Netrani

I stood in the boat, sullen and anxious, while the instructor helped me into the SCUBA Gear. Sullen, because I was seasick, and anxious because I had never as much as dived in a swimming pool. But I had chosen to come for the SCUBA Diving experience at Netrani Islands near Murudeshwar, and that involved diving very much into the Sea.

Ready to start for the Island

I have a little problem - I cannot say 'I am scared'. Whatever it is, I have to give it a try. So when Kartik, KG and Prarabdh asked me if I would like to come to Netrani, I had to say yes. Now they were all already in the sea water, splashing around like the three happiest kids on earth, while I readied myself for the impending disaster. It was hot, I was hungry, the lifejacket was too tight, the fins were making everything so awkward, and the mouthpiece - oh I hated the mouthpiece! How many people had put it in their mouth anyways? And of course, the oxygen cylinder was heavy, and they had put extra weight beneath the life jacket. I didn't really belong in the air with all that gear. Sooner or later, I had to jump in. So when the instructor told me to jump in, I jumped in. Not exactly though - first I swallowed, then I swallowed again, only to realise that I had nothing more left in my mouth ; then I gave in and jumped.

The Happy Kid - Prarabh Awasthi

The water was cool, so one problem was solved. And the weight was gone too. I was just about to feel happy about my situation when the instructor told me to wear the goggles and start breathing using the mouthpiece. Swallow, again. But then the three happy kids started egging me on (or that's what they thought they were doing), so I put the abominable mouthpiece into my mouse, and I swallowed, again. 

Well, this time, the swallowing was protocol. That was how I was supposed to breathe. And that felt easy enough, until the instructor told me to do that underwater. Underwater - well, that was what we were there for. Reluctantly, I reminded him, I cannot swim. It's OK, he said, he is there for me. I wanted to say that I didn't trust him, but instead, I swallowed and thrust my head underwater. 

We practised breathing under water for some time, then he deflated my life jacket a bit and we descended downward. 

The Descent

Suddenly, I felt a lot of things changing around me. The first change was the silence. No, not the deathly awkward silence, but a lively, comfortable silence that simply belonged there. The second thing was the colours. Suddenly, everything around had become a beautiful shade of blue, the most beautiful blue I had seen. And this beautiful blue of the Sea was teeming with a lot of even more colourful life forms. It was almost as if we had developed the ability of seeing more colours underwater. And the third was distance. All distances seemed magnified underwater. Refractive Index, I mused. I could go to any extent to feel comfortable there you see, and the concept of refractive indices seemed familiar and comforting for some reason - which brings me to the fourth change I had felt. I felt uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. 

The Marine Scenery

I felt pain in my ears, which was to be expected and which was why I was supposed to equalise. Equalising required me to balance the pressures in my lungs and sinus with the water pressure outside. We fail to realise how easy our lives are because we breathe the same air that surrounds us on earth. To achieve the same balance underwater you have to breathe in through the mouthpiece and try to release the air through your ears. And you have to keep breathing in all the time. Sounds simple, IS simple, only - I was scared. I looked around for the three happy kids, who were the only people I knew in the vast entirety of the Arabian Sea, and I couldn't see any of them at that moment. Though I hated them for putting me in the situation, I knew I would feel safer with them around. But the one I had around me was my instructor, who, I must say, was a very good swimmer (despite his heavy set figure and a huge round belly). And at that time, he was telling me, i.e. gesturing to me to equalise. I sighed, then realising that sighing underwater was not a good idea, I swallowed. Luckily, that worked.

The instructor helping me equalise

Slowly, we started going deeper and also started looking around. Once I got used to the feeling of being underwater, I realised that the Sea was not a bad place to be. The fish live an uneventfully peaceful life, with nothing to worry them apart from the bigger fish. They keep moving around in the water looking for food, dancing all the while with beautiful graceful movements. Looking at them makes you feel almost jealous of them, you being human and having to struggle so much for a living.

After some time, the instructor started showing me the plants and the fungi. And I hated them! Well, in reality I was scared of them and that's why I hated them. OK, I am not scared of EVERYTHING, believe me - but I am mortally afraid of moving things like earthworms, leaches and centipedes, which have a trecherously soft hairless body and fine attachments that move. And all those fungi and corals looked just like that - soft with fine hair like attachments.So I held myself close, scared of touching or brushing against any of the rocks, and allowed the instructor to navigate through them.

The fish surrounded by the something
(You have to admit, the surroundings are scary!)

A fish surrounded by mushrooms - it was the mushrooms that scared me :|

But when the instructor lifted a Sea Cucumber and almost shoved it into my hands, I gasped, backed away, and the mouthpice fell out of my mouth! With great difficulty, the poor guy calmed me, helped me put in the mouthpiece again, and led me out of the hellhole. After that, he gathered it from me, through signs and gestures, that I wasn't interested in any of the plant life. I was bored of the fish and scared of the plants and more than anything else, I just wanted to go back to the boat. He told me, through gestures, to relax and told me that we were at 7 metres depth in the Sea. Didn't I want to go deeper?

Me telling the instructor to take me up again, the instructor telling me to relax

Of course I wanted to go deeper! The maximum allowed was 12 metres, and I was sure all the three happy kids were already there. I had to reach 10 metres at least! Resigned, I allowed the instructor to hold me and carry me deeper into the sea. This time, he knew fully well what I didn't want. So he took me to the beautifullest place he could find underwater. It had no plants and very little fishes - it was completely barren. 

But I was completely enchanted. Everything had come to a standstill there, I could sit there in peace and just enjoy the tranquility for ages. The entire sea floor was covered with sea shells of all sorts of shapes and size. It was vast, wide and open - as open as it could be under the water. It looked almost like a playground, and for once, I really wanted to romp and play there! I conveyed my appreciation to the instructor and asked him if he could pick a few shells for me. It was against the rules, but seeing me happy for the first time in the past hour, he obliged.

We could have spent more time there, but my oxygen cylinder was almost empty, and we needed to go back up safely. Slowly, we began ascending. On the way up, we caught up with the happy kids and took a lot of pictures. And then, when all the cylinders were empty, we went back to the water surface. We spent some time just lazing in the sea without all the SCUBA gear. Later, when it was late, we left for Murudeshwar.

I might have complained a lot, but SCUBA diving was a life altering experience for me. I realised that when I woke up the next day morning and was surprised to find myself wishing I was underwater. The peace and feeling of weightlessness haunted me, and breathing with the nose suddenly felt like too much of an effort. While idling at the beach, I felt that the water surface, even at its best during sunrise and sunset times, was nothing compared to what laid beneath. I knew, at that moment, that I would always remember this one hour spent underwater everytime I looked at a waterbody in my life. SCUBA diving, finally, had grown on me.

P.S. There are no photos of the barren landscape, we had given our camera to another team before we went there.

P.P.S. The Entire Underwater Album (courtesy Dreamz Diving)

(Written for a contest http://www.mahindraxuv500.com/)

Bisle - Darr ke Aage Jeet Hai!

When the trip started, it promised adventure. By the time we were halfway through it, it became much more.

We had started from Donigal, Karnataka fully loaded with our camping gear and accessories. With our rucksacks stuffed with Maggi Cup Noodles, rice, eggs, bread, sleeping bags, a few tents and the occassional clothes, we had set out for a 2 day long 50 km trek along a railway line. The final destination was Kukke Subramanya.

On the mark, ready, get set, go!

We brushed our teeth in a little stream, with a few crabs to keep us company. After a while, we had breakfast - bread, jam and peanut butter - by a charming waterfall along the railway line. With a few Kodak moments here and there, the trip was going perfectly as planned - until we were suddenly stopped by a few Government authorities.

The Track Trek

Waiting while Swapnil tried to bribe the Govt authorities 

The railway line, normally open to the occassional adventurers like us, was closed for that particular day due to some visit by the higher authorities. We tried to request, reason, plead and bribe, but they just won't budge. So there we were, 21 people, stranded in the middle of nowhere and stumped as to where to go and what to do for the remainder of 1 and a half days. Finally, we hitchhiked to the nearest main road, asked the driver of our Traveller to meet us there, and then set out in a general direction. On the move, we decided to go to Bisle.

The Awe-freakin-some Ride to the main road!

Bisle is a little village located on the outskirts of a forest known for its population of Tigers and King Cobras. But we didn't know the tigers and the cobras part back then. When we reached the village,it was just 9 o clock, but it was pitch dark - no electricity, no telephone lines, no civilisation. The villagers knew only Kannada, so Kaushik (also known as Kaustubh, Kishore and Kasturba) became our spokesperson. Slowly, with the help of the villagers, we started setting camp.

Kaushik beside the historical well

Our campsite was the ideal Bollywood horror movie set. A dilapidated temple surrounded by broken trees, a huge hall with a high ceiling, broken windows and a thousand cobwebs, and a well with the historical pulley and bucket attachment - together they completed the perfect camp site scenery for us. The villagers allowed us to use an old tap near the temple, sparing us the use of the well. We were too scared of using the trees near the temple as firewood - what if it offends the Gods and awakens the unknown devils who haunt the well? We instead collected some wet branches lying around and a few wooden pieces of the broken windows, and with the kerosene sold to us by the kind vilagers, we started making fire.

We realised why the making of fire was the biggest discovery by mankind, because believe me, making fire, even with a matchbox, is no easy job. But the fire was the only protection we had against cold (yes, like those stone age days), and it was also the only way of cooking food for 20 odd people. So, we persisted. It took us an hour to lit a fire enough for cooking for all of us.

We had fire-cooked Cup Noodles and Maggi, followed by boiled eggs and roasted potatoes. Slowly, the tents were pitched and a few of us took to their sleeping bags. A few preferred to sleep outside, while a few continued to sing songs lying in their sleeping bags, and looking at the stars overhead.

The next morning, we set out for a 6 km long trek into the forest (yes, the one which had tigers and king cobras). Our guide was an agile villager who spoke only Kannada, and our destination was, no kidding, the terrace top of a tiger's cave!

The Final Destination!
(We will approach it from the left)

The trek was simple but trecherous, with branches and brambles lying all over the occasionally rocky ground. Midway through the trek, we reached a small stream and filled our water bottles with world's sweetest water. Little did we know that behind the veil of sweet water, the stream had little black squigly secrets (called leaches) hidden all around her. The moment we left, we realised that they had climbed up our feet and made themselves comfortable at all the odd places. We spent the next 20 minutes getting rid of all of them with matchsticks, salt, Deo and Iodex. We also realised that looking at a leach burn in fire is real fun.

The Bisle Forest

Then we proceeded to the next part of the trek. It was more rocky than the previous, and the excitement of climbing the top of the cave had our nerves racing. The last bit of the trek was particularly difficult. We had to climb over a smooth spherical rock with nothing to hold onto except the rock surface. Our guide, with his Paragon slippers, was over the top in a few moments, while we struggled to keep pace in our sport shoes. After some time, all of us were up. And then, the feeling sank in - we are atop a tiger's cave!

The Last Mile

And who thought we would lie down atop that piece of rock!

We took pictures, made a video, had some water, and then, very soon, it was time to go back. The descent was even more difficult, and the fact that we were tired didn't help a lot. Soon we were near the leach infested stream, and then the campsite loomed closer. We left after another Maggi lunch, and by nightfall, we were back in Bangalore.

Later the trip was named as 'Darr ke aage Jeet hai'. And for days to come, we will tell everybody the story of Anuj and Sandhya, who got married in the temple, and lived in the high ceilinged house. One day, Sandhya committed suicide by jumping into the well. That night, when we reached the campsite, Sandhya had called her love back to relive their romance. And romance it was, a romance with adventure!

(Written for a contest http://www.mahindraxuv500.com/)

The Late Goodbye

He had never seen her so vulnerable before. He couldn't really do anything about it, but that didn't stop him from being concerned. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"There is no other way." She sounded stern. Her voice betrayed no weakness.

"But you would destroy everything in trying to destroy him. You know that."

"I do, but I cannot take this any more. This needs to end, he needs to be taught a lesson."

"When do you plan to do it?"

"The 21st of December."

He took a few moments to work out the meaning of this new revelation. And then, he realised. "Oh, that's cruel."

For a split second, her lips broke into a tired smile. Then the smile vanished just as it had come.

After a long time, she spoke again. "Its all my fault. How could I be so naive! When I first saw him, he looked so different from the rest that I was worried about him. But then I saw him defend himself, find his way in the world - he stood above all the rest. But above all, he understood me like no one did. He wanted to know everything about me. Right then, I chose my favourite. The strongest, the coolest, the most accomplished."

"The fittest." He added, understanding.

"Yes, the fittest." She said, after a pause."And I helped him get fitter. I gave him everything I could. I invited him to exploit me." Her voice was bitter. "Before I could realise, his hold over me had reached dangerous levels. I tried to retaliate, but he knew me too well. By then, he had mastered the art of squeezing out whatever he wanted of me."

"And not just me," She continued, "He oppressed all of his friends, MY friends to win his way. Some he coerced to his bidding, some he just used for his own fun. Later, he ruined them all alike. The ugly bullying monster!"

When she spoke next, her voice was distant. "Looking back, I realise how my entire reasoning for choosing him was flawed. He was the fittest among them all, but he wasn't fit for me. At least the rest of them loved me - he didn't. He understood me, but understanding doesn't guarantee love."

"If he does understand you as well as you claim, wouldn't he know what he is heading to?"

"Oh he does!" Her voice now sounded angrier that it ever had all this time. "He knows. I have given him so many signals - even the blind and the deaf and the dumb could understand them. I have been moody, I have thrown tantrums, I have rained tears, I have been angry for days at a stretch... He knows. He understands. He just doesn't care. He is too comfortable to change, and somewhere in his mind, there is an utter disbelief for anything that could go wrong, anything that could defeat him. He really believes that he will always have his way. I don't know what's brewing in that cunning mind of his, but unless he could brew up another planet, I do not see what options he has."

She looked away. Her anger, mixed with distress and pain was palpable. Her chest was heaving - she was trying hard to keep herself calm. He moved closer to her. "Can I ask you something?"

Her eyes were closed. And her silence was unnerving. He hesitated, and then, moving closer, asked again in a careful voice. "Earth?"

She was startled. "Yes?"

"Earth," he continued, "Is correcting his mistake now as option?"

She looked into his eyes, anger flashing in hers. But he continued nevertheless, in the same calm, careful tone. "What if he accepts his mistakes and starts correcting them starting today? Would you forgive him, for the rest of them, for the rest of the species?"

She stood silent for a long time. When she spoke next, her voice was soft, and steady. "I do not know. I am broken, Mars. I don't know if the damage is reparable. And I would rather see all the species die than see them rot to death in this world Human has bestowed upon them. However, I will decide when the time comes, if it comes at all. But if you ask me - I do not think Human has it in him to correct this. It requires him to give up all of his pride and come to all of us with a modesty that is impossible for him to feel. No, I feel that we will never reach that dilemma. 21st December, 2012 will be a day to remember, for him and for all of us."