CHAPTER 3: ALONG THE GANGA AND IN THE FOREST

The family grew bigger as dad’s friend, Vishal and his family joined us. The family was now
comprising of 4 rooms – Me & Purav, Mom & Dad, Vishal Uncle & Nikita Aunty, and their sons Harsh
& Mihir. Harsh is a year younger than me and Mihir is 2 years younger than Purav so, the company
of us 4 musketeers, Not even the company of 4 parents, he-he!

All eight of us, landing at New Delhi where there is a taxi waiting for us in the scorching sun of Delhi!
The 6-hour trip to Bhimtaal successfully completed in 9 hours! That was the most frustrating car ride
for us, all of us packed in Innova while driver driving at his own slow pace, taking long breaks. Even it
disturbed our schedule of enjoying the sunset on the hills. But Dad said with optimism – “Something
shall always be pending”. His words never meant anything at that time but are reflective after the
day is over and we are lying on the bed. Reaching the hotel, there was another problem that the
hotel that we booked has some maintenance issue and we had to shift to another hotel. Thus, 1 st day
ruined and all kids in the party, frustrated and angry.

Next day – frustrated wake up alarm – birds chirping but, as I woke up and saw about 100 birds
chirping on like one tree. Those birds were singing in harmony like a clan singing its anthem,
everyone synchronised and the voice gets echoed over and over. Bhimtaal is one of the 7 taals of
Himachal Pradesh. Having breakfast and out for the adventure days – Paragliding, canoeing and zip-
line all in one.

As I stand there upon the hill,

I feel excited and I feel a thrill.

Standing in the long queue,

Waiting for that one bird’s eye view

I put my head down, and run like a plane,

The shoot takes off and it feels insane.

From up here, things look so small,

They don’t look real, not at all.

After a while, I slowly floated to the ground,

Its so amazing, I feel quite proud.

Alone in a kayak, way out on a lake,

Following the voices that the instructor make.

I treasure those glorious time afloat,

Spent in the curved wooden boat.

Then I tore through the cool are, a feeling of being on the top of the world,
As I dashed high above the steep valley and cut through the breeze as it furled.

The sun shone through and brightened up the sky,

It warmed the zipping body as it flew by.

I was like a rocket in the sky,

“I wanna do it again!” I yelled in front of parents.

As I was unhooked from the zipline, I felt happy and content,

It was the end of the day of stunts!

The next place is remembered not by the entrance but by the exit that we had. On the way out of
the Jim Corbett Notional Park, 20-30 jeeps were going in reverse and 10-20 jeeps were moving
forward, all following the movement of a Tusker! People there aren’t afraid of Tigers but of Tuskers,
they just can’t go near it. This went on for 20 minutes till the tusker moved out of the road into the
forest and traffic returned to normal. Coming out of a Tiger Reserve always seems like you get to
hear more and more calls on the day of leaving. A call is made by animals when they see a Tiger to
warn other animals and we, the Tiger sightseers, get attracted towards it.

In Jim Corbett, we lived inside the Guest House in the Jungle along with hundreds of mosquitos and
bears walking around at night. We as kids stayed in the house all night, afraid of bears. We had a PSP
on our trip which was also discharged or all four of us would either play cricket, “in the rooms”, play
cards or PSP! The life in jungle is always different, living without electricity and no hot water to bath
with. All days in Jim Corbett, we went in Jeep safaris to different parts of the reserve, seeing birds,
river, elephants, many animals but not tiger. We even got to see how people bath their elephants!
That was that for the place.

Next is the car ride to Haridwar in which me and Mihir used to tap each other’s nosed, termed it as
“Poing” and kept it doing all trip as a means of time pass, in the time without phones, these things
are after which we spent most our time, and playing of course.

The banks of the Ganga host the biggest aartis of all places – The bell ringing in Haridwar just can’t
be let out of your memories. The time that I was there, it wasn’t the time of clean Ganga moment
and thus actually, Ganga wasn’t clean. To my surprise, last year when we students went to IIT
Roorkee for the Inter IIT cultural meet, we slipped out for a short picnic to Haridwar and the Ganga
was so clean that it is unbelievable until one sees the change with his own eyes! After the day in
Haridwar, going up the hill on narrow roads towards Rishikesh at Glasshouse to spend the night in
peace. The adventures of the trip continue as next morning was a surprise for all us kids that we
were on river rafting, directly from the hotel! Some perks of living at a good place I’d say. Rafting is a
golden experience, you go all out against the white, cloudy water to go down the river. Frozen water
splashing in and out of raft and you have to sit tight! All this adrenaline in your body and splash, in a
second the raft is upside down and we all are in water. A Ganga bath is a must, isn’t it!

All this writing takes me back and reminds me of the clean air and calm environment where we kids
used to make so much noise annoying so many people. We played cricket without bat and ball,
assuming that there is a ball, the game plays out as we imagine it, the person who imagines it first
happens in the game. Let’s not discuss the rules and logistics as the minds of children cannot be
reached nor understood. Other major activities were running around, teasing and playing cards.