THIRTEEN IDIOTS
We got down in the holy town of kollur. From there we a took a bus to entrance of the trek route.
Initially the route was little uneven in the sense there would be steep up for a long time then we had a down.(only later did we realize that this was pretty easy compared to what we had to face ahead ).Soon we realized that we were not alone .The forest had sent only one particular creature to welcome us .Any wild guesses with regard to what it can be ??????Leeeeeeeeeachh(leach).in-spite of the precautions taken by us they some how managed to break all the barriers and accompany us. They were in love with two people specifically:jogi and G**. Jogi I can understand ,he didn't wear shoes. But Mr. “you know who”(G**) had worn thick socks and shoes,but in spite of that at least 5-6 leaches managed to kiss him. We know that he has affinity towards the mosquitoes,XY of homo sapiens but now even leaches. Hope he has not lost his v******** due to them ;if at all he was one till then. Then some “brilliant” people suggested that to prevent leaches from biting shoes we should ditch our pants and shoes and were sandals and shorts instead.(Reasoning:we can at least see the leaches after they bite us!!!!!!!!!!).Strangely we finished 60% of food stock within the first 3 km of the trek itself. we got divided into three groups according to our walking speeds. we would occasionally stop for taking pics or for emptying our tanks. finally we reached our first pit stop after covering 4 km which was a small shop made out wood and dried coconut branches. We had refreshment in form of lemon juice and buttermilk. Then we met some cows on the way ,4d was busy staring themmm. After some time we encountered a rural school right in between the forest and close by there was a shop where we had our second pit stop. The easiest part of our journey had been completed and the challenging part was yet to come.
The route became narrow and was filled with rocks and small stones making it hard for us. some times thick bushes and trees were surrounding us in the dense dark forest or we would come across open fields were sun shone brightly. we weren't very happy to go out in open sunshine(not because we were bitten by vampires!!!!!!!!!!)as we would get dehydrated quickly. Bhatta was in the thick of things when we were taking photos(he would pose for a photo every 10-15 min;proof:check the trip photos on face book and show me a pic in which bhatta is not there (except the non human ones or the ones in which teja is there).Best part of the trip was when we were climbing the hills. it was a gorgeous view we could get to see. Lush green hills standing tall and adjacent to each other and the sunlight mixing up with dust and forming a heavenly bliss up there,something I wont ever forget. Suddenly teja gets sick and starts vomiting.(before your thoughts go in some direction let me make it clear that it was just because of the deadly combination of the banana and the lime juice).Finally after much hard work we reached Bhattare Manne(a hotel kind of place beside a temple).we rested for a while in that place.
Instead of having bath in that place we decided to do something adventurous,that was to take bath in a waterfalls in a nearby place. The owner asked us to follow a pipeline that would eventually lead us to the so called “waterfalls”. On the way we got to see a beautiful scenery from top of the hills. I could not believe what I saw,i could see clouds below the hill on which I was standing,something I was not accustomed to(have always seen clouds above me).then we started tracking the water pipeline to get to the waterfall pipeline lead us deep inside the forest and it was quite dark in there and really started doubting whether it would lead us to the waterfalls. but after some time some of us hit a masterstroke, they found the “waterfalls” which was a tap from which water was coming out rapidly. All of us were pretty disappointed as it took us a lot of effort to get to that place ,but ss,4d and jogi didn't loose hope and followed a water stream which might have led to a waterfall. They were brave enough to follow the trial merely by walking down the water stream while we came from a safer mud route in the forest. Finally we did not get a huge water fall as such ,but it was about seven feet, long enough for us to take a bath. we had a small cheddi party there and many of us got in to the cheddi mode except some few shy people like me and Don nath. We had fun having bath in the ice cold water there but at the same time every one was getting afraid of being seduced by some one. This was the only time in the trip where Bhatta himself put a “BAN ON PHOTOGRAPHY”. Later we headed back to our base camp in darkness.
What do I say about the dinner...... all I can say was that it was a FEAST not a dinner. By saying Feast
Nobody bothered about the 5.45 deadline(our lazy instincts over came our enthu) and got up around 7-7.30.we quickly had our breakfast and decided to go to the Shankara Peetha which was the topmost point of the hill (also the topmost point in kodachadri) .we had to do a little bit of climbing to go till there.
Reaching that place was an achievement as I reached peak of something,may not be something like Mt. Everest,it will be written in “My book of records”.It was afternoon when we reached our base camp. We started packing our bags and took some last moment pics. We decided take the jeep route
Some interesting questions:
Starring:4d,
shik, ss ,kk, G**,aks ,me,Don Nath ,jogi ,bhatta ,teja and pd
Written
by:me
Produced
by:all 13 of us
Directed
by:shik
Disclaimer:The characters in this film are not
fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or not dead is purely
not coincidental and we do not regret for any inconvenience caused in any form.
Third
sem was nearing its dawn with its “DON”(referring to the most important event
of every sem i.e the END SEM).before we could get over this painful procedure
we already started discussing about the
stress
busting trek. it would a complete test of the body in the sense,we already had
a mental test and we would have a physical test soon after. Anyway I was pretty
excited as it would be my first “trek”.
Trek
got postponed by about 10 days thanks to the very good Enthusiasm shown by my
friends. Finally
the
trek took place on Saturday 5th December. Most of us were
“supposed” to assemble at the service Bus stand at “8.15”(IST).i was punctual
for the first time and reached at eight .But Mr.”You know who”(I mean Mr G** (D
S)) delayed our start by about 45 min. Then we took a direct bus to kollur.
I
sat in a three seater with kk and Mr. you know who. The bus journey of about 3
hrs was initially spent in discussing the probable pointers every one could
get. PD was on every ones hit list as he failed to secure ten only in one
course.4d was busy asking for other peoples phone to drain their phone
bat-treys in order to listen to music.
We got down in the holy town of kollur. From there we a took a bus to entrance of the trek route.
The
beauty of the western ghats was unfolding as we climbed up the the ghat
section. we could get a mesmerizing view of the other hills and the land at the
bottom once we were at the top. To add this there was the lush green cover of
the trees,plants,small waterfalls in the ghats. Finally we got down at the trek
route entrance. There was a signboard which showed that our destination was 0
km away. on careful observation we noted that the '1' preceding the the 0 had
faded. so we had to trek 10 km up the hills which was a challenging task for a
person like me who has not walked 10 km in one week also.
Initially the route was little uneven in the sense there would be steep up for a long time then we had a down.(only later did we realize that this was pretty easy compared to what we had to face ahead ).Soon we realized that we were not alone .The forest had sent only one particular creature to welcome us .Any wild guesses with regard to what it can be ??????Leeeeeeeeeachh(leach).in-spite of the precautions taken by us they some how managed to break all the barriers and accompany us. They were in love with two people specifically:jogi and G**. Jogi I can understand ,he didn't wear shoes. But Mr. “you know who”(G**) had worn thick socks and shoes,but in spite of that at least 5-6 leaches managed to kiss him. We know that he has affinity towards the mosquitoes,XY of homo sapiens but now even leaches. Hope he has not lost his v******** due to them ;if at all he was one till then. Then some “brilliant” people suggested that to prevent leaches from biting shoes we should ditch our pants and shoes and were sandals and shorts instead.(Reasoning:we can at least see the leaches after they bite us!!!!!!!!!!).Strangely we finished 60% of food stock within the first 3 km of the trek itself. we got divided into three groups according to our walking speeds. we would occasionally stop for taking pics or for emptying our tanks. finally we reached our first pit stop after covering 4 km which was a small shop made out wood and dried coconut branches. We had refreshment in form of lemon juice and buttermilk. Then we met some cows on the way ,4d was busy staring themmm. After some time we encountered a rural school right in between the forest and close by there was a shop where we had our second pit stop. The easiest part of our journey had been completed and the challenging part was yet to come.
The route became narrow and was filled with rocks and small stones making it hard for us. some times thick bushes and trees were surrounding us in the dense dark forest or we would come across open fields were sun shone brightly. we weren't very happy to go out in open sunshine(not because we were bitten by vampires!!!!!!!!!!)as we would get dehydrated quickly. Bhatta was in the thick of things when we were taking photos(he would pose for a photo every 10-15 min;proof:check the trip photos on face book and show me a pic in which bhatta is not there (except the non human ones or the ones in which teja is there).Best part of the trip was when we were climbing the hills. it was a gorgeous view we could get to see. Lush green hills standing tall and adjacent to each other and the sunlight mixing up with dust and forming a heavenly bliss up there,something I wont ever forget. Suddenly teja gets sick and starts vomiting.(before your thoughts go in some direction let me make it clear that it was just because of the deadly combination of the banana and the lime juice).Finally after much hard work we reached Bhattare Manne(a hotel kind of place beside a temple).we rested for a while in that place.
Instead of having bath in that place we decided to do something adventurous,that was to take bath in a waterfalls in a nearby place. The owner asked us to follow a pipeline that would eventually lead us to the so called “waterfalls”. On the way we got to see a beautiful scenery from top of the hills. I could not believe what I saw,i could see clouds below the hill on which I was standing,something I was not accustomed to(have always seen clouds above me).then we started tracking the water pipeline to get to the waterfall pipeline lead us deep inside the forest and it was quite dark in there and really started doubting whether it would lead us to the waterfalls. but after some time some of us hit a masterstroke, they found the “waterfalls” which was a tap from which water was coming out rapidly. All of us were pretty disappointed as it took us a lot of effort to get to that place ,but ss,4d and jogi didn't loose hope and followed a water stream which might have led to a waterfall. They were brave enough to follow the trial merely by walking down the water stream while we came from a safer mud route in the forest. Finally we did not get a huge water fall as such ,but it was about seven feet, long enough for us to take a bath. we had a small cheddi party there and many of us got in to the cheddi mode except some few shy people like me and Don nath. We had fun having bath in the ice cold water there but at the same time every one was getting afraid of being seduced by some one. This was the only time in the trip where Bhatta himself put a “BAN ON PHOTOGRAPHY”. Later we headed back to our base camp in darkness.
What do I say about the dinner...... all I can say was that it was a FEAST not a dinner. By saying Feast
I
don't mean the food was delicious or there were many items(no ice cream). All
of us were didn't have a proper lunch or tea that day ,we had managed to trek
on the basis of the break fast we had in the morning and the small refreshments
we had eaten on the way. So all of us were like hungry wolfs who had not got
their prey from a long time. My rice intake was about 4 times my normal intake.
All though the food was not that tasty,it was food(no complaints).Later in the
night, genius 4d introduced us to the game called mafia which was quite fun and
we went on to play it till midnight. Bhatta had made elaborate plans to wake up
at about 5.45 in the morning and watch the sunrise from the topmost point of
the hill.(i wondered whether it would happen considering the natural lazy
element that all of us shared in common).finally we decided to sleep .me,pd, kk
,teja were unlucky enough to sleep outside on the corridor and the rest of us
slept together in a small room that was comparatively “hot”.I could barely
sleep in-spite of using about three blankets I used ,thanks to chilling cold
affecting by feet and head,Also I got sandwiched between two people(please
don't take any other meaning out of this).some how the night passed on. pd.
made a record by waking up 67 times that night if I am right.
Nobody bothered about the 5.45 deadline(our lazy instincts over came our enthu) and got up around 7-7.30.we quickly had our breakfast and decided to go to the Shankara Peetha which was the topmost point of the hill (also the topmost point in kodachadri) .we had to do a little bit of climbing to go till there.
While
we were on the way we could get a breathtaking view of the surrounding hills
and the vegitation below them which was quite cool in itself. Finally we got to
our destination ,where we spotted a temple having the idol of Saint
Shankaracharya. An small incident occurred which was seen only by me:
Bhatta
learn that it was a Sarvagnya Peetha(A place of All Faith worship) from a
local. Immediately he started praying there in three ways each pertaining to
three different religions. At that point of time I had great respect for his secular
credentials (dil mein izzat bad gayeee)and also it strengthened my belief that
India is indeed a secular country.
Reaching that place was an achievement as I reached peak of something,may not be something like Mt. Everest,it will be written in “My book of records”.It was afternoon when we reached our base camp. We started packing our bags and took some last moment pics. We decided take the jeep route
which
was easier to trek(but we had walk 10km for that).we got split into three
groups according to our speed. Each group had its specialty,first group was in
top speed and wanted to finish the trek as soon as possible,second group which
included me was focused on playing football with a plastic ball while
walking,the third group which was very casual made regular pit stops for taking
an occasional pic.( now you can at least guess one member in this group).after
walking for about 1.5 hours a new race had begun group three overtook group
two. In the quest for reaching first many people started to take shortcuts by
going in to the forest instead of following the jeep trials. But me, kk &
Don Nath faithfully followed the jeep trial. one batch led by 4d ended up in a
plantation and finally came back to the right track by hearing the jeep sounds.
Another batch containing teja, pd and Mr. You know who got lost in the forest
and started a new trek to find their way out. All of us had reached the bus
stand except for these three. Every one was worried and furious with these
three,also there was no network coverage .So all of us were fully loaded with
scoldings and all special words to be fired at these people when they arrived.
After waiting for about one hour, our heroes finally emerge out of the woods in
style. After a fiery discussion on the sequence of events we boarded a jeep to
nittur. Aks had half of his body inside the jeep and the other part
outside(must have had a hard time balancing (balancing what??).From nittur we
caught a bus to kollur. we caught S.R.K.T to get direct ticket to udupi.
Funniest part of this bus trip was that on the way bhatta opened a packet of
bread ,applied jam and distributed to every one,that was our lunch for the day.
Finally we reached udupi at around 6 in the evening.It was a fantastic
experience overall for me. The trip might have ended but the memories of this
trip will remain alive in my mind for ever.
Some interesting questions:
1.Who
owned the Sony Cybershot that accompanied us in the trip???
2.Who
was the heart throb of the leaches on the trekking route???
3.What
was the actual reason for teja to vomit???
4.Whom
did bhatta call in the first night(quite confusing)???
5.Did
any special activity happen in the room at the night????
6.Why
was aks preferring to stay under the table all the time???
7.Was
the lost batch actually lost in the forest????
Please
try and answer these questions when you review this script!!!!!!!
