Rafting down the Sitanadi..

I spent 20 minutes sipping my coffee that day which was rather abnormal compared to the 5 minutes I usually take. I was pensive, in general, and there was a lot to decide before setting out on my first river-rafting expedition with my best friend, his elder brother and his wife, and all their friends who believe in living life and not sparing an iota of effort in making it adventurous and exciting, who live to make sure they regularly wear their shorts and shades and go back-packing to obscure locations, and trek to mountain peaks just to get a whiff of nature’s smells and give a high five to the clouds and then come back to the city to continue with the life.

I finished my packing and loaded my back with the luggage. I said ’Bye’ to my Mom who was totally against this endeavor. I just shrugged, told her I’d be safe, and walked out into the wet streets under the sky drizzling little drops of early morning rain.

Having changed two buses after being one of the 3 passengers in each of them, I got to Malleshwaram 15th Cross, after escaping the misleading information given by my best friend that the Adiga’s was right next door to Sampige Theatre, and forgiving him because of all those known shenanigans of a friend who you have grown up with from the stupid old days at college we have been through together, and who has this undying habit of always overestimating time, and grossly underestimating distances and geographic locations.

I was figuratively lost, if you know what I mean, thinking about how I knew only 4 out of the 25 people I was embarking on the journey with. Before I could ponder more, I saw this guy I did not know (Gautham) who was over the phone standing opposite Adiga’s, where we were all supposed to congregate, talking something important. He looked as though he was going on a similar journey and before I could gather more, I got a call and I sat by speaking over the phone and Krithika (one of the 4 people I knew) showed up. We walked to the Mahindra Bolero (which was to be our home in all the laughing, singing, sleeping, talking and silence we were to go through for the next 13 hours) and got introduced to Gautham(CB), Abhi and Jayanth. After discussing between a few ringing phones, we walked into Adiga’s, ate up and met with the larger family team led by Gopal. A few introductions and we were all through to receiving the final team led by Sunny. There we were, on the Malleswaram streets in holiday clothes and before we knew it, we were driving our way out of the busy city to start a road trip to Hebbari for what was to be a thrilling rafting experience through Sita Nadi, and a halt at the Cherrapunji of Karnataka- Agumbe!

The journey was smooth, shrouded in some brilliant Tamil, Kannada and Hindi music, falling into a wide range of genres and eras, DJ-ed by each of us in turns, and anecdotes from each of us from time to time. Abhi’s driving thrilled us to bits as he suddenly changed his lane and vroomed close towards an approaching lorry and in a fraction of a second came back to his driving lane and gave a hi-fiver to CB. We broke for lunch and after much discussion, ordered our meals and dosas and continued to drive with our timely halts for nature-photography and coffee, and compendiary interactions with stray cows and dogs affectionately legging it around us, and took pictures before leaving the places in a pleasant little deluge.

It was nearly past 11 when we entered our camp: the Sanjeevani Health Resort which seemed rather huge, but we missed most of the background beauty as it was too dark and we were all too exhausted after the drive and too spent to explore. We were welcomed by the caretakers of the place, and two puppies, their eyes glowing with curiosity even in that darkness, and emaciated stomachs that have never known their fill. We walked in and threw our bags in the corner and as the camp-boys laid down the modest mattresses made of 10 cm of black foam, and a sheet on it, and sleeping bags for us to get into, what started off as a group of 4 people sitting in the foyer and having a tête a tête, with the muffled but incessant drone of the crickets and other nocturnal creatures giving the background score, turned into an energetic huddle while the rest of us went to bed after sending messages back home.

We rose early, it was only 5:45, and Gautham woke us all up with a round of announcements along with a couple of others who were the lucky lot gifted with the ability of rising early. After a groggy performance of morning ablutions, we felt the excitement growing on us as a batch left by the Tempo Traveler (the legendary TT). We walked out of the camp, took the stairs down while one of those puppies was fast asleep on the huge warm sneakers belonging to one of us, and stood around waiting for the next pick up, and as I sat by the window of the TT, I saw the greenery push past my window, resisting the unstoppable attempts by Sunny, Anirudh and Shamma to scare me about how indispensable it was to know swimming before one goes rafting, and about how crocodiles come after people dressed in purple, and Krithika trying to give a factual/theoretical point corroborating or contradicting almost everything that was being said. We looked outside at nature and green in its fullest bloom and I smiled to myself thinking about how eventful the weekend was turning out to be.

The day was bright and wet as we dressed ourselves for the journey through the river, boys with oriental features and accents eased us into our life jackets and made us carry our inflated boat on our heads and we joined the team waiting for us by the stream. Quick instructions were given on river behavior, and how our behavior ought to be. We were told to row ‘all forward, all backward, left forward/backward and right forward/backward’ with the flow of the stream and that we were to row in synchronization. I could hear him clearly, and at the end of it, my scales tipped in favour of ‘I don’t think I can do this’ and I began to unfasten my life jacket until Anirudh and Krithika came along and changed my mind and as Sunny called out numbers and divided us into 3 teams, we set out all oared up and geared up.

As we rowed through forests that lined the banks of the Sitanadi, we watched kingfishers fly by and some exotic blooms in a few places as we pointed out peacocks perched majestically on tree-tops and prodded each other to row harder and our boat man’s voice kept us going forward. Teams broke into jolly tunes every now and then and there was even an antakshari game played as our raft was pretty far away down the stream. Our raft guy kept asking us to sing and all we could muster was a couple of songs none of which we sang in union, until we asked him to sing something in his mother tongue Nepali. So he broke into ‘Rhesom phiriree, rhesom phiriree, always trekking always rafting rhesom phiriree’, and we all repeated after him! I think now that we should have also asked him what that meant! There were buckets to spill water on each other’s rafts so we all went absolutely berserk. The buckets were being fought over and won and people jumped into the water to get away with it before predators could attack and snatch it from them! Even the raft guys were taking sides and it was a funny little game that was played besides the three halts along the stream where we could jump into the water and have a swim and as we went on with our animated pursuits, our laughter and screams spread into the Hebbari atmosphere and got lost among the other sounds of nature.
The rafting came to an end and we all shouted hoorays and clicked a group picture by the river bank, in the slanting bars of October sunlight, with smiles of joyousness accentuated by the bright yellow oars and the same emotion which we felt deep within. Having deposited our rafts back on top on the carts where they belong, we got into our vehicles and drove back to our camp for a quick shower and a much-needed change into dry clothing.

Quick naps were stolen after we downed warm idlis, vadas and brown, bland but tasty Mangalore buns along with chutney and sambhar to go with them, to satisfy our enormous appetites. Random pictures were clicked of everybody either sitting on the foyer or taking a nap on the floor with legs propped up on chairs, people having a chat about the newest movies seen; some of us taking a walk to explore what was around the resort among clothes spread out to dry on the velvety green lawns, and a dilapidated well with a few little fish swimming around in their brown, watery universe.

After about an hour of perfect, sleepy stillness and calm, Krithika and I set out for a stroll. We joined Sindhu, Sandeep, Deepa and Vidya for a photograph and kept walking down through a muddy path lined with colourful, tiled houses and dense foliage, and got the main road as Krithika quoted Robert Brown’s lines on the lovely, dark and deep woods. We found ourselves at the gate of a rice mill and went in and an amiable receptionist offered us a tour of the mill and sent a dusky and petite teenager in yellow uniform, with a cute pigtail to show us around. She explained all the processes right from the dehusking and cleaning to the boiling and steaming of the rice and we started on our way back carrying 4 kilos of red rice which the mill people had so affectionately and painfully packed for us in spite of a dearth of packing material for purchases in such small quantities which they weren’t quite used to.

We returned to our camp and found another group that had bussed it from Bangalore and rafted an hour after us. Everyone was having a hearty meal and we joined in. A quick bite before Gautham collected all the 45 of us for a much-awaited and to be memorable group photo. A couple of minutes went by as all of us gathered there and in a second, 45 smiles were focused towards the Canon on the tripod stand as it’s click resounded, capturing the moment.

The bus group left and Sunny and Abhi were behind the wheel again. The drive was pleasant and the views breathtaking. We halted at a view point at Agumbe where the mist was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. We looked down at the vast green forests below that knew no bounds and as my gaze traveled around and then down, it came back to my feet that were on a pile of garbage that seemed to cover the entire floor space there. Bhelpuri, sliced pineapple with masala sprinkled on top and steaming chilli pakoras which a man doled out of his frying pan inside a lorry rear, and we drove back into our sunlight zone. The penultimate toilet/leg-stretch interval and we stopped on a road that had a field on one side and houses on the other and we lay on our backs on the middle of the clean road that stretched endlessly like a black ribbon in front of us.

Rain came lashing down and turned into a deluge. We drove in it for about 3 hours and after halting for dinner at Tiptur, we bade goodbye to the TT team. It was late Sunday night and we hit the Tumkur Road in the wee hours of Monday morning.

The Trekkers’ Unbounded were at the end of yet another wonderful adventure outing and I consider myself lucky to be a part of it for the first time!

There is truly much to see, feel and do! And every little sight in the wilderness has its own little story!

Looking forward to more of such splendid weekends with you guys

Sharadha.

Our very own blogspace..

Trekkers’ Unbounded on a rafting trip down the Sita Nadi in Hebbari and in the end totally sure that it is high time we started blogging about the precious experiences that might change lives. 

Here is our very own blogspace for TU! Feel free to pen your thoughts and enlighten the world with your amazing experiences! After all, there is nothing quite like going back on an experience and getting to feel it all over again by reading about it!