Is raat ki subaah nahin!
How long can you keep something down? Sooner or later it will break free. One way or another.
This was exactly the case with us. It was about 5 months and a little more since our last time out in the wilderness. And we are at it again. Off to, quite literally, a new land. Chattisgarh.
The trip actually began late one Thursday evening. With the name of a state we knew practically nothing about (and knew nobody who knew something more either). And with a little debate. Was it going to be Karwar or was it Chattisgarh. He said this. I said that. We weighed, we debated, and we tentatively decided in favour of that.
But what was out there? We jumped out of our chairs. Got home. And onto the one place we knew for sure we’d get dope. The in-fallible Google.
Pages after pages, promises overflowed. We were riveted. Links leapt across Yahoo Messenger. We were seeing the same things, at the same time. And not one of the four eye-balls and two brains could believe the amount of adventure there was to be had. We made the decision. Chattisgarh could no longer be hidden.
Reluctantly, we slept.
Let the Games Begin!
My next morning began with a leave application. Went straight to Mark, my Creative Director, and told him. All my instincts were screaming their tonsils out. I had to go. He contemplated for all of two and three quarters of a second and said, “Go”.
I am not really quite sure what kicked in. Was it adrenalin, or was it testosterone. A shiver just ran through the spine. I knew I was on the way. I was ready to go.
Pruthvi then called. Bapu, the only guy who had a Royal Enfield Electra, fell the previous night after a drink too many and broke his collar bone. Now, where were we to go now and ask to borrow his most precious possession (apart from the one he carefully hides in his rather copious pants). How on earth were we to convince him to trust us with his bike after what we did to it on our last trip! If not him then who? Where hides our steed?
We were so mad, we would have bought a bike, right then. Fortunately, things turned around a bit, but not without pushing us into further confusion. What and how, we’ll get to in a bit.
Now, we knew it was Chattisgarh. The hunt for maps began. Internet was a source indeed. But the resolutions or even details for that matter were atrocious.
Turns out, a few more people in Hyderabad apart from us two blokes needed to understand geography. Which is, I’m told, exactly why Odyssey keeps a stock of maps. When we asked them to dig out those maps for us, the guy got out an industrial sized duster. To reduce the weight of the maps we needed by about 73.8%.
Armed with maps of Chattisgarh, AP, Maharasthra, and Indian Roads, we sat in Café Odyssey to make a few critical decisions. Like our route and stuff.
Call us Cassidy and Kidd.
Chattisgarh is home to a bunch of rather colourful band of characters. They now call themselves Maoists, thanks to his Excellency, the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy. And why it’s thanks to him is another debate altogether. But the point is, they’ve been called a menace in AP and are actively being driven out of there. Which means, if not AP, they have to go somewhere. Somewhere like Chattisgarh.
These guys – we’ve been repeatedly, emphatically and quite convincingly told – are both extremely active and extremely ruthless in Chattisgarh. To cut to the chase, this band of brigands united, to almost derail our so far invincible plan.
But then, here we were. Two guys with balls for brains. In what was a rather nonchalant swipe of the left hand, we brushed it aside. Called is hogwash. And moved on. Tut tut.
Troubles. More Troubles. And Miracles.
Over the next few days, almost anything we started just fell to pieces as soon as it began. We froze on a plan, and found an almost too-good-to-believe train that started somewhere and went somewhere else but touched both Hyderabad and Bilaspur – a town due north of central Chattisgarh. We wanted to unload the bike there and get started driving.
Unfortunately though, for all our enthusiasm, the train wouldn’t ply on the day we wanted to leave. The alternate we were left with was Nizamuddin Express till Nagpur and change over to an I-can-never-manage-to-recall-what-it’s-called express that touched Bilaspur.
We booked tickets. Nos.266 & 267 on the waiting list. We were heavily banking on the virtuous Mr. Kannam Naidu to help us get them confirmed. But, again unfortunately, he was away, in Goa. After a barrage of calls, missed calls, bad signals and near-deaths for cellphones, we reached him and got the process underway to have our tickets confirmed under Emergency Quota.
Now that the tickets were out of our hair, we went hunting for tents and sleeping bags. Chaitanya Bailey, a really fat friend of mine carrying a hernia in his pants for God knows how many years, promised to arrange for the gear through his uncle, a Zoology professor at the NG Ranga Agricultural University and a resource with the WWF. Only, and once again unfortunately, his tents and sleeping bags were tattered and so he guided us to the local WWF office in Hyderabad so we could take a shot at our failing luck.
Then, a miracle happened. Kavita Kella. Bless her soul, she flew a tent down from Dubai. What would we have done without you!
Almost…
The status:
One tent. No sleeping bags. Unconfirmed tickets for transporting a bike we still didn’t have. Promise of a teeth shattering winter cold. Gaping holes in all four pockets. And two incredibly brave/stupid blokes.
What we did have was a never-say-die determination to change this status. And so we turned Hyderabad upside down and inside out, searching for tents and sleeping bags.
WWF. Every adventure tour operator in Hyderabad. Abids. General Bazaar. Lakdi-ka-pool. Four Square distributors. E-bay (these guys had everything but couldn’t deliver in the time we had and/or the quality they had to offer was suspect).
At the end of it, we found two sleeping bags that were passable and a strong recommendation for everyone in Hyderabad looking for things we looked for. There’s nothing here. We authoritatively and affirmatively state, there’s not a thing here. You’d be better off making a small trip to Bangalore or Delhi or Mumbai than spending on petrol in Hyderabad.
We decided to go in with the one tent. And went on to gather other things. With some invaluable help from Anoop (the only doctor we had for a friend), we put a comprehensive first-aid kit together. We were almost ready. Sparing the bike.
By then, we had evaluated all the options (as in all the people who we could borrow a bike from) and discarded all of them, but Bapu. Putting all our shame, guilt, pride, and affiliated inhibitions aside, we asked him.
Someday Bapu, regardless of all the other things in life you do, you will go to Heaven. We will personally see to it that there’s a berth reserved for you there. Even if we have to kill Naidu and to do it in the Emergency Quota.
We were ready. Ready to go. Dying to go.
Indian Railways Ki Jai!
Finally, the day came. Pruthvi got the bike booked in at the station. After all the goodbyes, the plan was, I’d go to Mrinal (another fat friend who’s also a classmate from college, a great friend and a real pain in exactly the place that you don’t want it). Mirnal would load me and my bag into his car. All three of us would drive to Pruthvi’s. Load his bag and him in. And then go show our faces at a classmate’s (Uma’s) engagement. And then get dropped off at the station.
But our luck continued. Thanks to our man Mrinal driving the car off road and on to a saintly little boulder, quietly sitting, off the road. We got the car back in its rightful place, on four wheels, with the help of a few good bystanders. The result: we were late. We had to skip the engagement, got an earful from Uma, relieved Mrinal, got into Pruthvi’s car and had his driver drop us off at the station.
Confirmed tickets (thanks again to Naidu) in hand, we went off to a cafeteria and grabbed our dinner. Once we were done, we went across to the platform and strolled in towards to luggage loading area, to check on the bike. The train was expected on the platform any minute now.
Surprise, surprise! No bike in the loading area! I froze and Pruthvi ran, screaming over his shoulders that he would check with the luggage office. Recovering a little, I started my enquiries with the loading guys and their clerk. All they had to say was that everything that was to be loaded on to the train was already here.
The train rolled in.
And so did Pruthvi, towing the bike along. It had been left orphaned at the end of the platform. Together, we went around the clerk again, hoping to push the bike in. All he had to say was a flat “Get Lost”. Out of options, we promised one of the labour guys 500 quid to have it loaded. He agreed. He assured. And he pushed the bike ahead. Into the melee of the loading process went the bike. Time was running out but the boxes that were being loaded showed no signs of relenting. Till all room in the luggage wagon was accounted for. Our man pushed the bike in and offered a cut to the clerk. And in what was an immediate and vicious response, met the same fate that a mosquito would at the mouth of an All Out mosquito repellent frog.
The bike wasn’t loaded.
And, we stood there, staring at the big, red X on the last wagon of the train. Till it was an X no more. Plan A, followed by Plan B, and C and D and F and G… all went straight to the mercy of a dog.
About three minutes after the monstrosity of the betrayal sank in, we made a promise. First to ourselves. Then to each other.
We would not turn back. Not now. Not after all that we had to put in. And all that we were put through.
Over the next one hour and fifteen minutes, we cancelled the tickets, and the bike’s booking. We rolled the bike out, found a shop that would sell us a length of nylon rope, tied the bags in, got the bike filled, and unleashed the thumper.
The plan was, there would be no plan. We’d drive to Warangal. And we’d go on.
And so began a journey. A journey that’s been a life-changing one. For both of us. A journey that I’ll describe in the parts to follow.
As for now, I… We, have just one thing to say.
Indian Railways ki Jai!
