WOW agent on a BTC night-trek to Nandi Range

Friday 18th April, at around 3.45pm:

The scene at Kempe Gowda bus stand, platform 12, terminal 3 was quite hazy. Both Captain Virander and I knew none of the participants that were to arrive. [ok! So Viru knew another guy, Varun, whom I hadn’t known!]. The rest were all gonna be – BTC first timers (most of them first-time trekkers too!).

After a rather vague introduction to each other, the group of 12 BTCians boarded the Chikballapur bus and landed at destination. Took an auto where we packed ourselves like primary school kids and reached a hotel near the base of our trek. Again, the evening snacks-time was little blur -> basically we all were on our own, randomly exchanging conversations while Capt Viru was busy with his own bit of  ‘organizing tasks’. Post snacks, we had a formal round of introduction / take-100-breaks assurance / Rules & regulations; and finally started walking towards the hill.

So, here ends the ‘vague’ part of the journey (that was pretty much expected among people all-new to each other).

Characters and Fun – will come, one-by-one. Read on:P !!

The Group - and the story...:)

At around 6.30 pm:

We started climbing. These 2 Odiya ‘jigri-dosts’ Anand and Rahul, alongwith Saurabh, opened up conversations straight by enquiring more about WOW treks – what kinda events, how are they organized, what levels and blah blah – which I answered with full pride (thanking that our leader was not anywhere around us – else we would get the same old ‘WOW-is-a-part-of-BTC’ blasting from him :P!). At the first pit-stop is when we all got into the core-trekking groove [all puffed-panted and warmed up!].

The difficulty level of the Nandi range is slightly moderate [with steep climbs at certain spots that will challenge your stamina]. Few stretches of bushy-walks are a slight relief in between the climbs - that will help you keep going. The  breeze of air at the open regions of the climb, were a bliss while the core workout was happening!

We continued climbing further, with few halts in between (and the guys discussing everything – from Visa processing, to bikes, to Swiss-bank, photography to topics I never understood and don’t remember at all!). It grew dark as we reached the base of our destination-peak. We had another halt there. And Neeraj aka Neer opened up the topic on grave encounters. A little scared I was with all this, but Neer’s opening of the story with ‘once there was a couple – a girl and a guy’ convinced me it was gonna be a ‘comedy of horrors’! :D After 2 stories, we continued climbing further, and surprisingly reached the peak at around 9.15pm (almost an hour earlier than planned), despite sufficient breaks – yayy! An achievement :D!

The Peak &  the Ice-breaking session:

We settled down, had a nice view of the civilization down-there, enjoyed the short drizzle, had a photo session; and then gathered  for another round of ‘knowing-more-about-each-other’. We had more than sufficient time to kill and we did that efficiently by talking a range of topics - ‘I am Rachit from Kashmir, but I am not a terrorist’; ‘My name is Rahul, but I am not SRK’; Vijay, Abhishek, Neer & Rachit’s sincere Job descriptions; Viru’s love affair with Harley; Neer’s list of girlfriends and his designer role with Allen Solly; Saurabh’s ‘state-of-confusion-in-life’ and so on and so forth. Now-and-then, poor Rachit had to ‘remind’ people to talk more about ‘themselves’ and ‘why did they decide to trek’ and that this was not a job interview :P. Post this session, we changed our spot to a more closed one (for dinner) and had nice Maggi-break.

Campfire - post the dinner :D

12:00 am : Camp-fire and the ‘blast’ :D

After dinner, we collected dry woods from the surrounding; and then lit the camp-fire. And with the camp-fire, the load of fun began!

Fun phase 1: BTC’s traditional ‘first-timer’ ragging session:

Varun, Viru and I (being the only oldies in the group) – called out the freshers one-by-one for dance performance. We realized that we again had a bundle of talents, when the freshers (after a bit of hesitation) finally came in full form, and freaked themselves out dancing to the extent of ‘Baby-doll’ moves [baby-doll = Rachit’s initiative]. That was later followed by Neer's spontaneous acts of proposing the camp-fire [he actually proposed the camp-fire in a brilliant flow of apt dialogs] blowed our minds off :D

Aratrik, stole the show with his act of proposing Viru in a gay-style, his dialog – “Upar chaand hai, neeche aag (pointing to the camp-fire, of course). Ab bol bhi do” became the highlight of the entire trip! :D [poor captain, had to openly declare that he’s straight! :D]

The dance-club (or the Club Baby-doll, if you want to call it) closed at around 1.30 am [no strict deadlines as such, just that we audience – Varun, Akshay, myself and Saurabh started getting little bored of watching repetitive moves]; and we moved on to playing dumb-charades.

Fun phase 2: Dumb-charades:

The guys, high on fun-dose by now, displayed their brilliant acting talents. Rahul's ‘Chickoo-ko-hindi-me-kya-bolte-hain’ wala acting; Anand's 'book-reading' for 3 continous minutes (that kept us totally blank throughout); Rachit’s  ‘monkey’ing around (until Aratrik rightly came across the word ‘Forest’); and Vijay acting ‘Baba Ramdev ki Jai’ (on a totally unrelated movie title) – were some of the highlights! :D

None gave up on distracting the other with funny comments and guesses, but finally we won:P [we = the team of Rachit, Rahul, Anand, Neer, Aratrik and myself \m/].

After an hour of a hilarious session, few decided to sleep. The rest of us moved onto a new game ‘Maafia’

Fun phase 3: Maafia:

With the first 2 failed attempts of the game [considering that most of us were new to it], we finally took form and had an amazing time playing the 3^rd and the 4^th round. Aratrik and Abhishek took the role of god by turns and the gods played really awesome! Rachit (the target always), Rahul (the next target always:P), Saurabh, Abhishek and Anand’s debates got so intense; that towards the end Viru woke up from his sleep [probably to check on what was going on :D]. Whilst 'I' had a good time watching the guys standing in a circle, arguing like school boys over a damn-little game:D The heated debate abruptly silenced down only when Varun's sudden snore scared the hell outta us!

Time passed..It was close to 4.00 a.m. [which meant there was still time left]. We dispersed again, few to our original peak spot (where we had dropped our bags), and few to the other ends of the peak. In few minutes, everyone started dozing off one-by-one. Well, I did not want to be the only watchman in the troupe, and so I started waking up people one-by-one without letting them sleep [thankfully the pro photographer Varun (still half-sleepy), got instantly hooked to his cam with Rahul and Neer as his models]. Anand, Saurabh and Vijay did a hide-and-sleep every now-and-then; waking up, changing places, looking here-n-there, and sleep again –  and it was all kiddish and fun, till the dawn finally broke :D [BTCians – please note -> Captain Viru again slept; failing all of Varun’s and my attempts of waking him up!]

Breaking dawn, the Sun-rise and the Descend:

After spending the long 9 hours on the peak, (by somehow keeping the folks awake for the last 2 hours)..the Light finally dawned in. We all hopped towards the East side of the peak, and witnessed a beautiful sun-rise. The early-morning view was just mesmerizing .... spectacular...and in Neer's words 'pure Happiness' !! :-)

After another photo-session, we packed our bags and headed down-the-hill. Descend, again was much earlier than expected (with sufficient breaks). We had our breakfast and a feedback session, reminisced all the 'comedy-of-errors' that had happened since the last evening; and then headed towards Bangalore with hopes and promises of meeting in some other trek, some other day / evening...

Breaking - Dawn!

....And then a Beautiful Sunrise - pure Happiness...

And thus, Me - the only WOW member in the group had an amazzzing time watching a crazy BTC 'world of men' on the top of a hill, rejoicing their 'first-trek-ever' (that took me down-the-memory-lane of Rayakottai - my first ever trek); while side-by-side I was accomplishing my own purpose and personal challenge I had set from this trek :)

Descend - after a memorable experience! :)

Wouldn't be exaggerating if I say that, every moment of this trek was purely 'childhood thrills re-lived' :) B-)

Virander - you deserve all the credits for managing pretty much everything single-handedly. Hats off and thank you!

To all the other guys - you did a splendid job as first-timers, and thanks for the sporting spirit shown, ensuring a safe-trek for the entire group :)

And finally,

Trust I still have a long way to go, and loads to learn yet, but I'd like to pause and make a special mention to Captain Ajju and Kriba (WOW Organizers), for having hand-held me in my initial steps of trekking l! :) It felt unbelievable to have moved beyond the 'first-timer' feeling! :)

Cheers!

Swatz

P.C: Varun Shankar

Trekkers on a Night to Twin-hills: the Kaurava hills

Late in the afternoon – Bangalore was painted in an Eastman color {due to rains}. It was gonna be a lazy rainy evening. While the majority of Bangaloreans would have planned to chill indoors with some hot cuppa kaapis; few BTCians were gearing up for something different – chill out ‘up-the-hill’….

Satuday, 12th April:

At around 7.45pm: 20 members [some old, some new] out of the shortlisted folks gathered at terminal 3, platform 12 of the Kempe Gowda bus stand, for the Chikkaballapur bus. We randomnly introduced each other and boarded the bus [at 8.20pm]. Bus journey was fun, with the BTCians scattered around, carrying our typical BTC culture – of eating, talking, and helping others too! :P Reached destination at around 10.20pm.

Our adventurous journey began…

    …with a 5km walk, before we could reach the hill. Walking under the moonlight was, the least that one could say, a ‘bbbbeautiful’ experience! During the walk, we had 2 halts in the middle of the road – once, where a formal introduction happened. The second halt was amazing with exploring more people-stories, and realizing we had a bunch of real ‘extremely’ talented people among us [literally to the ‘extreme’, cz one guy - Kishore, could even balance a bicycle on his chin – now think about that! Entertainment had begun with all of us joking around, and Kishore singing a song for us. Post this, we continued walking and reached the base.

At the base, we met 3 more trekkers who had decided to join us uninvited – whether we liked it or not, 3 Doggies - who scared the hell outta Garima and me – and made the entire trek for the 2 of us more ‘challenging’!

The up-hill Climb:

     The Kaurava hills are a mix of a steppy terrain till the Shiva temple, and then a more steepy-rocky one beyond the temple [would remind you of Savandurga, if you have done it before]. We had to collect dry sticks on the way (for the campfire) since there were bare chances of finding any at the top. Starting with the given task from the base itself, we climbed upwards – helping each other, chitchatting, exploring more stories, Garima and I avoiding the doggies, and pulling each others’ legs.

The Shiva-temple [during the descend]

     Had a halt outside the Shiva temple – where we tried to dig out the history behind the name given to this pair of twin hills – why is it named Pandava and Kaurava hills. Of course, the discussion turned out hopeless and shortlived when people started mixing the Pandava exile with Rama’s exile. We gave up and decided to climb further – the more challenging path!

     The sticks on one hand and torch on the other added to this challenge. However, the guys adopted a nice way of making a ‘counter-system’ that made our climbing task easier :P . At some tough junctures, Ankit and Vikram were already present with Ankit calling out ‘sticks dedo, torch dedo’and Vikram calling out 'haath dedo' [kidding guys :D :P]. We had to deposit our stuff there, climb, collect our stuff back and climb further! [I kept wondering how did these guys reach even before us, when the last I had seen them was walking behind us!].

Funny enough, but this really ensured we all climbed safely without letting the sticks, torch and the doggies bothering us much :P So, Kudos!

The Peak, Campfire, the dance-masti, the ‘Crush-night’:

     Reached the peak at around 1.30 am. It was time for Maggiiieeee. And this is when our all-silent organizer, Channa, showed his hidden talent – of cooking Maggie on the camp-fire :P Soon after enjoying the noodles, the group gathered around the camp-fire to start the ragging session for the first-timers. The first timers easily broke the ice by dancing freely, giving solo performances too!. This later followed dance performances by the rest of us (including the organizers):P

     After done with our dance jig, the group settled down for a brief photo session. There was still enough time left for the sunrise [it was around 3.00am], and we decided to kill the time by starting a ‘different’ kind of talking round. Each one of us had to talk about either our first crush, best-crush or love-story [yeah..U missed it!]. As expected, most of them were tragedies, some were beautiful success-stories; and the best was Ramya’s complan-crush story (again a tragedy, but funny:P) [please catch hold of the girl for her story :P]. Sangamesh gave the session a very meaningful closing by suddenly announcing – ‘ab jisko rona hai ro lo’ :D Ironically, sab log has diye :P

Camp-fire

     (Whether it was the after-effect of revealing their tragedies, or was it that they were really tired) some of the folks (even organizers Abhishek, Channa and Virander) decided to take a nap, soon after the story telling session. The rest of us dispersed for exploring the nature’s beauty in our own sweet ways.

     Sky gazer as I am  - just loved watching the starry sky spotting shooting stars, satellites and constellations – along with Kriba and Monu; when others were having a gala time near the camp-fire :P.  Soon, we got a call for coffee-time, and our coffee makers: Ankit and Sangamesh served us nice cappuccino – early in the morning at around 4.00am – a nice experience [folks! Please don’t miss watching Ankit preparing coffee and Sangamesh boiling milk with sheer diligence, whenever you get a chance :P]

Sunday, 13th April - The Sun-Rise:

     Finally, it was time for ‘the moment’ of the trek to arrive. The stars started to fade away as the early hints of the dawn broke. Krupa, Monu and I shifted to another spot on the rock towards the East. As it started getting little brighter, the group spread themselves at their convenient spots waiting for the sun-rise.

     We passed our time simply gazing at the different hues of the light on the sky and having deep conversations. The conversations between Kriba, Monu and I went so deep that we did not notice that Channa was sitting somewhere around us to have some solitude; until he ran away [perhaps we were too loud, and he was unable to tolerate our talks any more :P]

The breaking dawn!

     Shortly  – “the moment” arrived and with the Sun beaming up, we all gave a loud howl, and then gathered for another round of photo session - all happy and cheered up . Did a brief exploration around the peak for a little while [explored an echo-point too ;)] and then geared up for the descend

Descend and the walk to Bus stop:

     Before the heat could beat us, we packed our bags and started to descend. The doggies too followed us , after having a nice night-out! Organizer Channa was at his ‘whistling-best’, and he kept on blowing his whistle at regular intervals, gathering us trekkers together like some goatherd [this was, of course for group photo-sessions, not that we were wandering like goats!!]. Finally we reached the base – safe, sound, successful; and started walking towards the Chikballapur bus stop (the same 5km that we treaded the previous nite)

Descend from the top!

Walking back to the bus-stop :)

     As this walk was post the ascend-descend, we ensured that we were at our ‘nautanki-best’ in order to keep the tiring feeling away. Right from having a running race (with Krupa and Abhi); to doing a group ‘Lamb-dance’ that looked like a funny March-past; to photo-sessions at grapevine and some randomn well; and our super-talented Kishore showing a balance-act with a cap – the return walk felt entertaining and lighter! This time we had three pitstops – one for feedback, second for breakfast and the third for ‘naariyal paani’.

     Reached bus stop, finally! Boarded the Bangalore bus, landed at Majestic – all too wearied that we were unable to even talk. Our farewells were just handshakes and nods with sleepy eyes – the rest was understood. :)

Once again –

A biiig thanks to Channa and Viru for the wonderful planning and execution.

Abhi, Krupa and Sangamesh – your support was incredible! [except that Abhi slept the whole night :P]

Kudos and Thanks to every fellow trekker for making each other feel safe, entertained and creating ‘yet another wonderful BTC memory’ J

For all the crazy and 'different' stuff we did throughout our journey, I’d like to iterate a line by organizer Abhishek, from a previous BTC blog (the Mighty Century):

“Its not always about meeting like-minded people. Sometimes, its just about people who are like-mindedly crazy :P”

Cheers!

Swatz

Photo Credits: Organizer Channa

Wander-birds in the night: Night-Trek to Makalidurga

Filmon ki tarah,  kuch Real-life ki adventurous kahaniyan bhi ‘almost-miss hone wali train ko time-par’ pakadne se hi shuru hoti hai! Hum chaar log - Sreemoyee, Sucheta, Shilu n meri night-trek wali kahaani bhi kuch aisi hi shuru hui……

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5.50pm: (Shilu n me - at Majestic bus-stand) Chal! Time par toh pahunch jaayenge. 6 ko milna tha na.? Any idea train kab hai? After a slight pause- 6.10 ko shayad…(skeptical look at each other) OH SHI**.. literally ran outside the bus-stand!!! (and then..after a failed attempt at the barricade-jumping) Yaar..under-pass lena tha. Yahaan toh pura U-turn marna padega. No time for analysis! Just run!

6.00pm: (somehow..inside the station puffing and panting!) Canara Bank ATM kahan hai? [Canara bank was BTC's assembly point] Shayad wahaan..there are many ATMs over there..’hey hi’ {Sreemoyee appears from no-where, in her ever-cool n yo-dude avatar --- totally unaware that we were actually running late}. ‘Where is Canara bank ATM?’ [all 3 in chorus]. ‘where are the rest’ (again in chorus!). all 3 were clueless. Ajita ko call lagao!. (after a quick call)Platform 8 par aana hai! Train at 6.10! confirmed! Hurry up! [and we pull Sreemoyee in our run]

[somewhere close to 6.15’ish]: (still running)..Yaar..train miss na ho jaaye..(fingers crossed - relied totally on Indian Standard Railway timing and prayed the train gets late). Tension situation. (bhaagte-bhaagte) ‘bhaiyaa platform 8 elli?’ – and we blindly trust the guy & run to where his finger pointed to. Time kya hua? (no answer). almost near platform-8. Phew! koi train khadi hai..Sree spots a familiar girl ‘hey, that’s WOW girl ..WOW girl’ (it turned out to be the same girl who overtook us when Shil n I were attempting barricade-jumping to get to the Railway station. :D)

BTC junta kahaan hai? (now 4 pairs of eyes meet quizzically!) Dunno, but they are somewhere around here. Ye wali train hi hai na pakka (Hindupur rail)? lekin baaki log kahaan hai? BTC ka ek banda bhi nahi dikh raha!  [one more call to Ajita and confirm]. Get inside. [somehow knowing that we 4; and the rest of the BTC folks were at totally opposite ends of the train, (and that the train was just about to start) we decided it wise to ensure we were got 'inside’ the train first – meeting&greeting could be done even at the destination]

We 4 climb into some random bogie (away from the rest of the folks) just-in-time! Catch our seats. And the train starts! PHEW!! We breathe out a sigh of relief and give each other a  ‘woh-kya-tha’ wala expression, followed by a  burst of brilliant laughter [the last few minutes had been a real commotion - totally filmy - one slight wrong decision - and the 3 would have missed it!!]….nevertheless, we consoled ourselves saying that we were meant to make it - 'Sab likha hua hai' :P..our journey had already started an ’adventurous' way - bhaagte bhaagte…. :D

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Makalidurga Railway station [at around 7.45pm]:

Reach Makalidurga. Finally, meet the gang (giving a big relief to the Organizers). Had a brief intro round and started walking close to 20 minutes to reach the hill-base. The sky was already clear and starry. Surrounding was perfect serene and silent. and weather - just pleasant. It was comparitively darker due to crescent-moon. With  our torches on, we started ascending as per the sequence planned by the organizers.

trekking -up

The gang - On the top!!

The trek-path here mostly has large stones [you need to watch out for loose stones - that you might tumble upon] Few tumbles here n there did occur that urged our Captain Ajju to keep looking out for any 'retired-hurt' at every break :P [Thankfully, none!]. As we were comparitively a huge number [close to 30 people] - we kept the pace moderate [and focussed more on the whole team being together and safe]. Took sufficient breaks -- had breath-taking views -- did our regular leg-pulling sessions -- @times totally silent (listening to the crushing dry leaves as we tread uphill) -- played with torch-lights -- and thus accomplished the rather tiring climb to the peak..

Peak & Dinner-break:

It took close to 2.15 hours to reach the peak. By then, it turned pitch dark (only torch lights helped). The team now safely dispersed in our respective sub-groups to explore the surrounding. The peak has a small Shiva-Nandi temple, totally ruined remnants of a fort, and a pond beyond a broken wall. The rest of the area is just rocky.

After a while, when our hunger-pangs turned obvious - we gave up our detective-giri and all assembled at a common spot for the much-awaited - DINNER time!

Tough job! Great job - guys! ;) ;)

While the guys gathered around the fire to 'cook-food' (read: 'boil water' :P); the gals enjoyed watching them and eating up the snacks (read: 'starters') that were left over after the climb :D. Highlight was our 'Master Chef' Umang who cooked 'bread-maggi' and almost took Sucheta's life with the dish! :D {Lesson: if you've not lived a hostel-life, you are most likely to not appreciate weird food-combos :P}.

Camp-fire & Dostana-style Lungi dance :P

By the time we finished our dinner it was close to the zeroeth hour. The weather slowly turned freezing chill [apt time for a camp-fire]. We lit the camp-fire and started our 'fun-activities'. Fun began with our Organizer Ajju (supported by Virander also :P) ragging the first-timers among guys for dance. The guys were a real sport and entertained the entire team with their talent ;)

The camp-fire : our saviour in the chill night !

Antakshari me laga di 'Ma' ki: [before you judge this title, please read below ;)]

Post the dance numbers - we started the traditional BTC game - Antakshari  {Boys v/s Girls this time, going by the trek's theme}! 

The game that started just as a game - turned into a 'word-war' with each side bending & breaking rules - arguing and accusing each other of cheating (that we actually did :P) - proving / disapproving the existence of few songs (that were never heard before) -- All this, just to ensure that the opponent gets only the letter 'ma' to sing from :D.

3 hours went by only singing songs from 'ma' :D This session was truly hilarious and fun!

Descend:

Both the sides almost exhausted our list of 'ma' songs - and started to lose interest in the game (after a 3 hour non-stop galata :D). The descend was to be started at 4.45 am, and very less time was left for starting off. After a short story-telling session (by Captain Virander's on his escapades to haunted houses), and back-packing activity, we started to started to descend.

The morning got misty and chill. Descend was more silent than ascend (probably cz we all were half-tired, half-sleepy after a sleepless night) It literally felt like we were some notorious ghosts escaping to peace after a terrific night! We still needed the torch-lights as it was dark. It was still all calm and serene. 

After a good 1.5 hours of descend - helping each other - figuring out the right way -- we reached the base right at breaking dawn [6.15am].

Back on Track:

After a short photo-session, we were made to walk on the railway track by Captain Virander till the station. This too, was, a new experience - experienced the ever clean Indian railway tracks and its aroma :P

Hum jo chalne lage, chalne lagen hain ye raaste....B-)

Reached station. Had a short feedback session. Kept waiting for the train to arrive.

Farewell:

Train arrived {late by an hour}. Team dispersed - after successfully accomplishing the 'first-of-its-kind' & memorable event from BTC...[once again proud to have been a part of this :)}

No matter how crappy, busy, mechanical your weekdays are - a weekend with BTC - and your world changes!

Credits:

A biig thanks to Captains Ajita and Virander for having thoughtfully planned and organized the event. Congratulations on its success :):). Thanks to each and every fellow trekker for being a sport. Team work - was excellent!!

Photo Credits: Ritu P, Ajita and Girish

Cheers!!

Swatz...