Naneghat Trip

This post appeared first on CoolAge in two parts. You can check it out at the following links:
http://www.coolage.in/2011/12/05/naneghat-trip-part-one/
http://www.coolage.in/2011/12/07/naneghat-trip-part-two/

The Iranian chai at Matunga with its unique flavour, sensation and aroma clicked active that part of the brain, which had been dormant for months. These months, they left us bewildered with Macroeconomics, Accounting, Supply Chain, et al. And we were still fighting within our own selves to find a way out. The decision to trek in the Western Ghats aroused the butterflies in the bellies and we set out to search for the lost cave atop a hill. The trek team consisted of Debashree, Kartik, Rajeev, Vaibhav and, yours truly, of course. We reached back our respective hostels at 0100 hours, 27th November 2011, 37 hours after our final exams. With cricket, South Bombay heroics and multi-cuisine luncheons, our systems pleaded for some sleep after a hectic exam schedule. But, the fire to explore more, kept us detached from hitting the sack as frequently as possible.

All of us, barring the vibrant Vaibhav, slept for 2 hours only, as we had planned to start at 0400 hours from our hostels to take the first train to Kalyan. Probably, the first time something was executed on time despite having a girl in the team. We reached Kalyan by 0530 hours bang on, and en route we were greeted by hot water disguised as chai in Dombivili station. We waited for the Shirdi bus to start and as the normal Indians that we are, three of us adjusted in the bus seat capacitated for two. Finally, when the bus did start at 0645 hours, we felt overwhelmingly blessed. The bus conductor was super-confident of where the foothills of Naneghat started which he said in his fluent Marathi that we decoded into Hindi and understood later, as his willingness to help us out. As luck would have it, we crossed the foothills of "Naneghat" at around 0800 hours, and had to ask the conductor to stop the bus. One can easily spot the difference between a super-confident man and an over-confident man; a super-confident man says he saw a time machine land here in this village; an over-confident man says that he made that time machine land in that village. Our conductor turned from a super-confident man to an over-confident man and didn't stop the bus and kept on reassuring us that the destination is further down the road. After half hour of further travel and still no signs of Naneghat, added along with some public venting of pressure, he sheepishly accepted that we have crossed the point. With no guts to throw swearing gaalis on a government employee in the middle of a Maratha village, we religiously got down and then hurled the E/C gaalis at him, after the bus left, of course.

Standing in the middle of the road, all that we could see was the Grand Canyon-structured, air-cut mountains of the Western Ghats. We were 15 km ahead of our starting point and we were told to wait for a truck or a jeep that will take us back to the trekking point. With some assistance from the local Police post, we boarded a truck that was going in our desired direction. Five of us in the small driver cabin, we were six in all, the driver included. With twisted necks and pressurized limbs, we reached our trek's starting point at 0930 hours. What should have been a cakewalk was achieved with some bum-paining efforts and it took us such a long time to reach the starting point. And what lay ahead was a search to reach the long-forgotten cave.

So, we reached the foothills of Naneghat. We started walking along the only available path and were met by a stream-bed. As rocky it can get, the Woodlands did come into the picture and was a major assistance in trekking. Google terms this trek as an "Easy" one, but as one would have it, we had to turn it the other way- "Difficult". We followed the bed of rocks and with each meter the slope was increasing by a good fraction of a degree. There were places where tan θ was put to shame while we were on our fours. And what amazed us the most was, each of us, wherever we saw, deciphered a path that could take us to the top. We did reach the top and when we did, it was only to discover that there was another, further higher. The slope was ever increasing and was indirectly proportional to the amount of water we were carrying.

We reached a second top and by that time, we were sure that we were off-track and by no means would we reach the cave. Taking inspiration from Columbus, we set to discover a new cave/peak/place. We set a target and promised ourselves that we will trek until 1230 pm. Peak after peak we went and finally we saw the biggest of the peaks. Life becomes a lot easier when we know where we have to reach, but it becomes a lot interesting when we realize that we will reach somewhere, no matter when and how. And so did we reach the peak, better than everything that we had come across and when one looks back at the trails, it's just amazing to feel that we have trekked so far.
It felt great to be there with complete silence around, listening just to oneself. To feel that, that was life – The higher you grow, the more careful you must be. Everyone down there look so tiny to you, but when you fall, the greater the impact will be and sometimes unlucky enough that no one cares to remember you, after the fall. Just when my mind was taking the philosophical route, I realized that the pug didn't stop following us, after all. Rajeev's phone rang and thanks to you Vodafone, we realized that the peak wasn't a virgin one. Vaibhav came up with an idea of shooting an ad for Vodafone and there, with our minimum equipment (a digicam), we shot the ad (which in under process now and will be released soon).

After half hour's rest, we started to descend down. And the terrain was absolutely magical. With a torn shoe grip, Vaibhav was on the casualty side at most times. Forests, jungle, tough roots, spider webs, creaking insects, rattles of snakes, barrage of slippery rocks surrounded us and the only hope to reach a place of human habitation was the traffic sounds from the South-East, towards which we were moving. Even the descend wasn't as easy as we had presumed to be. We owed that to the difficult path that we had voluntarily taken and were we glad that we did- We could reach ground zero in an hour! Out on the highway, as we waited for transportation, there came the dusty truck again. Hitchhiking on the truck, we made our journey to the nearest dhaba, to pacify our hunger growls. After a delicious meal, luckily enough, we managed to get an auto to a nearest town. After two consecutive jeep drives we reached Kalyan, from where we boarded the local train. It was 1900 hours when we reached our hostels. A strong coffee and a Saridon shot the headache that I was carrying along and it was 0800, the next day, when I opened my eyes again.