Up & Above by varun k

UP & Above

VARUN

Up & Above A journey starts

Varun K

To Arun, Surjith,Bijo,and All students of KSID

Contents Finally... The Serpent’s Trail Odd One’s Out

48 hours

Then there were 7

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.â&#x20AC;? -Lao Tzu

1. Then there were 7 Where it all started

“ Fundamentaly speaking, we haven’t even thought of this before.... ”

The dim lit hallway to room 16 is just a magnet that pulls us to

the room. The nearest room to the bathroom has now become a round table for all first year students. The exams finished today afternoon and everyone will be leaving by tomorrow morning. still, the noisy can only mean one thing. It’s the usual gang. I could brag that they keep the hostel alive and all, but let’s not tread that way. Arun the half-life being, Anirudh the hipster, Dennis the menace, Delroy the Loud-mouth and Surjith....... Funny he doesn’t have a name. Everyone has started packing bags for tomorrow. But still, there is one thing we didn’t decide just yet. The door to Room 16 was wide open. I barged into the fluorescent glow emanating from the room.

I was quite

sceptical indeed. The time just provided an excuse to bite nails.

“Where have you been?” “I” “We have 2 weeks of holiday” “This is our first semester break; we really should go somewhere” “Um-mm” “Outside the state?”, Anirudh exclaimed. “Yeah!”, Everyone roared. “We have been at this for a week “ Suresh came in. “Suresh, where do you want to go? He looked at us. “I haven’t even gone home for a semester and you expect me to come?” He was one of the few students who haven’t seen his parents for a semester. Silence. “Temperature in Manali is 4 degree Celsius” Bijo kept swiping his phone. “Anyone here seen snow before?”, Arun nodded. “It’s up north and two days in train”, I rejected “Let’s go Goa. One-night travel and party whole week”. Snow sounded much better than beach sands for everyone. “Manali…. Let’s go Manali” “Eh!” Trip location set and done. The talk changed to something else.

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Two days later. We booked the tickets for 6 people. It was time. “Hello Varun, it’s me Anirudh.. “I’m almost packed for going. Reducing the luggage is one difficult task” (chuckles) “Sorry da, I’m not coming” “What? Cough, cough”. “Parents are not letting me go and my asthma shot up. I won’t be able to come anyway.” Now the passengers were 5 and yes; I haven’t lost count. while we were booking tickets, another story started in parallel Delroy was having a dilemma. He was confused whether to enjoy holidays in his home or Himalayas. His mother wanted him to stay and father wants him to go. Then, his grandparents were not well and he wanted to spend some time with them as well. Though it weighed more to staying back, his father insisted that he enjoy. But Delroy decided to stay and that was it. It was a matter of hours and no one really knew about this; except for me. It is noted that

Booking Website waits

for no one.

Train to Delhi - Ernakulam to Hazrat Nizamuddin

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -Henry Miller

2. 48 hours How we spent our time

“ Vada Pav just became our staple food”

Bijo Ernakulam station. Train to Delhi just arrived. Dennis is not picking up the phone. There are no more nails left to bite. I’ll try calling Varun. “hello…… I already got in. where are you?” “Bijo, I’ll be there soon”. “Train is leaving………. It started”, gulped Bijo.

“Vada Pav... Vada...Pav.. chai chai.... chaiiiye” - voices from railway station

Signal got cut. Train creaked and started moving and Dennis is nowhere to be found. I placed myself in the seat, took a deep breath and glanced at the phone. Nobody is answering and I’m all alone. We already missed two and now Dennis. Will I be travelling alone? How could I possibly manage by myself? Whom should I call? After a few unsuccessful attempts, I caught hold of Varun. “hello, the train will arrive Thrissur soon. Are you there? Dennis missed the train. I know this will be hard to swallow, but…” “Dennis called me. Me and Surjith are at the station” “Ho”, I took a deep breath “ticket”, a voice called out from my back. I turned. Thrissur station. Varun and Surjith got in. “Varun….one small trouble. From where did you book the train?” The ticket was issued from Thrissur and I sat on reserved seat 6 stations before. We solved it with a nominal fee and lots of apologies. The train moved on. Anirudh came to see us off at Vadakara. Got one more jacket. Arun joined from Calicut. Finally, four of us were off to manali. We sat long enough to be glued to our seats. Just as the train left Kerala, the train became silent. The shadows gulped the train as it moved towards breaking dawn. Sunlight fell on us at karwar, a place where the train should have left 6 hours before . I was hoping to sleep more, but chai-walas were quite adamant. People rushing in and out really broke my sleep rhythm. Everyone hurried themselves down not because of the crowd or beauty pf the place,but hunger. I looked out for a vendor, but all of them served chai only. We woke up really late.

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“

Arun opened his eyes saw the excitement in the coach and friends with empty stomachs. “Everyone, not to worry. My mother has sent enough supplies to last for 2 days”. But she had no clue that Surjith who has a black hole stomach was on board. Train with it’s tank full of water parted with karwar and ran towards Madgaon. Our alternate destination was closing in. The houses with clay tiles got introduced again on other side of windows. Madgaon is like kerala but not kerala at all. Sands, coconut and greenery all are same and at the same time different. The train stopped and we jumped out for a fifteen-minute break. Leaving your seat in train is a cautious practice. At least one of us need to be near luggage at all times. The economic journey has no effective defense against theft unless we fend for ourselves. We took turns to stretch our legs while train took regular stops. As we got settled, the long stretch of Konkan welcomes us with brief but regular power cuts. It might be an overstatement, but the smell and short darkness is quite an irritation and an experience. The train stopped at Panvel. It was quite odd that the train would stop for such a long time. I was feeling dumb at the moment. There was something I’m missing. Varun has been drawing a cart. Surjith and Arun looked rather lifeless. I didn’t want to ask what’s happening? “train is being delayed for 45minutes.”, Surjith smiled.

I think he got it. By the time train got to Nasik, it was getting dark. We are way behind the schedule and the best thing is we cant do anything about it. Another night passed away while covering Maharashtra. The next day, we totally skipped morning routines with brief naps and got to noon. The station was Agra cantonment. I just couldn’t believe Tajmahal was somewhere close. It would have been great if train stopped and we could go visit Tajmahal and come. We were closing in on Delhi and it is the very first time going to nation’s capital. It was both nervous and exciting that I didn’t speak for a long time. The stretches of mustard fields that popped up after nasik has vanished and landscape is now dipped in pale yellow with demolished buildings, slums and sewage pipes. The road from Agra to Delhi is the entrance is something I wanted to look away, but i knew that these slums enable the city to shine in it’s magnificence. Train crawled it’s way to Hazrat nizamudden, the doorway to the capital. The station was steaming with people and we were literally thrown into the middle of it. The crowd pushed us from the platform and through the gate. “bijo, let’s move to a side. I need to breathe”, Surjith moved to side of station entrance.

Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station, Delhi

3. Odd One’s Out Glance at the Capital

“ Stereotyping is the worst”

Surjith We four of us stood out too much in the crowd. I can see some rickshaw guys coming at us. I may be the first person to ever go to himalaya from my village, but I know trouble when I see one. I raised my hand against to rickshaw driver. Bijo turned his head to other side. Varun is trying to call gurmeet, a friend who is going to help us get to Himalayas. Arun joined him and the rickshaw driver came to me. I couldn’t make out half the things he said. Then he asked, “ madrasi?” When you are from Kerala and you hear that, something boils inside you. I regained my composure and put out the words I know. “nahi chahiye” I may have repeated a few times. Rickshaw driver doesn’t seem to give up. I walked in circle till that guy started to scratch his head. Looks like Varun got some info. He asked the driver the fare to indraprastha, from where we can take metro. Obviously he’s going to charge more, but we bargained till he explained the split up of the fare. We got to the metro station. The Delhi metro had a feeling of being in another country. You cannot see something so neat outside it. Like rest of Delhi, hordes of people walks past every second. We were the only confused and dumbfounded people in the entire complex. So out of place. A torn bag with bathroom slippers, shirts untucked, messy hair. We stood out so much but no one is even noticing us.

Metro train from Indraprastha

“ we have to get to Inter State Bus Terminal, we have to ask someone”, said Varun. “Let’s go and ask there” , Bijo pointed out an old man. I couldn’t help but notice a map put up in the lobby. Me and arun walked towards it.

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“aha! ISBT is here and our station is”, I drove my finger though the map. We called out Varun and Bijo who went to the Old man. It was interesting that I was seeing that map for the first time and I totally got what was written there without asking anyone. I just had to go there. We received tags to our destination. After travelling up and down in escalators, talking to a few people, and walking on the coloured lines, we finally got to the platform. Train was as crowded as it can be. We pushed ourselves through the crowd. The station announcement was very helpful when it was time to push ourselves out of it. ISBT was a huge complex with a large hallway and neatly stacked reservation counters to one side. Below the ground floor was a bus hub that travels to all borders of Delhi. According to Gurmeet, we have to go to Chandigarh, then take bus to Himachal Pradesh. There were direct buses from Delhi, but sitting for half a day in that small bus didn’t strike me as a good idea. Also it would be nice to learn the numbers in Hindi. It will save you time and money. We got in the bus and departed capital city. Next destination is a designed city of Chandigarh, a place shared by Punjab and Haryana. On road, there were dhabas (Punjabi restaurants) big as star hotels, mountains of trash, big industrial areas spread across the horizon. The highway felt it continued on forever. In between, I had dozed off dreaming the snowcapped mountains and snowflakes on my hands. Some faint conversations woke me up. “ Gurmeet, I think we are going to be late. You sure there are no buses after that…… We can wait some time if we need to. We are already tired” “uhuh……. you sure you can hold them for 30 minutes” High mast lamps flashed into my eyes. I rubbed the window to look out. It was getting chilly and before me was the magnificent city of Chandigarh. The city with it’s symmetric intersections cried out a strong flavour of rigidity. “I think we are here”, Varun cut the phone and called everyone. Arun was already getting

ready to leave the bus. Every second, Himalayas are getting closer to us. After roaming through the bus stand and few phone calls to Gurmeet, we met near a bus which was waiting for us. He was just standing there with another person we shared our excitement a group hug. The other person was Anuradha, Gurmeetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friend. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been one week after college and here we have a different Gurmeet. I have no idea what he said to them to hold them off for half an hour. We got in the bus for a bumpy ride through the mountains.

Bhai..... Ek auto chahiye ? - Midnight voices from Sector 43 bus terminal, chandigarh

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The yellow and fluorescent lights paved way for our bus through a halfasleep city. The vehicle gathered speed and rushed out into city limits. .

4. The Serpent’s Trail Through the hairpins to God’s own country

“ We should stay together ”

Varun Yellow street lights frequently gave a sense of who sits where inside the bus.Now that we got all comfy inside the bus, it was time to get to know each other. Anuradha is also from chandigarh. They used to come to kulu with their friends often. Surjith, arun and bijo slept while we were talking. I too couldn’t keep my eyes often. sometime around midnight, that bumpy feeling was lost. I rubbed my eyes and looked around.

What

happened ?

Gurmeet and anuradha was missing along with a few people in bus. Everything was too hazy with fog. I walked to the front. A few are taking 3 side seats as abed to sleep. Bus is halted and there was no driver, no conductor. I opened the door and it was freezing. I closed the door. I have to find them. May be bus got in an accident. I have to go outside and look. I took a deep breath and opened the door. A chill came down my spine. Slowly, I put my feet down and looked around. There was a tree uprooted which was moved to far left and on the right is a queue of vehicles. I walked on covering vehicle after vehicle. Fog kept on thickening and it was hard to see what’s 15-17 feet away. Then I saw a mob and it was less chilly there. It was a deadlock. Three vehicles blocked the whole path and no one is taking vehicle back for the other to pass. Other vehicles kept on coming and it looked like they could go on talking about this till morning. Gurmeet was talking to a bus driver. It seems there is something happening. My teeth chattered with cold and I could hardly speak, but I stood around the middle just to pick up some heat. Finally, a few of us helped a driver to get his vehicle to one side opening a portion. Our driver signalled to get inside. Just as arun got down, we all hurried to the bus. The bus moved through the steep terrain and then I noticed. “we are going around kulu. It is down there”, gurmeet pointed to a stack on houses. The road coiled inwards to a curly path and descended to the feet of mountains. “Wow” Everyone got up to capture the scene. The bus halted for a tea. We got down and the sign to the far edge read; welcome to god’s

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own country. “Well, I’m from god’s own country too, but it is down south”, I chuckled. Now everyone from humans to animals had some kind of cloth on. There were oranges and apples for sale, Punjabi trucks and buses parked to one side, Tree leaves all withered and everything too hazy, but beautiful. We are finally here….. in kulu, himachal Pradesh. Now off to

Manali.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” -Henry Miller

5. Finally... The Himalayan canvas

“ Wah! kya bath hei? ”

Arun For a cold place, it was very muddy. Clearly not what I expected. There was no snowcapped mountains; actually no snow at all. The peaks touched the white sky which surrounded us. Only a few building are taller than lampposts. The morning rain has washed the stone tiles clean. The path descends to a rather bleak crowd. Seems that manali is still sleeping. We strolled through the street looking for a nice place to lay our heads down. “we should rest sometime, adjust with the climate and then go for a walk”, gurmeet sighed and lead us to a stony path. Next to us was an inn, which looked very much like a big house straight out from a washed out water colour painting. But inside there was a man with orange hair. His hair just lit the whole room. We got rooms on the far end. The bed was all I could remember. The green room is a lot darker now. The cold got four of us together in one bed. There was a knock on the door. I checked my watch. It’s noon already. “we’ll have lunch at 2”, gurmeet murmured. Even he who visited this place on a regular basis was shivering. He slammed his door shut. Suddenly, varun came out from the bathroom shivering. It was freezing outside and this guy bathed in cold water. He woke up half an hour ago and is standing in front of me with ice dripping. “Where is my bag?” I hesitated for a moment. “There....”, pointing at the maroon bag. He walking to it like a tuning fork and start-

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Manali, Himachal Pradesh

ed throwing things around. Surjith and bijo are still sleeping. I was thinking of sleeping a bit more, but I couldn’t . The town is calling. 40 minutes later.

Creeeaak kkkk......... .

I rubbed my eyes and turn to the door. Varun went out. He’s knocking a door; probably Gurmeet’s…. I could hear his sleepy voice till here. Now we really have to get ready. Another twenty minutes went by and we walked out. The city was silent. A few people here and there. This time, to beat the cold, we had another layer of clothes. Two jeans still doesn’t help. We walked uphill where Hadimba temple was situated. We could go round the mountain, but our adventurous spirit kicked in and everyone started climbing. It was the fastest route, but tiring. We wheezed ourselves to the last 500mtrs of temple. On the roadside was a peculiar being, full of fluffy fur and white long ears with “cute” written all over Metro train from Indraprastha the face. These mountain rabbits were the most lovable I’ve ever seen and two ladies came from nowhere to catch them. Seems it’s theirs. We helped them catch it and gave it to them. They thanked us, let us hold it, play with it and take photos.

Hadimba Temple

“that will be 30 rupees each”, the ladies laughed. “what?” It was all a trap. We ran to Gurmeet .

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He and Anuradha were already taking photos. Finally, we submitted to the ladies. Anyway it was their bread and butter and we couldn’t say no to that cuteness. But I would recommend a different strategy. Bijo ran to the temple entrance. While we pushed ourselves to the entrance, Bijo stood their petrified. The temple was majestic. The deity is the Asura(demon) woman who wed Bhima in Mahabharatha, an epic of Hindu mythology. Who would’ve thought that a demon would be worshipped and have a wonderful temple like this. The walls were decorated with cattle skulls and bones, which gave the structure a demonic outlook. Still it is in harmony with the surroundings and breathes life around it. Who wouldn’t admire such a demonic grace? We entered the dark wooden hallway and into the sanctum. The carving on the edges sang stories unfamiliar to us. I wish we could’ve just heard it. A small drizzle and the fog got thickened and we returned back. I was shivering and hungry. Finally, a small shop downhill lied open for us to taste the Himalayan cuisine. The spicy aloo paratha and pickle was stark contrast to the freezing Manali. “so this keeps people alive”, I thought to myself and munched on. I could’ve spoken how tasty the food was, but one can never think on an empty stomach. After lunch, we walked through the faintly lit dark tiles of manali street. Ever single shop fighting each other for customers. The smell from hotels were so tempting. After another round of aloo paratha and kheer, we reached our hotel. Bijo was looking back as if he was waiting for someone to come. “what is it, bijo?” “i want a gulab jam now”, his face was al-

ready turning into a sobbing puppy. It was gulab jamun, but i didn’t correct it. But why now when you no space for another dessert. The old man selling gulab jamun is noticing all this. I pulled his hand and started walking. Bijo was over reacting. He ran to the old man. “ek gulab jamun....kithna?” “How much for one gulab jamun...? Now i definitely have to help him. Before then the old man pounced on Bijo like a lion and have recieved double the amount. I intervened. Now we have two packets of gulab jams....sorry...jamuns.We fell to our beds and dozed off. I think we slept too early. It was too cold to sleep. I looked around. TV was playing some hindi songs. I scratched my shoulders, put on two layers of socks and slowly opened the door.

surjiiiii.... Varuneeee.... Bijoooo....

It was all white. Everything ..... No trees, no cars..... just plain white. snow flakes touched my cheeks and a chill went through the whole body. Everyone came out and stood there in awe. We were like sufi dancers in the snow going round and round. The moment was breath taking and elegant at the same time. We watched till the snow fall stopped and the nature painted tree tops on the snow.

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to be continued....

Where would you go is you have a few Blah Blah Blah .............Blah....... ...... Blah Blah................................................................ Just go on and read the book