Down the memory lane - Rishikesh, the first one

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*Cellphone vibrating* ... "Hello"
"Hello Arun, kahaan hai jaldi aa."
"I am with Ashish Sir discussing something."
"Arey come fast to bus stop, we are leaving for Rishikesh."
"KYA!! hum to kal jaane wale they, by the way i don't hear the noise of buses."
"Sale dimag mat lagaa jyada aur aa yahaan jaldi otherwise we are leaving."
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That was my conversation with Ravi on one fine evening of Febraury '08 probably 15th or 16th. I knew, they were not at the bus stop, still i left for my room and when i reached there, as expected (and as always), the four of them (they deserve a special mention in my blog) were there, doing what they, rather we, always did - nothing. Well they are Ravi, Shubham, Lalit, and ... wait for it... Arkapol (yes thats a name), my best mates at IIT. An arguement broke out, about Rishikesh being only 60 km away and there being no point in having a night stay over there (with me favouring the arguement and everyone against it), which concluded (expectantly) with the decision that we were leaving.

We reached there by 8 pm, went to Chotiwala, a quite famous restaurant of Rishikesh, had our dinner over there and as suggested by Ravi, we ordered the famous 'thali' of Chotiwala for dinner. The delicious dinner said it all about the restaurant being so famous. We went to a Dharmshala to book our rooms for night stay and then went to the banks of the Ganges.

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"So Arun, our idea of night stay sucked na? (sarcastically)"
"Hehe, I didn't know what Rishikesh looked like during night otherwise, you know..."
"So what do you think now?"
"I don't know, like I cant explain. Sitting on a rock at the banks of the unadulterated Ganges at 11 pm, with feet in its icy cold water and body in an air which is as fresh as it can be, with no noise to bother you, with nothing to engage your brain into, witnessing nature so closely, its an experience I have never had before. It can't be described in words. All I can say is thanks for not following my plan, and making me have one of the best nights of my life."
"Yeah even I have never had this kind of experience."
"Lets go back to our room man, that guy said he'll close after 11."
"Arey wait na, he is not going to close it anyway. In fact we should not have booked rooms. We could have stayed on the banks only."
"Yep that would have been nice but we cant stay here the whole night, its cold."
"Whatever, and yes, everyone should wake up by 5:30, we are not going to miss the sunrise. No arguments regarding this point."
...
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We woke up by 5:30 in the morning, got fresh, had tea, checked out and went to Ram Jhula to witness the sunrise. Now Ram Jhula is a suspension bridge across the Ganges and there is another one too with the name Laxman Jhula which is more famous but smaller in size. The winds were quite strong and fresh and the view of the sun trying to push its rays beyond the mountains, but the mountains being reluctant to let them go unless the sun reached a particular height was kinda inspiring enough for a poem. All in all, the view of a river flowing between mountains with sun about to rise didn't need beholders eyes' consent to be called as beauty.

the Ram Jhula

the sunrise

After standing there for a while and taking pics, we started to look for a place to have breakfast. There was a restaurant with the name 'Ganges View'. We entered there and to our surprise, we were the only Indians in that restaurant. Probably it was the beautiful view which it provided that made foreigners prefer it. So we settled down there, had some breakfast and were about to leave when a lady asked if she could join us to which we nodded. Her name was Amari, some 40-45 years old, American, and a teacher at American Embassy School of Delhi. We had a nice time chatting with her, discussing plenty of things like places to visit in India, interests, teaching patterns, Bollywood, the (according to her) advance communication system of India over US and other random things. The conversation lasted for nearly two hours after which we parted our ways.

As we were looking for a place to start a random trek, Ravi suddenly saw a quite thin stream of water coming down from a hill. He asked us to go upstream for our trek to which we agreed. Thus we kept on climbing and the stream kept on getting thicker. At places it got difficult for us to climb and at places we almost ran. After a while, no human signs were visible and we were the only ones going up following a stream. We saw an accident hit car lying in the bushes with blood stains on it. We also witnessed miniature landslides at places and that was kinda scary, but still we kept on climbing. The natural beauty was getting better and better and climbing was getting tougher.

After climbing for nearly an hour, we reached a point where we had vertical hills in three directions and the fourth direction being behind us. The few inches wide stream had by now turned into a wide waterfall. The place was so beautiful, so secluded and so natural that it kinda left us all spell bounded. We were yelling like anything at our achievement. Well thats the thing with trekking, what you do is just walk a little bit but once you are at the top, you feel like having conquered the world. You feel a rush of adrenaline, you feel free, you feel fresh and yes, you do feel as if you are high. And if its a random trek, like you dont know anyone else having done it, you feel like you are the only one who have reached there.
Well we stayed there for a while, grabbed some stones and tried to carve our names on rocks, took a bath under the waterfall and clicked some pics. As usual, we regarded ourselves to be the only ones to reach that point and thought man, why don't we give a name to this place. That was when Shubham came up with the acronym SARAL (Shubham, Arkapol, Ravi, Arun, Lalit) and we were like, whoaa thats the word. So we carved SARAL here and there. After sometime, though none of us felt like leaving, we grabbed our stuff and started walking downhill.

the SARAL point

We had some lunch and then left for the R land.

Thats pretty much it about the Rishikesh visit i made 2 years back with its memories still being fresh as dewdrops in my mind but of course, it made me realize a few things. One, the world seems so beautiful when you are high, a statement from which i can draw at least three meanings. Two, the world is just awesome, as in the Discovery ad campaign. Three, it always ends up the way Frost ended - but i had promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep...and miles to go before i sleep...

Intro

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
There is a society where no one intrudes
By the deep sea & music in its roar
I love not man less but nature more.
- Lord Byron

Thus with these (borrowed) words , yours truly too jumps in the blogosphere with his, maybe not very important for you but really very important for him (in fact closest to his heart), accounts of traveling. I have always dreamt of wandering through the suspiciously silent woods, climbing the magnanimously mighty mountains which have always been used in literature to symbolise challenges, taking a dip in the unadulterated Ganges and feeling the tender touch of snowfall on my hands. Well joining IIT Roorkee has been quite fruitful for me in this regard because of its close proximity to some of the most beautiful and natural places in the world. I have had (and am expecting to have) some of the most singular trips after coming to Roorkee. Moreover, I always thought of holding the endless sequence of thoughts, that kept leaking in and jumpimg out of my mind during these ventures, and giving them words but call it my ignorance or vellance or whatever you wish, I never did it. But now I can't stand my own pressure and its this pressure that makes some words leak out of my mind, get scattered on my screen and later on, enter the eyes of the beholders. Regarding the title of the blog, factually its the last track of the legendary Pink Floyd Rock Opera 'The Wall', symbolically it represents what you might have already guessed. Moreover the pic behind the title is of Mansarovar, which is kinda the most important place i wish to visit. Expecting myself to keep the pressure high so that the words keep on leaking, I end up the introductory blog with another set of borrowed words which i like from the core of my heart...

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost