Sitting in a bus from JoshiMath to Rishikesh , with headphones wired in , I got away from the window and looked at the people sitting around me. And it struck me! This is not going to come again. This time will pass. Soft music playing in my ears and I looked at my batchmates playing in the bus. All like a movie sequence with happy faces and a background music. I felt a lump in my throat and a sudden feeling of care for everyone around me. Even for those whom I had very little interaction with. It was all magical. Seeing all the smiles on the faces, the laughter, the fights, the singing, the games and above all, a sense of belonging, a sense of attachment. We were in the last phase of our trip and Rishikesh was our last destination. Time was flowing as fast as the river besides our camp. And instead of holding it, we decided to flow with it. To jump in it , to experience it . To feel it cold against our skin! To see if we can take it, to live through it.
It all started when a group of 60 retards decided to go on a week long batch trip. I was fortunate enough to be one of them. We never knew how this would turn out to be. We were all children trapped in the body of adults. For some , it was their first trip outside with friends. For others, it was their yearly routine. At the day of leaving, we boarded the bus from the institute to the station. A mere 6 km drive. Soon after reaching the station, people couldn’t resist their urges to capture these moments forever anymore. Cameras and mobile phones came out from everywhere. The other passengers on the station looked at us as if we were a totally different species. And we looked like one also. Wearing masks on the face (courtesy Swine Flu) and clicking selfies with a selfie stick. Weird.
But we never cared. It was our trip, our chance to explore and we couldn’t take it down for some puny humans. The train rides were eventful – events including being coaxed by eunuchs for money to nights loaded with songs and “mafia”. Finally we arrived in Haridwar. The weather was not what we expected. Still we managed to make the best of the city. A nightout that night and up we were for a bus ride to our next stop. For me, this bus journey from Haridwar to JoshiMath was the most tiring part of the trip. It was raining outside and the bus was dripping from inside. But one significant incident happened during that journey. At around 8-9 in the night, our bus stopped in the middle of the ghat. It was all dark outside. We came to know that a landslide had occurred and there were heavy stones lying on the road, blocking our path. Many people came out of the bus to help push the rocks aside but the rocks were like Gandalf’s order “You shall not pass”. Finally amidst darkness, rains and stones falling from top, we managed to clear the blocks. We came to know later that the landslide occurred just 10-15 min. before we arrived. This fact gave us the license to increase our coolness quotient and claim a ‘Near Death Experience’.
During the trip, we had amazing new adventures like skiing in auli, open cable car ride and river rafting in Ganges. Skiing was exciting but tiring, and river rafting was even more exciting and even more tiring. It was one hell of an experience. We didn’t realized it that time but rafting for 4 hours is a big deal. Incidentally, we had our bath in the Ganges on the day of Holi. We weren’t prepared for it but hell, after 4 years of being in an IIT, we have learned to do things which we are not prepared to do. I can go on and on describing about the trip but I think it’s better to take a break. It was a roller coaster ride. It was the trip which brought us closer. It was the trip which gave us scars and wounds. It was the trip which gave us many memories. It was the trip that mattered.
Looking back, I remember one thing very clearly. It was the night we were camping at the banks of the Ganges. The camp fire was over. Everyone was in their tents. I came outside. It was all silent. It seemed the sound of the flowing Ganga was the only constant thing. I looked up in the sky and wondered, Are we worth this? There were stars twinkling in the skies. The moon was on his prime. The wind was flowing slowly through my hairs. And I got my answer.
