Left Dadar Station late at night, on the illreputed Dadar - Amritsar Express. Illreputed 'coz its scheduled time exceeds the maximum time taken by all other trains, and ofcourse more of than not, this one is late itself.
Living upto its reputation, the train lost no time, in losing time. We were almost an hour late reaching Kalyan. 100% late. We reached 4 Hrs. late eventually, a total of 39 Hrs.
Day 1 : 4th May
Crossed MP in searing heat. There was 'Loo' in your face (Pun intended). To think of it, MP in summer is a tragic site. Miles and miles, of barren and sunbaked land thirstily look up. As if all this wasn't enough our train was the destined to stop at every village which had a semblance of railway station. That it also, stopped at a dozen other hamlets is another story.
[btw: did i mention that we were traveling in AC ;)].
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At this juncture I will introduce you to the cast:
from l to r :Avijit (aka Sexy) Has a style of doing things, that no one can emulate and a caustic sense of humor. Has a shapely @$$, which re-christened him. An omnipresent wicked grin, and an abundant flow of cash (more on that later), made up his front portion.
Anchit (aka Sports God) Has stamina. How much is not known, except he never ran out of it. Calm until ruffled, as Jajoo found much to his dismay. Utter perfectionist, he crax Acads, Sports and an occasional NP or DAC ;)
Shirish (aka Jajoo) A complete womaniser, with tinges of innocence, meant that he was easy and common target. Combed his hair more often than he drank water.
Shreyas (aka PornStar) Long hair, Pink Floyd fanatic, lives in Mallu land hostel, yet doesn't drink, dope or fag. An eye for girls, but far from being a skirt-chaser. Wont say more, else he can take my case as well.
Apoorva (aka Stud) Unbeatable zest for adventure, be it cycling from anyplace to anyother, fixing all of his own things. But cant work with a thing without spilling it. (no pun intended
).Devang (aka Vang) Straight-upward guy. Amazing musician and always a helping hand to have around. A 6' 3" frame, oops .. stick, was the perfect foil for Anchit. Another Floyd buff.
Rohan (aka Freshie) If you have heard of schools like Balmohan, Parle Tilak etc. , you can imagine what their cream is (or rather, what they think their cream is). That's Rohan for you. A cute smile, and a baby face to facade a Devil's Workshop [I aint saying that his mind is empty, in fact far from it], he also guess by the name C. Billa.
Mayur (aka PG or YZ) Quiet, No nonsense guy. Minds his own business. But has a flair, that is distinctly similar to Rajnikant, hence the name PseudoGult.
And of course, the Narrator / Sutradhar, or in case of this pic. the man behind the camera: Yours Truly.
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So in the train, I got to know these guys better. Being the senior, they showed some respect (Cough ! Cough !!), and that meant that I had some immunity from being teased. I left no chance to rag them, and get them to rag one another.
After a complete day in the train, I dozed off after departing from Mathura at about 0130, with an ab-delhi-duur-nahi satisfaction ...
Day 2: 5th May
... I woke up at 9, to find we had just left New Delhi. Train was stalled at NDLS for a little over 4 hrs. With a scheduled arrival at Ambala of 0930 hrs. , the attendant almost sadistically reminded us, that we were traveling by Dadar - Amritsar, and as a matter of belonging had to share his misfortune of being delayed on every journey.
At 1330, when we eventually pulled into Ambala Cantt. station, we had a task on our hands. With no travel arrangements to Kasol, we had to fix it as well as our lunch. Would we report on the 5th, was a question that was topmost on my mind, and nowhere near the tip of my tongue.
As luck, would have it, there was a Haryana Roadways strike that very day. Not to lose the oppurtunity, the private operators had hiked their rates. In Haryana, dealing with the local guy meant, 'No if, No But .... sirf JAT'. We ended up with all his terms. Atleast we were able to start by half past two.
We had hired a Qualis, and with 9 of us travelling alongwith the driver, 4 of us had to be cramped in the back of the vehicle. With solemn promises from the rest, that we would swap seats midway thorough the 10 hr. journey, we lost no sweat, then.
The roads gave us no rest and the winds gave us no respite.
Lapping town after town, and cross-checking it in the map, we crossed through 3 states before finally stopping after Mandi, to take Dinner. Since it was dark outside, I snuggled upto Anchit and had an hours' nap. We left the National Highway, that leads to Kullu and thereafter Manali, at Bhuntar. While NH 21 continues along the Beas Valley, we now crossed over into the smaller Parvati Valley (Parvati river joins Beas, somewhere before Bhuntar). 30 Kms. from there, we peered into the darkness for the Base Camp. As fate would have it, we reached the Base Camp at Kasol at 2340 Hrs. After hastily unloading and paying the driver, we rushed down a flight of steps and in ekdum-filmi-istly reported at 5 minutes to 6th May.
Little did we know that YHAI enforced lights-out at 2200 hrs. and that we would have to follow that for the coming days. More surprising was the fact that we did end up sleeping that eary every day, a heresy that hasnt been committed since.
We ended up filling up our forms partially at past 12 in the night. We realised that we had to sleep in tents at about that time ... Many more illusions were to be shattered. Also, this was about the time that we found out that we had no proof our having registered for the trek. All but one of us, had forgotten that we needed a particular printout with our reg. nos. that no one had remembered to carry along. Nevertheless that is a problem to be handled the next day, and the next posting ...
For the interested below are the maps of our jouney from
a)Ambala - bypassed Chandigarh - Bilaspur - Mandi - Bhuntar - Jari - Kasol &
b) Region where we trekked (More later .. )
And Google Earth Rocks !
