Weekenders' Game

Chapter - 1 : Deja Vu

'Do you think there's a chance our company will give us a holiday for International Student's Day?' I asked Surendra and Abhinav, who chortled into their plates. 

17'th November was a Friday, and the following days were the last free weekend I had before my long trip away to Orissa and home. 

'Kumar Parvat,' Anurag quipped, a fellow travel-holic from office. 'I've been waiting to do that trek for a long time. This is the perfect season.'

'How hard is it?' I asked as my fingers itched to grab my mobile and create a WhatsApp group already. Anurag showed me a page he had open on his desktop. 'It's a one day thing if you're fit enough, and there are various resting points depending on the person's, umm, calibre.' He looked uneasily at Surendra, who scowled back.

'Cool,' I smiled and turned to my phone. 

'32 people!' Abhinav yelped beside me, looking at the Kumar Parvat WhatsApp group. 'This is how start-ups are born.' 

But of course, unseen forces kept taking out pieces from our chessboard, and on the D-Day, we were left with a gang of 20 - Abhinav, Anurag, two Adityas of Singh and Malpani, Ayushi, Brij, Isha, Jaydev, Karthikeyan, Rachana, Radhika, Sakaar, Saurabh, Sonali, Spurthi, Vedant, Rajendra, Deepayan, Abhishek Nayak and me. Phew. 

'Shankar,' I asked dejectedly with a mouth full of sambar rice. 'Again, why aren't you coming?' 

'Masters Applications and a possible call with a prof, substituting this with a day trip to Makalidurga,' he quoted from muscle memory. I had asked him ten times already. 

The driver called - we'd booked Tejas Tours and Travels again - and I heard angry noises about something. I heard the words 'traffic' and 'police' and my heart skipped a beat. Shankar chuckled to himself.

'Believe you me, one of these days I'm going to learn Kannada,' I declared as I walked out the door. 

The bus was at Spice Garden. To my surprise, Sushmita and Ravindra stood there - she had told me some urgent office work had swamped her, while Ravindra had placements.

'Surprise!' she yelled out. 'Yay,' I fist-bumped the air. 'Where's your bag?'

'Oh, no, I'm not coming, we just came to see you all off.' She said sweetly.

'Aww thanks,' I smiled, while my mind said ada paavi. 'Next time we'll just whisk you away, bag or no bag.' 

They grinned and turned to the others.

'Hey, where's the driver?' I scanned the other side of the road, and my eyes locked on to the wine shop at the roundabout. I gulped involuntarily.

'Dude if he comes out of that bar, we run,' I muttered to Abhinav. 'We're too young to die.'

'Relax, here he is.' A very surly youngster with already heavy-lidded eyes climbed into the driver's seat. 

'Well, all right then,' I ushered everyone into the bus, taking care not to let any of them take a good look at the driver. 'Get to know each other, while you still can,' I cackled evilly, like a mad scientist running an illegal drug trial. 

Radhika flew in on her scooty, parking it at Sushmita's place, and we went to the next pickup point - Marathahalli bridge. Brij, Ayushi and Isha trotted to the bus, while I looked at the Adyar Anand Bhavan's neon sign again. 'We can make tengapaal now, suckers!' I yelled into the night, and ran back to the bus like some crazed ex-employee thatha.

Apart from a small stop at Jayanagar for Anurag and Rachana, the route was pretty much the same. This time, we went to Harsha's place near Banashankari, so the tents et al were picked up much more quickly. 'The silencer burnt a hole in one of the mats,' Harsha blurted out sheepishly, as we shook hands. 'Best of luck.' 

'Kukke Subrahmanya,' I said to Manju, our driver, as I climbed aboard. It was one of the most important temples in South India - and our base camp. He nodded and started the bus.

'All right, people, who wants to play a game?' 

'Let me guess, Mafia?' Abhinav groaned. 

'What's that? I've heard of Wolf, is it similar...' Malpani spoke up.

In ten minutes, I was practically surrounded by deja vu. We were all playing the same game, just with different people now. Talk about a metaphor for life, huh?

The beauty is in the little things - every game, even with the same players and rules, would be different, because we were never the same. The trees, the clouds, the earth, the water, the sky, the birds and butterflies, they were everywhere; but every place was different. 

Even then, beauty was something more than permutations and combinations of these ingredients - it was a cloudy mirror, a cryptic Pensieve; a symphony that relied upon the instruments, their wielders and the audience.  

Beauty was the art and the artist. Somewhere in the twilight zone, was the human. And once we're fed and watered, clothed and sheltered - once the human calms down, what do we do?

We take a bus. 

Chapter - 2 : Temple Run

I awoke to another dimly lit morning, with moist air and heady twilight smells permeating our vehicle. I looked at my mobile for the time - as if on cue, the cellular network disappeared. I smiled; we were here. 

I looked out the window, and the temple came into view. I remembered reading about it - here, Kartikeya was worshipped as Subrahmanya, lord of all serpents. The divine serpent Vasuki found refuge with him when threatened by Garuda. I smiled softly as I drew a parallel between the snakes and us humans - running from one God to the next, whoever helped us sleep well at night, and wake up better. Our group was looking for a different place, however. 

'Come on, people,' I grunted, stumbling to the front. 'Empty yourselves, refill with food, and off we go. You know the drill.' 

All of us traipsed to where our instincts took us. For some, seeing a temple reminded them that their bodies and souls needed cleansing. For the others, the urge to feed took over. A few smart ones munched on an idli on the way to the toilet - the tolerance for lack of hygiene was amazing in the morning. 

'Braaaiinnss....' Vedant croaked as we shambled to the food stalls. I grinned. Soon, we had idlis, sambar, chutney and even some sweet, soft Mangalore buns to diversify the gustatory palette - although we would have eaten anything less than a 6 on the Mohs scale, at that point of time. 

Me and Anurag decided to get some lemon rice and Mangalore buns packed, and the familiar thrill of impending adventure filled me. We dragged our tired faces and excited bodies to the bus to pack our bags and wear our shoes. The horde cometh.

Then I heard Karthikeyan wasn't feeling too well.

I sighed. This was one of the worst feelings to have in the realm of First World Problems. I was pretty sure he was agonizing between the Fear Of Missing Out and the fear of passing out. My inner optimist told me we could help him hack it out and survive, but I knew it was better he sit this one out. 

I mixed him some electrolytes and advised him to walk for a bit, and turn around if he still felt nauseous. 

'We're near a temple, man. You should be flying off and bringing Kumaraparvat to us.' I made the standard Tam-Brahm joke as I passed him a water bottle. He smiled weakly. 'I think I'll tag along for a bit. I'm feeling better.'

And so, we set off towards the jungle. I looked at a cow warily out of the corner of my eye, and picked up pace. Vedant shot me a grin. 

Unlike the Bandaje forest, this was a very gradual change. The road slowly disappeared, the density of the undergrowth increased, the babble of human civilization faded away and the pants of my compatriots grew increasingly audible.

Soon, we were at a small gate, that actually opened up into the forest. It was very surreal, like a portal door to a magical place. 

Welcome to the jungle.

Chapter - 3 : Walk This Way

The ascent had started. Our goal was to reach Bhattara Mane - the halfway point - by lunchtime. I received word that Karthikeyan had tapped out and gone back to the bus. Score one for Kumara Parvatha. 

'All right people - the secret is deep breaths, and long, steady paces. And be miserly with the refreshments; don't go for them until your friends turn into clip art images of food.'

We started off, a long line of twenty people bunched up according to various criteria. I let the familiar forest sounds wash over me, punctuated only by the staccato of crunching boots and sharp intakes of breath. Here, the forest floor was drier, and the vegetation was more deciduous, as opposed to the wet rainforests of the Western Ghats. Leeches wouldn't be a problem. The tall betel nut and toddy palms were replaced by teak, blackwood and kino trees.

Me, Jaydev and Malpani halted for a while to let the others catch up. Jaydev confessed he wasn't feeling too well either, and the bottom of my stomach dropped out. Had we gone too far in to turn back?

We passed a lot of groups - this was a very sought-after trek, especially in the post-monsoon season. Five minutes later, the sunlight broke through the canopy, and now the slope meant business. I saw Jaydev leaning against a tree, bent over. Five minutes later, he threw in the towel. Score two for the mountain.

There was nothing to do but go on. I hoped the two of them would find a bus back to Bangalore before they came down with something. I passed another group, resting on a tree trunk and passing around a cigarette. The youngest of them looked at me sheepishly as he blew smoke, and I knew we were both thinking of the irony.

Soon, Abhinav came up behind me, and we led the way silently for hours, occasionally pausing to catch a glimpse of the others. Finally, we came to a spot where the vegetation parted to allow us a peek at the world we'd left behind. It was like looking at a city inside a snow globe; hazy, dreamy, with a hint of dual consciousness - we imagined ourselves looking up at how far we'd come and marvelled at the contrast.

The sun grew harsher. Although I missed the clouds and the drizzle from our Bandaje Falls trek, the netted sunlight created a unique mosaic of various greens; an autostereogram, which when viewed just right, would reveal the answer. I guess it would take a lot more trips to find it.

We came across a tiny grove, and took shelter from the torrid heat. The ground here was damper, and the breeze cooler. Everyone's faces wore a healthy pinkish tinge, and the exhilaration was visibly contagious. I hoped the destination arrived before this became an ordeal.

Suddenly, the trees vanished, and we were on a gravelly trail that curved towards a larger thicket of trees and grass. The mountain loomed up over us, and the clouds started rolling in. Bhattara Mane had to be close.

I paused just where the trail ended, and spotted a bunch of nymphalid butterflies sitting on a flowering body. They looked so still, yet so vibrant. I could sit and stare at them for hours, pondering about how the smallest flaps of wings contoured our stormy lives.

"For in the end, you're a short-lived spark in an infinite brain... 
But the things you can do are insane... 
Like a butterfly and its hurricane..." 

Chapter - 4 : House Of Virtue

I put my rucksack down and went back for the others. The lightest of bags tend to become burdens on the soul during a trek. They were probably each feeling like Atlas, and I needed to take the planets off their shoulders. 

I hurtled down the path, sans the weight, and felt a rush of air that brought balm to my sweaty exterior, the cooling sensation trickling down to every cell in my body. The stragglers I was flying by looked at me like I was a monkey-deer hybrid. Soon, I had crossed everyone in our group - except Brij, Isha, Anurag and Rachana.

After passing almost a dozen groups, I saw Brij carrying two bags, with a visibly tired Isha in his stead. Anurag and Rachana were a little further, in the same formation. I took one rucksack from Brij and offered glucose water to all of them.

'Hawuchada?' Isha huffed out.

'Huh?'

'How much farther?' She composed herself and managed to articulate.

'Oh. Errr, I'd say, about...'

'Save whatever lie you're calculating for the next time I ask. Just stay with us.'

I nodded sheepishly and followed them. I thumped Brij on his back. 'Need me to take more of your baggage?'

'Every person's baggage is their own burden to bear, brother.' He replied sagely.

'Oh wow. We really need to get you to Bhattara Mane.'

I soldiered on ahead, occasionally singing encouraging tunes and quoting motivational quips. Hearing tired footsteps trudging behind me, I turned around and placed my hand on Brij's shoulder. 'Need more Glucon-D?'

'No thanks,' a strange girl responded.

'Yikes,' I withdrew my hand sharpish. 'Sorry, I thought you were my friend.'

'I'm not?' She pouted in mock despair, and then suddenly laughed. 'Figured as much. They're a little behind me.'

I waited for a minute and saw Brij coming up. 'Need more...'

'Yes,' Isha materialized like a genie and took the bottle from my hand, taking a huge swig and passing it to Brij. 'Come on,' she exhaled and sauntered on.

We all reached the butterfly spot, and Anurag appeared in a couple of heartbeats. We waited for Rachana, looking at the butterflies chasing each other across the sparse vegetation, winking in and out of sight like stars in the night sky.

The sun disappeared into the clouds yet again, and Rachana surfaced from the canopy below us, slowly gaining ground. We waited for her to reach us, and then together made our way to Bhattara Mane.

It was a bustling, yet gentle resting place. All the groups had gathered here. Sambar, rice and buttermilk were available, along with grassy hillocks sheltered by tranquil foliage, for well-deserved siestas.

I practically went snorkelling through the sambar rice till I had no volume left for buttermilk. Somehow I managed to down a few gallons of that too, and instantly my stomach felt like a bowling ball.

It was not to last, however, and in a few minutes I was hungry again. But the real climb still awaited us. I stretched out beside my companions, who had already assumed various feline positions in the grass. The breeze murmured through the grass, joining in with the soft voices of the various travellers who were living their own journeys, writing their own adventures - united by this common resting spot.

'Hey,' the girl I had bumped into earlier came up to me. 'I think the forest department permissions for Kumara Parvatha close in half an hour. Don't forget to get them for your group if you're doing the trek today.'

I showed her a thumbs up sign. She smiled and walked off. I looked at Anurag.

'Two minutes, bro. Give me two minutes, and then we'll leave.'

I chuckled and turned my gaze upon the group. Some were talking in tired but relieved tones, some were staring lazily into the sky, some were munching silently on biscuits and some were humming to themselves.

But everyone was smiling.


"Rest, 

For the woods have heard your tired sighs, 

And they sing to you to rest your eyes... 

Don't mind the sun, you'll miss it soon, 

For the clouds have heard your torrid cries. 

Rest, 

For tomorrow, you fly towards endless skies... 

Rest, 

And soon you'll hear lullabies, 

To calm you and your torrid cries... 

Don't mind the ground, you'll kiss it soon, 

When you lay down to rest your eyes. 

Rest, 

For tomorrow, you wake when morning dies... 

Rest, 

For the hills are very wise, 

They're tucked away by cloudy lies... 

Don't mind the climb, you'll dismiss it soon, 

When the woods carry you with lullabies. 

Rest, 

For tomorrow, you race for a fleeting prize... 

Rest, 

And I promise, tomorrow you will rise, 

To find that you bear all the dice... 

Don't mind the game, you'll ace it soon, 

When you're standing beyond the endless skies... 

Rest,

For tomorrow is the day for goodbyes..."

Photos, courtesy of Anurag Rastogi, Abhishek Nayak, Ayushi Bansal, Deepayan Dasgupta, Vedant Sapra and Abhinav Sethi.

Anjana's Blog : https://anjlifeexperiences.wordpress.com

Vedant's YouTube Channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_-wTP-OKAF6HskDOqSeREw

Vedant's Instagram Page : https://www.instagram.com/vedantsapra/