The Hot-Trek on Savandurga

October 19th...

·        What happens when 20 strong and hot girls step out to tame a Monolith together? – The Sun smiles brightly

·        What happens when difficulty level on a trek increases – We start conquering fear!

·        What happens when North-South meets each other in the game of Dumb Charades –  (un) moonji-lia-sum becomes Mughal-e-Azam, Bewafa becomes Pai-wa-fai and Rajathiraja becomes Raja-the-Raja :P

·        What happens when there is no Music system in the bus? – nothing! We will dance, anyways, even if its on the road ;)

Yes. All of the above and more - is what we really did in WOW’s fifth trek (my third one) to one of the largest monolithic rocks in Asia – Savanadurga.

Well, Bangalore has a strange problem with public transport and roads – sometimes its jampacked and at times, totally empty (with no single auto / bus to your destination). I was a victim of the latter when I had to reach Majestic to meet the WOW gang for the trek. Somehow, with God’s grace, managed to reach on time [5 minutes late, according to IST, is considered on time :P]. Thankfully, I wasn’t the last one [was the last-but-one] to reach to the TT. Met few old faces, many new and began the journey to Savanadurga, with a brief round of introduction to one another.

No music system in the bus, meant chatter-boxes continuously at work – and the troupe of 20 gals randomly started chitchatting in separate groups based on their comfort level. And here, we, the last benchers in the bus, got to interview our ‘Organizer-turned-first-time-WOW-Participant’ on her journey of trekking and BTC. And realized that real blood (donated to leeches) and sweat have gone in coming up with BTC and WOW! [these were interesting..willing to explore more of the inside stories ;)]

After breakfast and a small session of dance on the road (at a halt for recreational activities), we reached Savandurga.

The Rock and the t(r)echniques:

Savandurga, as the facts say, is one of Asia’s largest monolithic rocks. More details about the place here Wildlife includes bears and leopards (we did get a bear alert from one of the villagers at the base itself. Thankfully, we encountered none!)

Starting off - immediately after the Bear-Alert call!

The Rock - Photo courtesy: Ritu

The Rock 

The entire group was divided into 4 teams [for the first time I was in the Lead group! Yayy!:D], and we started climbing up. The Giant rock, with no proper route carved on it, makes it a core trekking activity (you really need some experienced trekkers in your group, to be able to figure out the right path. It gets tricky and a bit risky, otherwise!). This being a moderate level of trek (with a good amount of steep and no support whatsoever) was a real challenge and demanded diligent climbing and descending.

The technique is to bend your body towards the slant (bend forward like a bear while climbing up and bend backwards against the steep while descending). You also need to control your entire body on your calf muscles (demands a lot of calf strength). [Trekking is about fitness and techniques also -  you see! ;)]

The climb

The Descen

At places, even these techniques don’t work. The only option is to move with all your four limbs [climb up like some animal and while descending, you need to sit and slowly slide down]. {Now you know, why is it a ‘moderate-level’ of trek}. 

A tree-climbing somewhere in between the trek, aroused the ‘animal instinct’ in few of us and made it relatively easier to trek the rock ;)

Tree-climbing, just for a warm up :P

As we kept ascending, the sun kept shining gloriously at us, making it a Hot-trek (difficult to decide which one was Hotter – WOW or the Sun :P). After beating the heat, reaching the peak felt triumphant! Took a much-deserved break on the top – had a small group-photo session and then everyone dispersed to savor the Nature and the View, in their own sweet ways. Though the entire surrounding was dry, hot, and barren – the view of river Arkavathi (from the peak) and the green beyond it was a retreat. Happy that we were among the early birds for the day.  Spotted many other groups following our trail seeing us on the top :D)

Descend was a tad more scary this time. However, it successfully brought out the adventurists in us. With the girls helping and motivating each other, we got back to where we had started from – safe and sound. By then, the Sun started playing hide-n-seek with the clouds [and we were thankful it did not rain while descending]

Manchinabele Damn – Lunch time

By the time we reached the base, most of us were worn out due to heat and humidity. It was time for Lunch B-). Visited Manchinabele damn (only 1 girl in the troupe could pronounce this correctly!). Unfortunately, the entry was limited due to an accident that had taken place just a few days ago. Nevertheless, watching the serene waters of Arkavathi river was a breather. Had a small break near the damn and started out for lunch.

Damn view

For lunch, we halted at the same spot where we had our breakfast. Lunch toh aise kiya jaise koi shaadi par aaye the..The fact that Curd was available (after beating all of that heat) felt a great relief for few of us (read Tamilians!), and we mercilessly attacked on food. Owner-uncle looked genuinely happy serving food to the gang of girls (on enquiring, he revealed that he rarely found people emptying their plates so quickly and asking for more – which we did – like gluttons!)

Machi! Tamil-u teriyada,

Appo dumb charades la once again ra..:D

After enjoying a hard-core trek, and filling ourselves up with satisfying lunch – it was time for some Fun. By late in the afternoon, we reached the Big Banyan Tree, for chillaxing.

After brainstorming for games, we finally zeroed in on – Dumb Charades. Now, our WOW team had a small patalam (gang) of people hailing from Tamil Nadu [who happily ignored which group they belonged to, helped every other Tamilian in the game :P]. Loads of creative (literally out-of-the-box) Enacting happened to come to the Hindi movie titles and that triggered loads of laughter! These girls added a ‘Fun-element’ to the entire trip! :P. 

The day was truly a perfect weekend escapade – with a balanced amount of adventure, fun and chitchatting. We finally called it a day and started on our way to Bangalore. And yeah – what a Time Management! Everything went as planned and on dot time. By 5.30 in the evening, we were at Majestic (so you can ignore the 2 of us making it late to the TT in the morning :). With yet another promise of meeting up in future treks, we dispersed to our respective abodes.

Congratulations to Kiruba on her first trek as an Organizer:)

Congratulations to all the ‘first-timers’ (including you-know-who :P). You really did a great job :D

Author’s personal note..

Despite the tough climb, personally, this trek had been an extremely Peaceful experience (would have pestered people around me with this dialog again and again! :D). Reasons? I don’t know!

All I can say is, with such beatitude experience, trekking is turning into an addiction…

Cheers!

WOW stands for BTC World Of Women

The Braille, the language of feel, and their World of Fun!

The Braille, the language of feel, and their World of Fun!

‘KIIIDS’ – I yelled.

‘…what idea have you got about today’s program?’ – the ‘trainer-brain’ in me urged me to ask the kids of my team….

We were a group of 85 volunteers participating in the ‘Joy of Giving’ event at Fun World. The program was about assisting Visually Impaired [‘beneficiary’ henceforth] kids and adults for Joy rides @ the Fun World. The whole bunch of volunteers were divided into 4 teams; and paired with beneficiaries on 1:1 basis. The team that I belonged to [Chak De!] had only kids J [had to be so! especially with ME in it(wink, wink ;))]

‘We are gonna play games’ – was the collective reply. [Fair enough!]

‘So what kind of games do you usually play in school and home’ – I shot back at the already enthusiastic kids

‘Merry-go-round, jaara bande, swings…’ and few other names I’m not able to recollect [blame my poor technical knowledge in Kannada..didnot spend my childhood in K’taka :P!]

‘So, today..its gonna be similar games..but they will be much bigger, speedier and few will be slightly different’ […few imaginations already sketching…few smiles already lighting up!]

‘CHAK DEE’ – with a shout, a round of claps and whistles, we made a grand entry into the Park; thus kick-starting our Fun Event organized by ‘Gift-abled’ together with the Bangalore Trekking Club, Shree Ramana Maharishi School and few other volunteer groups.

Now that the rides were going to be relatively ‘bigger’, we started off  explaining few of the kids (including my beneficiary), the meaning of what ‘Big things’ mean. Touch-and-feel of the of a Giant wrestler’s arms (installed right at the Entrance) proved to be just the right activity for this!

With ‘Awe-struck’ ‘Surprised’ ‘Thrilled’ and ‘Happy’ expressions, the kids n elders, all moved on to the core rides.

She, me & the rides:

My pair was a 10-year old girl named ‘Gita’. A ‘chota-packet’ of talent and enthu, who has learnt Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam [still learning] and has given group performances in a TV channel!

On any other normal day, joy rides would mean ‘just-sit-n-enjoy’ stuff. Never cared about what direction / path a ride took..how many compartments did it have..where the supporting bars/belts are located..or even the shapes and sizes!

But today, the experience was something different! Explaining each ride with as much detail as possible - drawing directions in the kid’s arm, giving a rough imagination about the area a ride covered (via sound analysis, while we were waiting for our turn), comparing each ride to the best possible example she could relate to – was sort of, an eye-opening (and of course, my ‘mouth-opening’) experience. [my personal thrill was that - there was none to control the ‘chatter-box’ in me :D ‘touch-feel-talk’ was the key mode of communication with the Specially abled people, to make them understand the surrounding]. Even more thrilling was - when she took all the download from me diligently and we experienced all the rides in the same way! And as we started building that understanding between each other, the girl started asking for more n more; and we kept increasing our pace and Fun :D Thereafter, it was just jumping from one ride to another, meeting the rest of the group here-n-there, shouting, howling, clapping, whistling and ‘Feeling’ the rides - till the day was called off.     

    

Throughout the day, the Event was an energy-packed, thrilling and a Unique experience!                        

                                         

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The Philosopher’s note:

Frequently, I hear a saying in Kannada which translates to this – “Help done from one hand, should not be made known to another”. A saying which, I guess, most of us believe in.

However, the Fun world event modified this belief in me a bit. Volunteer activities such as these deserve to be promoted and publicized, of course, with the right intentions. It’s the events such as these that bridges all kinds of differences – old, new, abled, specially-abled – all coming together with a common purpose. And this time, it was simple – Have Fun! That’s itJ

And, if you closely look at your own life, come to think of this - We never needed support to live our own reality (each is better off with his own). It was only when we chose to move out, did we Reach out!

At the end of the day, we all are incomplete in some or the other way, and seek support when we truly dare to look beyond our limits! They pushed their limits and dreamed of making it to joy-rides, we just rendered them the support they needed to make this live.

Well, I know the stuff right above was more of a Social science, but equally important for me to let the world know :P The ‘Joy of Giving’ event was truly a joyful event, with a lot of take-aways that would surely count in life down the lane.

My take-aways from the Event:

1.      People, people and more people: Meeting new and old people, all for a common goal, was a very pleasant thing happening over this event. I had no clue, that an entire troupe of my ex-colleagues would also be a part of the volunteer group. Was taken aback, nonetheless, happy meeting them :P

2.      Awareness about the braille: At the end of the event, the entire group of volunteers and the beneficiaries had a gathering. Post the thank-you speeches, there was a brief session on how the braille works. [this was really something new and very knowledgeable!]. Watching the kids happily teaching the rest, about the braille was a kind of delight we get to perceive very rarely!

3.      The real million dollar smile: In the middle of one of the speedy rides, I casually checked with my kiddie beneficiary as to how was she feeling. The warmth and innocence that came with the response, was once again, a rare experience. That genuine expression of the kid, had the power to melt a hundred hearts – I was after all, just one [aint an exaggeration! U feel it, u believe it!]. And to get more of such an effect, I repeatedly checked on her feeling throughout the day :D [greed did this job, not I :P]

4.      Victory feeling: Got a chance to take an elderly VI lady Marisha’s feedback on the event, while on the way back home. As expected, she confessed that she did not want to be sympathized or pitied by other (read normal) people and was little skeptical about the entire event. And immediately she glows with a smile and admits – ‘but it turned out to be a lot of fun and I’m thankful I did not miss it. It was because people were there to support, that we enjoyed’. Yes – they just needed a ‘support’. We all need it at some or the other point of time, don’t we? And yes! This meant that the event was a Success – in its motive, purpose and in every way J So, kudos!

All in all, it was a day filled with fun, and something called as ‘Soul-satisfaction’. You name it as a ‘Social help’ ‘Social commitment’ or any other buzzing term. But for me, the ‘Joy of Giving’ was truly a joy given to me! A satisfaction that no money, flashlights, or glamour can buy.

Thanks to one and all involved!:) A special mention to the Organizers.

..A message to the ‘Heidi’ fan club:

To all the Heidi fans out there! I found a real-life Heidi in the girl I met :D. The way this little girl expressed ‘akka, nange thumba khushi agtaide’ [akka, I am feeling extremely happy] – felt as if little Heidi has jumped out of the book and manifested herself ;) :D

P.S: This post is a small dedication to my beneficiary ‘Gita’ – as a gift for her birthday [October 16^th]. A bundle of energy as she is, someday I hope to see her breaking some record in Dance. Prayers and wishes to all the specially abled kids and elders alike..

Cheers!

*Names of the beneficiary’s changed for protecting identity