Strange Passions and Scared Conscience

I'm little nervous. This will be my first night trek.

I always find it to be amusing to lurk in the dark as the night falls and i have this liking for sodium vapour light. City becomes quieter with commuters passing by occasionally and the road will become ours to rule, i've even gotten crazy once when i was in Adambakkam in Chennai, running along the entire width of the road, to and fro several times along with my friends. 

But as the Tempo traveller entered the realms of Vishnu, it is a completely different story. No road or sodium light. Just pitch-black. In a vain attempt, tried to shoot a photo with the flash on, it did captured light bouncing off from some 200 metres, a tree, which appeared ghostly, and some bushes beyond that. We were able to see the outline of the hillock Narayangiri at some distance looking terrific in the dark void.

It was 11 in the morning on the D-day and I was packing my stuffs according to the check list i prepared the day before, listing down the items in a notepad which is now glowing bright on the Ideapad's LED screen. Im not a pack and go type, this checklist thing is a new found habit and i always love to travel light but the things i might need for a trek is a 30 item list and it made the rucksack heavy. I locked the door and started to the BTM bus stop, its a good 5 minutes walk from the house along the road adjacent to the lake road. It will be covered with tress but less than what we had four years back, afternoon sun's heat peering through the green patches, soggy air, will convert my shirt into sweat shirt! and the wet shirt sticking to the body is a very irritating thing. Today i'm sweating little extra because of the load on my shoulder. i so got to say it, Bangalore had got hot!

It was 8 that night when i was out for dinner. By walk. On the way to the Murali mess, an eat out place which exist in a slightly better condition than what it said, i asked Ganesh, when shall we leave. He said 'she too is coming'. I shot back asking, 'Rowdy'a?'. He continued saying 'we will pick her up in her place, then go to my place, there we will leave our bikes, i will fetch my luggage and we all will go to the pick-up point'. Scheduled time is 9:30 PM. I throwed an uncertain look at him asking, "all packed?". He gave an assuring, or rather flat answer, "it wont even take 5 minutes to pack the luggage". I was baffled why not he had spent that five minutes morning itself. I said Okay!? as we reached the mess. We had the usual serving, 4 Roti with two different subzis, an omelette for me and egg dosai for him. It was 8:50 when we picked up her and the engines roared back to life. After losing the way twice,phew, parked the bike in the allocated parking area few minutes after him. Saw him waiting near the stairs so waved at him to go ahead and watched him disappear as he ran up the stairs skipping a stair with each step.

It was 9.10 and we were still inside the C104, discussing all sorts of things required for the trip and a short photo session by Hari. He convinced me to leave behind the 1-ply king-size cashmere blanket, one set of clothes and the Angels and Demons Novel, saying that i wont need them anyway as it will be just one night and the book really raised a lot of questions. I wondered whether it was Dan Brown's specialty. All this time she was just standing leaning to the wall on the walkway which connects the entrance and the hall, me sitting on the Sofabed on the other side donning the rain cover over the rucksack. Hari and Harsha were packing their rucksack in front of the sofabed. Ganesh has not been seen for the last 15 minutes but for his voice echoing from his room replying for whatever asked.

It is a modestly bigger house for three of them, coming through the narrow walkway, the room on the immediate left is Hari's with door facing the hall, on the right is a fully furnished kitchen, which i think was last cleaned on the first day, equipped with Refrigerator, LPG Gas and stove, and the sink was never seen free of dishes. A really big hall which can accommodate two tempo traveller vans stopped side-by-side, rooms on both side, left is ganesh's and right is harsha's, next to hall is a porch separated from the hall by a beautiful full-size wood-glass patio door, which provides a view of the snaky service road inside the apartment. 

As we were about to leave the room, two words from hari fell on my head rather than on my ears. 'porom, yerurom', which means 'we go and we climb'. Ditched. I checked with him whether we will have any time to change our clothes. I was wearing Wonderblue sky-blue Jean and Red Full-hand round-neck T-shirt. He said "this is fine as it will be slightly colder their, besides there would be thorns and bushes and this Jean might protect you". I looked at them, both of them wearing Jean pant(Man, how jeans had changed the culture!) and she in her three-quarter spring pant with rib on both ends that accentuates the calf. Calf. Knee. Double-Ditched. Just then realized i have to put on the Knee band. Knee band is for weaker knee to keep it intact during too much stress on it, which i got as the result of playing basketball. Power Forward aka Post position, landing on the concrete floor after a rebound will exert the pressure equivalent to three times the body weight on the knees and ankles. Immediately ran inside Hari's room telling them that i got to wear the knee band. I saw them faces frozen in shock as i crossed them. It is 9:20 already.

She - "Hey, What happend?"
Harsha - ..!?!?
Hari - "Dey macha, mokka pOdatha da, vaa da. Knee band illana parvala vaa pOlam"
Moi - "Band pOdama yeruna knee pain vandurum da, 5 minutes kooda aavadhu da"

I was inside Hari's room and it was dark, made an vain attempt to search for the light switch assuming it should be there somewhere on the side of the wall the door is hinged to. 

Moi - "Where is the god damn  light switch da, nothing is visible here da"

Simultaneously i was reaching for the rucksack's front pocket zipper where i will keep the band, but nothing that my fingers touched made any sense to me. It was like touching some soft, silky surface. i struggled with my fingers all over the bag to reach the zipper or some end of that surface, but it seemed impossible. Luckily the door was not fully shut, i widened the gap so some light may spread inside, making it obvious to the eye to open the bag and take out the band. Along with the light came some more questions.

Hari: "Unmaileye Knee band thaan maatanuma illa .!!??!"

Moi: Laughed and said "Serious'a machan"

Saying that i dragged the bag to light. Triple Ditched. The shiny surface of the rain cover wrapped around the bag glimmered in the mercury vapor fluorescent tube's emission. Devastated, I looked at the bag as the grey matter in my brain begun to stimulate laziness, was thinking whether to remove the cover to take out the bands or just leave, when Hari again interrupted my thoughts.

Hari: "Seri va, van'laye maatikalam. Towel irukkulla!".

Harsha : ..!?!?
Moi : ..!?!?

Hesitantly came out of the room with the bag in hand and we marched towards the door. I Kept thinking about why didn't this band thing crossed my mind earlier, why did i wrapped the bag with rain cover we will be in the van anyway for the next 1 or so hour, why.. The frontal lobes urged me to cut the crap and come to reality. Will we catch the van, why didn't we start early, why did i come to ganesh's place anyway, i should have gone there directly, why... Awww, enough. I told my brain to focus. I'm standing in the hallway with her which connects the house to the staircase. In front of us are Hari and Harsha, starting to climb down the stairs. I looked at her as if asking she's coming. Before i think of what to do next, she stretched her right hand toward me and introduced herself saying her name, "Yamika", cutting the last syllable sharp. It reminded me that we weren't properly introduced yet and of a soap advertisement in which a girl pronounce a soap named "Chandrika". I wondered this is how to pronounce the name, i say it like 'kha'. I said mine and we shook hands. I went wrong again in expecting a firm hand shake but she did a palm pincher, wondered if this is because the first time we are talking but the brilliant smile said otherwise. I was about to ask her 'You...' that interluded with a voice from the distance. Raised my head toward the direction the voice came from and noticed it is Hari, telling me something.

Hari: "Rajamani, come da. we will go first, she will come with Ganesh".

Nice timing Mr.Harivelan, i thought. Meanwhile Ganesh is still inside his room packing his stuffs.
so much for the 5 minutes packing.
Moi: "Ok Yamika, See you there!". Then i left for the stairs to join them.

We reached the apertment service road. When i asked them how we get there, they said we will walk for 5 minutes to reach the exit gate, get an auto there and reach the boarding point in next 10 minutes. We reached the gate but to our bad found no auto-rickshaw there. I asked them if we will wait there or walk to the boarding point. Hari said in next 500 metres there is another auto-rickshaw stand, we might find some autos there. I throwed a glance at my watch and it is well around 9:30. We started walking wasting no more time. Some thought supervened my mind but i know it already.

It is going to be a Long Night.