hear. With the minute changes he observed in her eyes, he felt she is about to blush before she started looking towards her notebook and write something. Who was she! If he were to have the amazing vocals, would have started singing as well. Might have even went on a knee. He felt like the music will last forever. Only thing which could have stopped was the loud shrieking noise of the mike. That brought him back to the present. He thought now it’s time for some phantom theory! er ah Quantum theory!

After the session was over, everyone got up. Fresh smile flashed on his face after the new revelation. Height also matches!!          

“What time is it” she asked.

13.7 billion years! Yes. Big bang happened 13.7 billion years ago. That’s when Time started. Before that nothing was supposed to have existed including the Time itself. The clock started ticking at the moment of big bang and has been ever since running. We humans use a 24 hour clock for our convenience based on the rotation of the earth on its own axis which never actually is 24 hours. Our earth sometimes rotates faster and sometimes slower! Thankfully there is uniform sunlight around tropic of cancer throughout the year avoiding another confusion of daylight savings. For now, the sun had created shadows whose sizes were roughly about 1/3^rd of the original objects. Based on which he deduced it was around high noon. Then had a look at the bulky watch he was wearing and said

“11:15”

Particles are particles. They hop from place to place with a particular probability. Probability that a particle which is at some place, will be at some different place later is given by a very simple rule, uses a quantity called ‘Action’, which depends on the Mass of the particle, the Time and the Distance and may be some external factors. Quite a few factors had to be in place for him to be at the ‘right’ place at the ‘right’ time.

Much against the basic laws of physics, his heart was slowly moving from the state of high entropy to the state of low entropy. Movement from high to low never seems to be good, or is it?

The long day which never seemed to get over to him, was finally over. He was gazing at the night sky which hardly had any clouds. Normally he would be thrilled to identify the stars or constellation. But this time, all his eyes saw were some white specks in the dark sky. Gazing at the sky was always fun he thought. But that day, it was different. He was kind of looking at nothing. Confused with the events that happened earlier in the day, he continued to look at that dark night sky. Perhaps he waiting for some kind of signal, some indication from the heavens. And it was about to arrive. From the edge of the sky, he was able to see a small bright object move. A shooting star! Perhaps that was the sign. He recalled reading somewhere about wishes coming true if is made on seeing a shooting star. With or without his knowledge, he folded his hands and brought it to praying position. Magically he was also on his knees.  Something told his heart that the wish will be in effect at the moment the star disappears. So he had to time the wish perfectly. His fingers from both hands had crossed and held each other tightly by now. He could still see the bright object moving and could feel his heartbeat increasing each moment. By this time, the star had crossed half way across the sky. He is now holding his breath and waiting for the right moment. For the maximum effect, he had decided to close his eyes while making the wish. His eye lids were already prepared and waiting for the go ahead signal from the brain and his heart was prepared to throw a picture at the eyes as soon they close. While he was still watching the sky, the bright object slowly traversed entire length of the visible sky and disappeared at the end of the horizon. His tightly closed his eyes in despair and muttered in frustration releasing the breath he had been holding for past few seconds in one go “International Space Station!!!” He did not realize that as soon as he closed his eyes, an object appeared in the middle of the night sky and started to move at high speed. While the speed of the object increased, its brightness also increased and it also left a bright visible tail along the path it traced. Within couple of seconds, the shooting star got burnt completely and both the object and its tail disappeared from the sky. Perhaps someone else’s eyes were open when his were closed. And then he opened his eyes found the night sky exactly the way it was before he closed his eyes. Almost! But when he observed more, a hunter caught his attention amongst cluster of stars in the dark sky. And there was visibly more activity in the reddish star near hunter’s right shoulder compared to rest of the stars in that cluster. As though something is about to happen. He continued to stare at the particular star and wondered what is so unusual about that particular star.

To Be Continued........... Part 2

                                                      

9 Gudda : The way back!

Please read Part 1,Part 2 and Part 3 before reading this.

Okay! There was not bear and I was not hallucinating. Shashi and Deesu who had ventured into the forest were returning. Though they came back together, few feet away from us, they took different paths to come towards us. It was deesu who was wearing dark colored trouser and shirt. He stopped momentarily and at that time he was behind a tree. The tree blocked his face and I could see only his legs and it looked as a bear which stopped near that tree and stood upright. It all happened within seconds. And again no animals were seen till then.

Everyone started gulping chapathis . Shashi and Deesu who went inside forest did not find and any proper way forward. So we decided to finish our ‘breakfast’ and then decide what to do. Post ‘breakfast’, again option to go back was rejected and no one wanted to go back in that thorny grass path again. Though this time thought of going back was much serious than earlier ones. So we were again on our way(?) in search of some way. There was one stretch of small bushes. Had to crawl through that to reach the end of it. From there we were actually seeing the peak we were supposed to reach, but had to cross the dense forest and had no idea what to expect in that forest. Though we went ahead in that direction where we saw the peak, encountered a cliff after few meters and had to come back. Discussion of what to do was happening more and more now, which included going back. It was concluded that since we were able to see the peak, we will take a left turn(right turn would have taken us away from peak) and do climb where ever we see the inclination. Idea was to reach a point where we get proper mobile signal. It was really appreciable aspect of our group that though clear decisions did not happen at times and some cribbing had started, we stayed as a group. Again we set out in the forest with Deesu leading the group. There was a strong feeling (as always) that we were not far from the destination. Actually that was always there, it was only that we did not reach it Physically. We walked for next few minutes towards unknown. Fortunately it was relatively easier. No thorns! No creepers! Only trees canopy was present. And again we hit a cliff and we stopped there in despair. But, a silver lining was waiting for us.

At the place we stopped, our mobile was showing some traces of signal. Nitin and Kummi, both called one of their friends/relatives. Our intention was to know where we were. Fortunately our Garmin GPS latched to some satellites and showed our co-ordinates. But before we could communicate the co-ordinates to the people who were conversing, mobile signal disappeared. But soon it was back and this time before we could communicate the co-ordinates, GPS went blank, but came back after few minutes. Finally we were able to give our co-ordinates. We started getting several information with their help. First info we received was that we are already on grassland!

But we were deep inside forest as we could see. We checked the co-ordinates again. This time it seemed we got different co-ordinates from GPS (perhaps more correction was required on previous reading). The new information was provided to our friends. And this time we got couple of info. That we were on the edge of the forest and grassland is not far and perhaps a walk 30-40 should be enough to reach it. Second info was that if we continue to walk in the same path with which we reached where we were, we could reach grassland and then reach the ‘9 Gudda’ peak from there. But for that we had to go walk through forest again. We were still discussing what to do. Requesting for a Helicopter rescue was also considered. No joke! We actually considered that. We just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Another option we had was to reach some plain land and if possible camp there that night and next day either come back or plan to go ahead towards ‘9 Gudda’ peak. But we more or less ran out of water already. Most of us were tense as our watches were telling it’s around 3 PM. And then came couple of calls.Perhaps the most important call in this entire trek. One from Sanjeev(Nitin’s friend) and one from Kummi’s cousin. Both suggested same thing. Travel North! And that we are already on ‘9 Gudda’. All we had to do was walk towards North side for around 30-40 minutes to find grassland and from there we could easily reach the peak through grassland. With the hope that if we reach some grassland(open/plain land), in worst case ,can call for helicopter, without wasting any more time we started climbing the inclined land towards our north side, which had ‘small/medium size plants/trees'. We would have trekked hardly for around 10-15 minutes only to find out that the info we got was WRONG!

Wrong, I meant on the positive side. We reached grassland in 10 minutes. Not in 30 - 40 minutes! Happiness started from our heart, travelled through our throat and came out of our mouth through whistles and shouts and roars. We could clearly see human trail through that grassland which was ending at ‘9 Gudda’ peak. Shashi declared that he now recognizes the place and pointed @ a small tree at a distance where they had rested when they were here last time. We could also see traces of some people camping there. After trekking through grassland for few minutes we rested for a while under shade of small tree. We tried to arrange for a Jeep which could pick us up after we climb down ‘9 Gudda’ peak from other side. But unfortunately it did not materialize. That meant more walking. Over next couple of hours we found ourselves trekking through grassland in visible human trail. Walking without shade was tiring and we took frequent breaks. We reached the peak just in time for sunset. It was one of the most amazing moments of our trek. we finally had reached the destination we planned for. In one piece. Though late by around 24 hours, we were there! View of mother nature from there seemed to heal the pains we went through for past 2 days. After almost 2 days of hard trekking we were set to start from the peak only after spending around 20 minutes ( I was one of the last to arrive and spent only around 20 minutes) as we had to climb down and reach jeep track before it was dark. Climbing down was relatively easier. There was human trail till we reach Jeep track, initially through grasslands and then through forest again for brief period. By the time we reached the forest part, it was already dark. But this part of forest was not dense and it was walk of around 10 minutes. We reached Jeep track soon and had to walk around 8-10 km on that Jeep track to reach the estate house where our TT was waiting for us.

Next two hours was tiring walk. No canopy, No thorns, No creepers, No steep inclination, No way of getting lost and No water as well. We were under the shade of dark sky with stars. Ate some fruit which was still there with us on our way as water source. Couple of guys still had a bottle of water which was shared. With every turn there was hope to see artificial source of light. But it was there where it was and we were the ones who had to reach there. We shared various experiences of college, work and discussed some technology, politics while we walked. When we reached one of the corners, people from our group who were ahead of us, started whistling loudly. They had spotted our TT and artificial source of light was also seen. We reached the estate in 'Hosakere' finally .We(Me,Nitin,Shashi,Deesu,Kummi,Chandra,Vipin,Kartik,Jeevan,Charan) had successfully completed ‘9 Gudda’ trek. We went near that house and drank ample amount of water. House owner agreed to cook dinner for us on request. I opened my 'torn' sleeping mat and slept for a while. Had delicious dinner some time later. It was ‘Chitranna’ with pickles. We thanked the house owner with full heart for the dinner. It was now time to pack our bags and board the TT again. We occupied more or less the same seats. I was deprived of proper sleep again during the journey. So was the case with most of us. It was early morning when we reached Bangalore. We kept the rented sleeping bags and mats at Nitin’s place to give it back later that day. Chandra dropped me to my house. I looked at the clock, it was reading around 6 AM and then I hit the bed.

Epilogue :

Nitin sent a mail couple of days later that he and Karthik found an insect on their skin which stung them on touching.

There is a plan going on to do '9 Gudda' trek again. This time plan is to start from 'Hosakere' and reach 'Gundya' through the same forest. The trek 'might' happen later this year.

9 Gudda : Lost and Not Found!

Please read Part 1 and Part 2 before reading this

Sleep was expected in the warmth of newly bought sleeping bag. Tiredness from a trek of around 15 km was supposed to push us to deep sleep. But sound sleep never arrived. It was so hot and humid that sleeping bag was used as pillow. Due to some unknown reason, I did not get good sleep at all. May be it was first sign of what was about to come!

By the way I did not get sleep in tent during my ‘Kumara Parvata’ trek as well. When I finally decided to come out of the tent, it was around 5:45 AM. Couple of guys from our group were seen roaming around. Flowing river was next to us and there was no issue for morning activities. By the time everyone got ready to start, it was around 7:30. Jeevan’s bag parted way with the second strap as well on Day 1 evening, just before we reached the falls. Again the bag was fixed with some rope work and the load of that was shared. Stale ‘Rotti’ was disposed there(!). Again this was supposed to be last point where we get water before we complete the trek. So everyone of us filled ‘enough’ water for us. It was to time to enter forest again following in a visible human trail.

Trek on Day 1 was tough. Soon we realized it would tougher on day 2. The forest was denser and tougher was our journey. Shashi was leading us again. With new hope, under the shadow of trees canopy, we were walking on what seemed like a trail made by living beings. Even the path was not straight forward. We had to make our way through some plans which had thorns. Thorns which were not seen till they introduced themselves to us with a mark they made on our palms and arms. Cute looking creepers seems to have liked us. While we made our way through a small tree/plant by ducking or pushing the plant aside, those cute creepers would ‘catch’ our backpack/sleeping bags/us and refused to let go. Those creepers were so strong that they did not budge to our full strength pull or push. Finally we had to surrender to them and take help from someone behind (from our group) to break the deadlock between us and creepers. They had to pull the creepers up or push the entangled person down to free him. At times I had to crawl to avoid those creepers. I recalled creepers catching humans in Hollywood thrillers. Similar was our fate, as most of the times had not noticed the creepers till they caught us. This was the case with young creepers. Old roots/creepers also played game with us. They were few inches above the ground and we had to carefully cross it. Sometimes I felt they were hidden under the soil and whenever we come near, it would come out to catch us. Several times I got my foot stuck in such roots and somehow managed my balance. But on one occasion, I misread the height of a root got misbalanced and fell down and hurt my knees. Pain killer spray got some relief for me. At this time, our group was split into 2 and I was in the group which was behind. After taking rest for couple of minutes we started again and found others waiting for us. Though there was some talks of having breakfast, it was ruled out as we were deep in the forest and were hoping to reach grassland soon(that was what we thought.)

Soon the visible trail disappeared.. We were moving ahead by checking the map , compass and GPS. Map used to come out every five minutes. Sometimes we used to spread the map on the dried leaves to see it clearly. Trek continued in the forest till we hit a road block again! An uprooted huge tree blocked our path this time and the way forward was not clear. Shashi was also not clear if they traced same path in his earlier trek. Nitin went alone little further and did not find proper way and came back. It was almost noon. But again breakfast was ruled out here as our calculation indicated that we were not far from grassland. unobserved by anybody, our stock of water was slowly reducing. We had the option to go back which was not taken at that point. So it was decided we will go ahead. Next few minutes of trek passed by without any major incidents. Trees canopy slowly started disappearing and sun was seen. A Small peak with small plants was seen at a close distance. Normally huge trees will not be there near the peak. Encouraged by the sight of those small plants, almost ran to reach that peak. Grassland was supposed to be there. And we saw canopy of trees again from there.

Someone accidentally checked his mobile and it got successfully latched to some BTS there. Well BTS is too technical, let’s say we got signal there. It was again indication that we were not far from 9 Gudda peak. It was again time to take out the map. Shashi put his hands into his pouch, came to me and said “give me the map” and I replied “where is it”. If the fact that we were more or less lost in a forest is not enough, here was another shocker for us. Map, which was almost our lifeline was not to be seen. we LOST the MAP! or it was map which decided to lose us, it was we who got stranded in a dense forest without knowing 'proper' way forward. (This was our carelessness. Absolute important thing should’nt have been lost). Going back to look for map was also discussed with that chances that we might have dropped map some where, but that was dropped as it would have been like finding needle in haystack.

With no map, we had only compass and Garmin(GPS) to rely on. Which also meant less accuracy!

It was almost like wandering in the forest for next few minutes. With the path we took since morning, we had to do one more steep climb at some point. At the end of that steep climb, We were supposed to get grasslands and from there walk along the grass lands to reach 9 Gudda peak. But the catch was, we had to start the climb the steep part at the right place. With no map, Shashi took the call. A steep inclination was found, which Shashi felt is the right time and spot, and started climbing and we followed. Everything on Day2 was tougher, so was this Day 2’s steep climb. It was loose soil and small plants/trees, which we planned to use as support spread throughout the inclination, had dried thorns. It was so slippery that I had to pull Kartick up using stick (was strong! which I had used for support) while he held another end. He then used the same idea to pull the guy behind him. Not sure if others followed that idea. But it worked great. Several times I caught a tree stem for support and thorns pierced my palm’s skin. I removed some thorns which was found by me over the tree stem so that other do not face the same fate. While it started to feel that this is never ending climb, heard a long whistle from Shashi and his loud shout from him followed it.

“Grassland!” Those words made me feel that this ordeal is over and perhaps adrenaline inside me kicked in. I climbed fast to reach where Shashi was. I could see Shashi surround by grass around 2-3 feet tall. I reached that spot and turned around to see who is behind. And nature’s beauty caught my eye. It was one of the amazing views of nature. Hills around entire area could be seen from there. Dense and green forest through which we trekked was also seen. Our planned original path was also seen. Smiles on our faces were also seen. What the future of next couple of hours holds for us was not seen.

The place where me and Shashi rested was congested and so Shashi disappeared inside ‘dense grass’ in search of possible path ahead and soon me and Deesu followed him. It was supposed to be a walk in the grass. But it turned out like rubbing salt on the wounds. Literally! Dry grass with tiny thorns on their edges embraced our arms. Inclination was still there and we had to bend our body forward and take support of grass from its root, while our naked sweated arms exposed to grass’s tiny thorns. It was more like sharp edges of grass than thorns. We had to make the our own path through those 3 feet tall grasses. One advantage we had in this climb was the grip we used get over grassed. ‘Sliding down’ part was not there. Without knowledge of how long we had take this grassy path to reach till top and with hope of reaching peak at the end of the grass, we were moving along bearing the pains. Disappointment was waiting for us again. As a bliss, grassland ended, and no prizes for guessing, we found ‘fresh’ tree canopy again. And to add to our woes, we encountered thorny bush beyond which there were trees. We had to cross that somehow to move forward. Without even thinking much, I covered my face and barged through one of the bush, while the thorns caught hold of my sleeping mat and started pulling me back. With full force I pushed myself ahead and may be gave away some tiny pieces of my sleeping mat to that bush and took shelter under a tree. Shashi climbed and tree to check for ‘any’ possible path ahead. Unfortunately no clear path were seen. Deesu and Shashi dropped their backpack near me and went inside the forest to check for the possible ways. I waited to guide the others to push through the bush to reach the place where we took rest. For next few minutes, none of them were seen. But I knew Chandra was near. I could clearly hear his cries of pain while he walked through the thorny grasses.

It took a while before everyone arrived there dropped their backpacks and rested under shade of a tree. It was around 1 PM then and we finally decided it was time for breakfast. It was chapathi with some pickles. And once again idea of going back from there flowed through. At that time I felt that also might be better idea, but the catch was we had to take the same path we travelled since morning for about 5 hours . With time running out, it looked like a bad idea, as it would have been difficult find the river back before sunset. Nitin took the call and rejected the idea of going back. Everyone was sitting facing the direction which we came from. I was facing the opposite direction resting my back on the branch of that tree. I was looking at the ants colony which was next to that tree when I heard sound of some leaves or dry twigs crackling. I looked towards the direction of source of that sound. I was shell shocked with what I saw. May be I did not feel that shock with fear which followed. I felt I saw like something, like a four legged animal walking not far from where we were. I felt it was black in color and had hairs all over its body. I felt like it stopped after seeing us.

Was it a Bear!?

I was about to shout and alert everyone, but stopped and had a look at it again.

Coming up in Part 4 : Conclusion

9 Gudda : Changed plans

Please Read Part 1 before reading this

Being mentally prepared to what I am going to see I slowly removed my socks, there they were! Leeches! 3 blood suckers. SALT, the remedy was used to get rid of them. Though more leeches were latching to our feet, we decided to donate some blood and continue our trek, now through Jeep tracks. Moments later, time arrived where we had to make a decision. The jeep track divided into 2! Shashi suggested we have to take right track there and based on inputs by one of my friend, I wanted to take wrong track! I mean left. The left track was looking more like a walking path than a Jeep track. So it was decided that me and Shashi will walk a bit along the left track and if we see any further Jeep track will call the rest.Though path ahead looked like a Jeep track, wondered how would anyone drive Jeep along that track. With the visible Jeep track we called rest of the guys by whistle indication. Then we started walking in the Jeep track and were introduced to the dense forest. I honestly expected to see some wild animal in such dense forest. Till now we did not see anything else than leeches. Birds chirps were heard but no visual contact happened. A sweet singing bird even responded to our whistles without giving privilege for visual confrontation.

2 GPS is what we had. None were used till now ( I was checking if my Nokia GPS is working without AGPS support regularly.) as Jeep track was leading us. Our first check point was the place where 2 river streams joined. From there we had plans to start climbing a hill. Jeep track was supposed to lead us till that point and from there we were on our own. I mean with GPS. A dense forest bring quite a unique experience of its own. One such experience was, as we were walking along whenever we touch a particular kind of plant around 7 feet high, small insects whose number would be in hundreds would drop from their leaves and fly around without faring away from their group. They were like small mosquitoes. They looked harmless though. But blocked our path. I was really impressed with their ‘team work’. We had to duck below the insects to move ahead. A group of tiny flying insects forced us to bow to them brfore moving furthur. I thought NGC can have an episode on insects colony here. Still no traces of any other animals.

After taking left(wrong??) track earlier, I always had doubt if we are moving in right path. Even GPS In my Nokia was not showing our correct location. And the assumption was that we would not need the other GPS(old Garmin! Our life saver later). But soon we encountered the river junction. It was around 11 AM. Crystal clear water with shining reflection of sunlight welcomed us. Cold water from the river got rid of our thirst. Delicious breakfast was waiting. Akki rotti with Tomoto curry ( yes we carried it) with extra oil! We gulped akki rottis without keeping the count till our stomach was full with our taste buds still wanting more. As soon as we were done with our breakfast, it was time to jump into the water. After spending some 20 minutes in water, it was time to get back to our trail. As per our plan(??), that was the last water source till we complete the trek. So everyone filled ‘enough’ water and kept a separate water bottle with ‘Gatorade’ in it.

Here we did our first mistake(fortunate??)

We continued to trace the path which we found. But as per our plan we had to start climbing the steep hill as soon as we crossed the river. We thought there might be some ‘easy’ way to enter the forest and then start climbing the hill. To our delight, we saw that! When we started climbing the hill, a villager who was passing by warned us that we are taking wrong path and offered help to show us the correct path, which we ignored and continued climbing. Nitin and Shashi went ahead to check if we can actually climb the hill from the chosen path. After getting green signal from them, we followed their trail. Difficult part of trek had just started and hard part was still waiting. It was inclination of around 60 degrees and at certain places we had to make our own path through dried plans with thorns. We used to do such activity in college days in ‘Youth Club’ camps and it was called ‘bush Crafting’. But that was no way close to what we were experiencing. Suddenly my Nokia GPS started showing our location and gave us hope that we are on the right track. We were supposed to reach the peak of that hill in next 30 minutes. People were struggling to climb the hill. Thorns indicated their presence on our arms. To the utter dismay of all, we hit a road block! We had to climb over the rocks to reach the peak. Shashi broke the news to us that one cannot climb those rocks. We did not have climbing equipments as well. After brief search for any path around to reach the peak, it was decided to go back to the point from where we started climbing the hill and take the regular path. Climbing down was much more tedious task. We took more time to climb down and had more scratches on our hands. At the point , our original plan/route to reach 9 Gudda was ruled out. So we decided to take the normal route which is generally used to reach the peak and it was the same way which the villager went by. Was sure if we meet the villager again, he would burst out into laughter first. And we had to learn how to use the second GPS(Garmin). We were Engineers! And so discovered the usage of that GPS. It was small feature which gives current co-ordinates on GPS, but was enough for us.

Visible path which was made by people who walked along that path soon became invisible and we had no idea where we were. Tree canopy was such that GPS were not detecting any satellites. So we thought our safe bet is to walk along the river and find a place to camp and since we would come out in open, our GPS can detect some satellites.. With sun showing signs of coming down, smiles also started fading on our faces slowly. Now we know only one path properly. The path to go back from where we started. I thought a silver lining was due for us and was waiting for it each and every moment. The map we took used to come out regularly and we tried to mark our location with co-ordinates we got from Garmin GPS(second one. Thank god we took it). But exact position was not found properly even once. At one point Shashi thought he saw a path and started climbing a small hill only to reach a point from where we could move no further. Then again we came back towards river and started walking by the river over boulders. We were now doing valley trekking. While we were moving ahead, at a particular place, Nitin came to me and told “ This looks like the place where wild animals come @ night to drink water”. And I thought he watches too much of ‘Animal Planet’. We were happy for one thing though. Water was right next to us and we carried good amount of food.

And just when we thought we will camp at the next place we find where we can pitch the tent , we saw the ‘silver lining’. It was whitish and it was flowing. It was a water fall which can be seen at a distance. And above all, there was some movement above the falls. Felt like a man standing and looking at the falls. Since couple others also saw it, it was clear I was not hallucinating. Shashi and Sunil decided to go towards the falls to check if they can find the place where Shashi and group had camped before (Shashi’s earlier trek), while I waited for the rest and gave them the god news. We had discovered the falls! And there came the whistle from Shashi , which was some positive sign. We had to cross the river once to reach the waterfall, which took some time. And 5 min later we were standing right in front of the falls. For a moment I forgot all the worries and enjoyed the beauty of this amazing water fall, which hardly had any human interference. And then Shashi was ready with the good news. The camp site we were looking for was near, but still was 30 – 40 min away. The person whom we saw from the distance was still there was ready to take us to that camping spot. While Shashi and Sunil went towards that camp site, rest of us took some rest near the water fall. We had accidentally discovered a water fall. It was not huge, but it was very refreshing sight. Since this falls was not mentioned in any of the 9 Gudda blogs earlier, we found it safe to assume that we have discovered it J.I was so excited to see that falls that I forgot to ask the name of the person who agreed to help us reach the camp site.

Sun was about to come down and we set towards the camp site hoping for more rest there. Me, Nitin and Kummi were left behind as we were taking more snaps. And the journey towards camp site from there was one of its kind. We climbed rocks, jumped over rocks, ducked under tree branches, hugged rocks to cross it, found a natural swing, found places where one small mistake could have tossed us to the river. All these were on the banks of that river. And finally we crossed the river(yes again!) over boulders to reach our camp site. Chandra had some fears initially to cross the river over boulder. Finally he also crossed and we made use of the rope there for the first time in our trek.

Nitin and Deesu fetched some dry wood for camp fire. I with couple more pitched the tents. In no time we were ready for both camp fire and sleep J. Camp fire took the priority over sleep then and finally we realized, we had only 1 meal that day till then. And then food came out and a shocker was waiting for us. Rotti(jola) which we had bought was stale due to heat and humidity. This was not alarming then as we had surplus amount of chapathi for the night and next day. Ate food peacefully and few guys went inside tent to sleep. Me,Shashi,Chandra,Nitin,Sunil and Kummi slept around camp fire gazing at the sky. Millions of stars were visible that night which would reduce to few thousands in Bangalore. Under the stars, next to the river, with a known place(to shashi) found at last, we decided to drop the idea of going back and start towards our original destination of 9 Gudda Peak. We had new hope in our heart with ample food and water in our stomach. Unfortunately there was no song and dance session and everyone went into their tents to sleep. We carried only 3 tents with the idea that couple of us will give watch for the rest in turns. Even that went for a toss and everyone occupied their places in their tents with their sleeping bags.

We were never able to get our correct location on map as GPS sometimes used to give co-ordinates with some correction. So next day we had to consider that also. Plan was to wake up early next day and reach the 9 Gudda peak by noon. With the hope of getting good sleep and expecting dream of finding ourselves on 9 Gudda, I closed my eyes and thought sleep will sweep me. A more dreadful day was waiting for us.

Coming up in Part 3 : sleeping bags!, sleepless night, late start, missed path, lost path, lost map, lost hope,more Thorns, deadly creepers, Bear!, GPS ,mobile calls, low on water,so near yet so far, night trek, Chopper rescue?

9 Gudda: Beginning

Prologue:

Bharath and his friends reached that point of the river where they cannot go any further. Unfortunately, lack of GPS has hurt them bad. Inside the deep jungle and nowhere to go, multiple suggestions started to come by. Finally they all agreed to climb a small hill next to the river stream and check if they see any path or destination from there, only to find out dense forest as long as eyes can see. Dense and green with thousands of unseen insects and no traces of human interference. They knew only one path from there. The path they had traced till now. Going forward would have been a risk. Just when they were about turn back, one more group arrived at the scene who has GPS. Bharath and friends completed the rest of the trek with other group without much incidents. That was what Bharath thought. Couple of days later, he observed small blisters on his body. One on his leg and one more on his hand. He neglected it. 2 days passed by. Now he saw some black colored object inside those small blisters. When he observed closely, he found out that it was a small insect inside his skin! There were two! On of them dead(unborn) and the second one when touched jumped off and started to inspect the place. Afraid Bharath went to a doctor who assured him he is safe and if there were any more insects inside him, would have come out by now. Bharath thought some insect might have laid eggs inside his skin during his trek of 9 Gudda.

2 years later

Bharath is still doing fine with no more traces of that insect.

With a midweek holiday in last week of Jan, I thought of going for long pending trek. Kumara Parvata was our last trek and more than an year had passed by since the last trek. Shashi had been to ‘9 Gudda’ last month. With lots of accolades heard about ‘9 Gudda’, decided to go for ‘9 Gudda’ trek. Roped in Shashi first to guide our team forward with his experience. And then started recruitment process for candidates for this trek. Mails were sent, phone calls were made, and with initial hiccups, finally there were 11 people ready for the trek. Interestingly @ a point there were only 4 people ready and confirmed for the trek and VK warned me that this kind of trek requires more people(so true).

Two days before the travel date me and Deesu went to Decathlon to check out compass and GPS. Ended up buying tents, sleeping bags and trekking shoes along with compass. But most of did not have trekking bags. Thanks to Moksh and Vijey, we were able to arrange few. Sleeping bags and sleeping mats for the rest were hired.

Barely minutes before ‘take off’ , Kalyan had to drop due to some personal reasons. Now we were 10 people. By the time we reached the starting point of our journey in Bangalore dodging Friday evening’s traffic, it was almost 11. Took some 30 minutes (or more…) to load the luggage to TT. Finally 10 people in TT were on their way from Bangalore for ‘9 Gudda’ trek. Couple of us were yet to have Dinner and most of the ‘Dhaba’ on highway were closed. Finally after checking out several dhabas we found one where we had delicious roti and sabji. It was now time to sleep like good boys in TT. But music in TT and bad road kept most of us awake . Around 6 AM (Day1) we reached Gundya checkpost. It was still dark. We decided to sleep till sun comes out.

Few minutes later, after packing our stuffs, we climbed back our TT to reach our starting point of the trek. After couple of ‘clicks’ our trek started. Fear that my back ache will do the spoil sport was always there. Now was the time for briefing! And introduction to the group. 10 of us. Me,Sunil(deesu),Nitin,Shashi,Chandra,Narayan(kummi),Kartik,Jeevan,Sharan,Bipin. Shashi did a briefing based on his experience. His own words ….

“ The trek is not going to be easy. There might be some wild animals in the forest. On the sight of any wild animal we need to stand still where ever we are (?? Shashi have u seen Jurassic Park movie? Part 3 to be specific). Do not throw plastic and papers. Be careful about snakes (there are some pit vipers there it seems). On the sight of Elephant/s, our trek will end.”

Everyone nodded their heads and Shashi started with his usual speed. He was thin and has less weight to carry apart from the packed stuffs. Same was not the case with all! It was decided that Shashi will be the leader and Deesu will be the sweeper. Initial few minutes of trek(walk??) passed through farms without any incident. Just before entering the forest, there was a small ditch which we had to jump and cross. First four people crossed it without any problems. When my turn arrived, I made sure not to give any sudden jerk to my back. Next to me was Jeevan. When he jumped over the ditch, he stopped at that instant and dropped the backpack on the ground. I thought he hurt his back. His back was actually fine. When he jumped, his back was with him, but backpack gave away. It failed to take the weight and somehow was managing his walk. But when he jumped, physics kicked in and jerk increased the weight momentarily and the one of the shoulder strap of backpack ‘broke up’ with the bag. I thought we should give strap and bag some more time to understand each other and suggested putting the bag back in the cab and pick a new bag, but Deesu played forced cupid and tied the strap and bag with a rope. We would later find out that the bag was really bad in relationships. (Two lessons here! Carry a good backpack where each and every part of the backpack gel with each other very well and keep their relationship intact for entire journey(trek)and be careful while jumping with a weight of 10 kg on your back)

After the minor bag incident, we continued our journey. Moments later I felt something crawling under the socks. Instantly I knew what it was! Surprisingly no one felt that till then. We were under attack!

Coming Up in part 2 : a nice 'swim', a steep climb,bush crafting, 'hoda putta,banda putta', change of plans, learn using GPS, plans to abort, unexpected beauty, camp site.

MIRROR

When I heard it, it sounded so familiar. It felt as though I listen to that music daily and I can never forget it.

Something was strange there. But everything around looked so familiar. Was I there before? Can't recall! It was an abandoned fort next to a sea shore. Something inside me was telling that I was not alone there. I never was! I tried to recall how I came there. Nothing came to my mind. It was as though I was brought there in my sleep. Trying to recall how I came there, I closed my eyes.

It was Dark. There were high rise buildings, well lighted. There were many people around. None of the faces there were recognizable. I walked around a bit. That place looked very unfamiliar. There was a bridge over which a man in fully pressed suit who was looking at the crowd below. No one seems to have noticed him, but I could not help it. He was very far from where I was. Wanted to ask someone the way back to home. Tried to stop and speak to couple of guys there, but hardly did they respond. The walk of each and everyone out there was mechanical as though unaware of the world around. Now I can see the man over the bridge clearly. He was still staring at the crowd below. I felt like I had seen him somewhere. Very Familiar. When I went much closer, I realized he was staring at me. He was an old man in his 60s. Something inside was telling me that I meet him daily and he now wants to tell me something. The way back to my home? I searched for stairs to reach him. Surprisingly there weren’t any! I tried hard to recall his name. Nothing flashed in my mind. I shouted loudly “HEY” waving towards the old man. The old man was still looking at me without any change in expression. But the crowd, who doesn’t seem to have had any clue about my existence there, started looking at me. Everyone out there looked at me once and carried on with their walking. But two men, very identical (perhaps twins) still had their eyes on me. They both almost together, put their hands inside their jacket. I looked at the old man. He turned his face towards his left once and started looking at me again. That looked like some indication to me. Without even giving a second thought I started running towards the way the old man indicated. After running to the end of the road, I turned back to make sure the ‘twins’ are not running after me. And I saw myself standing next to a huge hotel, where some party was going on. Some music was being played. The music which I listen to everyday. From the distance I could make out that the old man has disappeared from the bridge. And suddenly I felt heard a huge noise very near to me and I fell on the ground. Bullet fire? What I saw then was complete darkness.

Complete darkness! I opened my eyes. I saw the same twins standing in front of me in the fort. Was I abducted and bought here? But why?

“Why you guys have bought me here?” No reply.

It was as though both were sleeping with their sunglasses on. I could see the entrance/exit to the fort which leads to the sea. I slowly walked towards that and surprisingly the twins did not move. I did not turn back till I reached the exit. Near exit when I was confident that I can sneak out without any problems, and looked back, found the twins face turned towards me. They let me go willingly? I was about to run through the exit I saw the ‘old man’ again in front of me. He was lot younger this time. How can he grow young? I could say he is the same guy with scar he had in his forehead. It was clearly visible in the street light, when he had turned his face to point out my escape route when he was standing on the bridge. But this time he was smiling as though he was telling “there is no escape this time”. We both stood there for few minutes without any words between the two. Finally he broke the silence. He said “Go Inside”. I took couple of steps back. Saw a wooden log which was reachable to me easily.

When I woke up, felt severe pain in my neck. It was as though someone hit me with the wooden log. I found myself lying in front of a house. I knocked the door hoping not to have the ‘old man’ open the door. But the door opened with my push. A man and a lady were sitting on a sofa and watching TV. A small kid was playing in front of them. The man smiled at me and said “come in sonny”. I observed the man. He looked very much like the ‘old man’ Oh! No not again! And then I saw his forhead. No scar! I drank a glass of water which was kept on the table and sat on an empty chair there. The couple though not looking @ me, failed to restrict naughty smile on their faces. They knew what I went through today? Suddenly I realized, I had seen the before. ‘The twins’?? Unwillingly I turned towards the kid. I was searching for scar on his forehead. The kid looked and smiled at me and turned towards the man who now had remote in his hands and said “It’s time”.

Music! The same music which I listen daily and do not ever want to be played again. The same music that wakes me up from my dear sleep. Each and every day! Without miss! Had its laugh once again today. I found myself on my bed. I covered my face with my hands and wished myself good morning and went towards the sink , washed my face and while my towel was doing its duty of cleaning the last traces water left on my face, a scar on my forehead which I got in my childhood in a bicycle crash was clearly visible in the mirror. Time to play the same alarm music again?