Torana Trek

As usual, we assembled at Naval's house to decide upon the location for the trek. Again, as usual, each bloke had a different location in mind. Finally, we zeroed in on Torana for no particular reason. We decided to catch the early morning bus at 7. And inspite of having to get up early, we slept late. Things were proceeding as they always do. The only thing left that would fit in this schedule was catching a late bus and starting the trek in the afternoon.

And then, we received our first shock. We ended up catching the bus at early morning 8 ! This had never happened in our history of trekking. We didnt know what to do and became quite nervous and fidgety. Ameya started blabbering about shaving off his moustache, Tushar started blabbering about growing one and Naval started mumbling about weird beards and I was wondering how gorillas would look if they had Veerappan-style moustaches. Things settled down after a while but we didnt know whom to blame.

Rain started pouring down as the bus journey to Velhe began. We were all men of faith on the bus that day. The bus driver had immense faith on his bus, the tyres and the road, and we on him. Some of the turns at breakneck speed were very frightening indeed. Faith carried us through to Velhe by 10. We had tea and bhajji and then started the climb.

Our very own Hitchhikers Guide to Trekking had described that a broad route leads to the top. But after some time, we began to doubt the seriousness of the author's statements. We crossed a stream holding on to each other's hands and then ended up on a narrow path. We started climbing in the general direction, which was up. We hit a patch where it was quite muddy and slippery and we somehow managed to climb up and locate the broad path. It was raining heavily all the time. The way along the broad path seemed nothing after our adventures on the slope earlier.

Walking amidst the mountains always makes me want to sing - I am forced to refrain from singing when im amidst people. The words "Zindagi bhar nahi bhulegi yeh barsaat ki raat ..." popped into my mind and I decided to give it a go. And I couldnt locate where in the entire scale of notes the correct note for the 'Zi' part of 'Zindagi' is located. I tried the low scale but sounded like a frog. Some frogs around me responded but it seemed like an angry response. So i decided to locate 'Zi' in the other scales.

I tried the medium scale but sounded like a donkey. I tried going high and sounded like a high-pitched whistle. Finally, I decided to skip 'Zi' and directly start with 'nda' part of 'Zindagi' but couldnt manage that either. And skipping and proceeding hence, I reached 'at' of 'raat' and I think I hit the right note this time. So the song was rendered by me thus - "(silence) (silence) (silence) at". I also managed to hit the right note for 'bhu' and then the song went "(silence) bhu (silence) at". I sounded like a dog that is barking and spitting at the same time. I gave up.

Soon, we were walking along the top of a ridge and then came the most thrilling part of the trek.

High winds were blowing across the ridge and the wind was so powerful that we had to lean against the wind to prevent ourselves from losing our balance. It was raining as well and hence the rain drops were hitting us so hard like it was being slapped repeatedly on the face. This would have been a problem for me, but school had toughened me up with all the slapping I had received then. If the wind had been stronger, it would have been really difficult to stay on the ridge. We would all have been flying then, like a gang of supermen, albeit without the underwear on the outside.

After that ridge, we were protected on the windward side by plants and smaller ridges and we finally reached the top, completely drenched. We were more wet than water itself.

We were wondering about who would be as crazy as us to attempt a trek in this weather but as we entered a temple there, we found 5 people having a quiet lunch. We knew two of the guys who had been our classmates during PG.

We devoured the bread along with the cheese slices without sitting down, since the floor was all wet and we didnt want to make it wetter by sitting on it. After lunch, we began the descent. In short, we had fought the entire way up the gad, all the while grumbling, mumbling and complaining, just to have a measly lunch of bread and cheese. This was more like us and finally we were very happy at having found ourselves.

Again, that ridge proved quite a challenge during the descent but we managed to cross it and experienced the thrill once more. We finally reached below at 3:30, hitched a jeep to nasrapur and then a PMT. We finally managed to reach Naval's place by 5:30. We quickly left for our homes and then I felt better after having a nice, hot-water bath.

I had had enough of getting wet and on that note, made the tough but unescapable and logically correct decision of not having a bath for the next 3-4 weeks.