What I am living with,
the memories of that week,
are no less than heaven…
Scrabbling my days on the peak of India with some tissue papers and a pen. I
thought I would leave writing for 6 days till I stay in this tour, but I
couldn’t help myself and started writing every night.
I didn’t have any diary so I just carved few letters on some paper tissues and
the rest on blank pages of the novels I took with my journey.
Day-1
Time travels way too fast, seems like it was a day before
when I was devastated by my results and was resolved to commit all the mistakes
no one should. I wasn’t even certain to deposit fee for this trip.
But I don’t know what hit me when I saw a bunch of people depositing their part
of funds. I went straight to the nearest ATM and took out 5600 bucks that I
deposited to the designated teachers.
I thought it’s the only way to flush out the worm eating me inside.
I woke up on the chosen day with no sign of the reservations or the decided
point of gathering, with closed eyes I started swiping my hand over bed for
cell, I called up a tour mate for the required information and came to know
that the reservations were made for the 8 pm train.
I gazed into the wall clock and it was already 2 pm, which made exact 6 hours
left for the departure.
So now I have to wrap up everything by my rules of stuffing, 6 days 6 t-shirts,
a pair of jeans, 4 days in Manali that
adds 2 pullovers and a thick jacket, few critical utilities and I am done.
As a typical mother, my mum gave me a
long speech to add plenty of others thing that I clearly neglected, the moment
I peeked into her eyes she gave me a expression like I was on my way to WW3,
Somehow I managed to convince her that I was going only for a week.
The rest time for my disappearance went in few levels of
angry birds and a couple of episodes of “my
wife and kids“.
Finally I was about to leave my home, I waved my family a
good bye and they wished me a happy journey including my sister over a cell
phone conversation.
a cousin of mine dropped me at the railway where I called up to reach everyone else.
They arrived in a couple of moments we were standing at the platform number 1
for our train.
While everyone was busy in their conversation I sneaked out for a novel that
was going to help me passing the journey.
At last the train arrived after 10 minutes and we took our reserved seats. But
the seats were booked in order of our names and that made me last in the queue
and obviously in last box, I screamed in my head “fuck, why does it have to be
me always?”
I switched seats with the boy seating next to my classmate and came over in
that box, just like me everyone else came into their own gangs of classes.
We spend some time by clicking pictures, eating snacks, chatting and bitching.
Cash
said “Yeshu, you have to change your silent shy attitude and start gelling up
with us dude”
“I’ll try but can’t promise” I replied with a smile. “It doesn’t hurt?” said
another girl pointing at my piercings. “A little physical pain doesn’t hurts me
as much as emotional one does, physical pain just numbs the emotional one for
some time” I replied in my head.
“yup, it did that time for about 3 to 4 days but not now, until someone hit me
in the eye”
everyone laughed.
After some time one of the teachers came and warned the boys to leave the bogie
within half an hour since it was time to sleep. I don’t know why do they kept
coming after us over and over, might because of our numbers of peoples in our
group, 3 boys and 3 girls can be a little piece of suspicion for teachers.
We left after the final warning that came on 12 am and left for our seats.
I was quite hungry that time but didn’t said anything since the rest of boys
didn’t seemed to have any urges for food, I did made a fool out of myself
because I hoped for a dinner arranged by our teachers and thinking that I
clearly denied for any packed snacks by mum, I wish I would have eaten
something at home before coming but that was too late by then, finally when the
pantry guy came to take orders for food everyone screamed for their list of
orders, I realized that I wasn’t the only one hungry that time.
We ordered a dinner for 7 that had 6 juniors including me.
Gauri, my classmate wasn’t hungry so he just slept on his birth
seat.
The disposable plate was quite compact for a dinner, had 4 chapattis rolled in
an aluminum foil, 3 dishes, some salad, a little rice and pickle. It wasn’t
enough though but was sufficient for an empty stomach. it was billed for about
840 bucks, damn it was really costly for what it had, I would have arranged a
king sized dinner for me and 4 more with an flooding amount of food. It might
be ordinary for a working class but we are students dam it. We must get some
concession at least.
My legs were already paining by the heavy legs workout I did last day so I
felled asleep easily that night.
Day-2
Damn it was shivering cold in Punjab, I spend last night with a towel I took
for the journey. It was hilarious though still protected me from the cold. I
came to know about another use of towel that night.
We woke up around 5 in morning and dropped at Chandigarh railway
station and jumped into our city bus which took us straight to our hotel “
silky resorts”. The way to hotel was
awesome. I could breathe the life, the smell of moist soil, the smell of
greenery in the air of Punjab. It just took my spirits to new heights.
As we reached our hotel, we separated ourselves in an isolated group of our own
class. The girls got their own room and the rest 3 of us boys waited for our
room.103 that was us.
Room was simply awesome. It had everything one need, beautiful balcony with
plenty of plants,
luxurious bed and most of all a huge LCD, all a men’s heart desire.
I just wanted to sleep down on that bed forever but sadly we had to get ready
within few hours for our industrial visit. A teacher dropped into our room for
a quick announcement that we must get ready in formals for that visit. Now I
had a situation, I didn’t bought any formals not even a shirt neither I got any
information about it before so I borrowed a casual shirt from
Gauri (he’s a guy but why did I gave him
a feminine name I’ll come on it later or you might figure that out yourself).
That shirt was little tight for me though since a few months of work out gave
me quite broad shoulders but that was the only shirt I liked so I had to manage
somehow.
We took our breakfast within 15 minutes and were on our way to the rock garden.
i have been there before but still the glory of rock garden remains on the top.
No one would have imagined how some pieces of trash can create a beautiful
sight for eyes. We invented plenty of postures for a perfect memory. Enormous
numbers of pictures were taken there with hilarious excitement.
After some time I was really tired and
wanted to go back into our hotels badly, sun was killing me. Looking at others
I thought how the hell they can tolerate sun that effortlessly.
Finally we were back into our hotel and I was enjoying my lunch with the rest. The left day went in a company visit named
Beta soft. Ltd. Damn boring, don’t ask
why. It was so ridiculously waste of time as we have been attending those
lectures from the day our milk tooth fell.
I was exhausted and rushed back into our bus as soon as the session finished.
We were back to hotel and my mood swings back to normal as a happening disc was
waiting to be thrilled by our steps.
To reveal the inside, dance is a pretty
appropriate way. I just forget what’s going around me, as if I am high on
something, the world become’s limited to a square in which world is partying
without any significance of foreign problems.
A stress busting party was over and we took our dinner. While returning back to
our rooms we clicked few group snaps at the stairs. I changed into a
comfortable sleeveless cotton t-shirt and a lower. I was a bit or more
hesitated to share a bed with 2 guys since from the childhood I have became
habitual to sleep alone in my bedroom, I tried but couldn’t sleep, walked for
few minutes in the balcony garden, skipped in between few tv channels, somehow
drowsiness took its initiatives on my eyes, and I fell asleep.
Day 3
“
Yeshu, wake up man, we are scheduled to
leave for another company in half an hour”
I forced my eyelids to open and welcome the morning, but the night in my eyes
was opposing them. Somehow I managed to wake up, yes, the biggest task for me
is to wake up and the rest is just learned daily schedule.
Took bath in 10 minutes, wore the same old borrowed shirt from
Gauri and blue denims, put on a nice
park avenue deodorant And ready to leave
for breakfast.
After our breakfast we left for
armatrex,
it’s a textile factory that manufactures cloths. It also had its own factory
outlet which had other brands too, not only cloths but other utilities as well,
shoes, crockery, sports items and a grocery.
We liked this visit more than the last one since it was quite practical and exciting
as well and the girls love shopping so they were satisfied as well.
While girls and
Gauri were busy in shopping, i and
Max (another friend, I called him PRA, means brother in punjabi)
sneaked our way out to the food section where we purchased our quota of snacks
for the rest of our journey and 4 cans of diet coke since it was 5 bucks
cheaper then outside and we were dry too.
We returned to our hotel to have our
lunch. We changed into something casual since after lunch we were about to
leave for the famous
sukhna lake. I
wore a sporty white t-shirt and the same old blue denims. I can easily put on
old jeans for a whole week as far as it’s not covered in dirt though the upper
part matters to me, I can’t wear same t-shirt for another day it’s like a
bathless day for me.
We packed our luggage since we were scheduled to leave for
Manali right after visiting lake.
After loading our bags in bus, we left for the lake.
As we made our way to the lake and went straight to the ticket counter, we
rented two boats for us, in the first boat
Gauri,
Max, rashi and
Cash sat while in second one me,
Tani and sana sat.
it was a mechanical boat in which we have to pedal to make it run and move the
liver to give it directions, quite stone age thing but we were enjoying it a
lot.
Girls were swapping their places to pedal while I was fixed on my place. The
key for a long run is to pedal as slow as you can. Obviously the girls went
crazy in clicking pictures and why won’t they? The sight was breathtaking for
all of us desert peoples.
As girls were clicking pictures I was humming an old
hindi song with waving my left hand in water.
paniyon me chal rahi hai,
kashtiyan bhi jal rahi hai,
hum kinare par nahi hai ho oo.
zindagi ki mehrbani,
hai mohabbat ki kahani,
aasuo me pal rahi hai ho….
(The life is struggling its way in an ocean,
boats are burning with fire and compassion,
we aren’t on the beach,
a story of love is a grace of life,
that story is building in tears….
)
While I was lost in my song I didn’t noticed the girls were staring at me, they
weren’t clicking pictures anymore and were listening my song. As I saw them
looking at me, an instant shyness covered my face and I started looking in
scattered directions.
We were in middle of the lake. No one was paddling the boat any more but the
waves. Silence became our tongue. A
group of beautiful ducks was at the end of lake. We were enjoying our time in
lake,
cozy couples were busy in making love in
their swan boats, I could sense the blush on my girls faces easily. The passion
tenderness and warmness was dissolved in the air of
lake.
After sometime we noticed that we had to be back into our buses by that time.
We clicked few group photos and paddled back to the bank of lake.
We sat on our last seats as usual,
thinking about it now. I realize that we were back benchers in school so as in
college so as in whole journey of our tour. Some things just never change.
The initiating roads to HP were delightful, breeze was full of life and the
sights we saw on the way were full of greenery and water. The weather was like
it’d rain anytime and I was desperately waiting to get drenched.
As we covered more distance, everyone got busier in their
own spaces,
Cash was with
Gauri second last right corner seats, rashi
with
Max were sitting just behind
them on the last right corner seats, and I was sitting alone on the left most
corner of the bus, a smile was engraved on my face and a spirit of journey was
shinning in my eyes. I was breathing the life. While I was having a spiritual
experience,
Tani said “would you like sitting next to me?” I noticed that she
was sitting alone on the seats ahead of mine. I thought for a moment “if I sat
next to her I’ll lose my window seat (okay, I am a bit immature)” but I agreed since
she had a depressed look on her face that I didn’t liked a lot.
After an hour or two our conversations went to heights. The cold weather gave
birth to hot topics.
Anyway our bus stopped n mid of nowhere at a dhaba for snacks since it was
still a long journey ahead of us. We
dropped down to buy some snacks, rest of the group had tea except me, I don’t
have tea or coffee until my neck is chocked or its freezing winter, though I
love the cold versions of tea and coffee but that wasn’t on menu that time. in
no time we jumped back on our seats because it was jaw dropping cold and I was
still in my t-shirt.
As we made into the hills the temperature dropped by few more degrees. But the
good thing was that the bus driver was a big fan of
honey singh and he had his entire songs collection, we were
enjoying our way with high heels and brown
rang.
Soon the juniors opened a bottle of whiskey hiding it from teachers, I don’t
know from where they got this daring attitude but it was a treat for all of
boys on the bus. Cold was a big excuse that they made so the girls agreed and
permitted them to have a peg. The glass kept on passing from front to back
seats but I clearly denied their offer since I was sitting next to a girl whom
I’ve known not for long time.
While all of us were enjoying and moving on
Punjabi
songs, a junior got drunk. That was a bit funny though since he had just two
pegs and he was swinging like Johnny walker. Somehow other juniors made him
calm and the joyous ride continued.
We entered into the border of
himachal
pradesh and up to that time everyone was asleep. I noticed the girl sitting
next to me was so sleepy that she kept on hitting the window glass with her
head. With a Feeling to be a responsible friend I slowly tilted her head away
from the glass and then I had to spend the rest of journey with a burdened
shoulder on which she was sleeping without any significance of me.
“Fine, at least she is safe on this side” I mumbled and tried to sleep.
It was around 11:30 when we were
woken up by our teachers for dinner. I rubbed my hand on my eyes and came out
of the bus yawning,
as we all gathered on the dinner table, everyone wished
Max for his birthday and sang the birthday song for him later we
continued with our dinner. Food wasn’t that pleasing, the non bread was rough
and hard. So was the tasteless
dal.
Somehow I finished whatever I took with wrong expectations and went back to my
seat.
When the girls came back in bus, a female faculty ordered them to sleep on the
front seats with a suspicious look on her face, the boys including me giggled
and laughed a lot on this act of her.
I was feeling much relieved by that time since I was enjoying the whole seats
by myself including the window.
I continued to sleep but the cold didn’t allow me to. Looking at my poor
condition
Max passed me a shawl. I really
owe him big time for that night. It really saved my ass that moment.
The shawl helped me to deal with cold up to a limit but didn’t help me with my
nap. I was awake and I was helpless, I
couldn’t sleep on that seat, it was really uncomfortable for me but others were
sleeping quite generously. I fought with night by trying different positions,
legs above seats, legs hanging down from seats, hands below and above head.
Finally I gave up and passed the rest of time by watching the beautiful world
behind the window’s glass.
We entered
Manali around 5 in
morning. The driver started music system that worked as the alarm for everyone.
hotel sandhya Manali,
it was a 4 star
hotel and that we could see from its architecture. We pulled out the luggage
from bus and got into our room as soon as possible. This room was much better
than last one. it had a bigger lcd, much bigger space, a luxurious washroom and
the best view from the balcony. But all we wanted to do at that moment was
sleep. I bumped into that bed and fell asleep. This time sharing bed with two
guys wasn’t a big deal for me since drowsiness had blocked the rest of my
senses.
DAY-4
well, the day four had already begun when we entered
Manali but it begins for us when we woke up after a long journey. I
was the last to leave bed.
Gauri and
Max were already ready and enjoying
coffee by the room services. Somehow I got under shower. The water was warm,
just as needed. Call it super natural effect or anything else but the water was
healing my stress and as I came out of it I felt much fresh and enthusiastic.
Put on a jeans and a t-shirt followed by a pullover, moisturizer was most
useful this time since the cold could give you cracks and dry skin. Did a
little hair and I was ready to leave for breakfast.
we went outside the girls room to get accompanied by them to the dining room,
as the rituals says girls came after 15 minutes of waiting and we went to the
dining room.
The breakfast was just delicious and the fruit punch was icing on cake. We left
for a little sight visit and as we came out of hotel it was a bright sunny day.
Some localities told us it had rained last day and this might cause snow fall
at
Rohtang, this news turned our
spirit a little down since we were too much excited to see snow at
Rohtang and snowfall means the roads
will be blocked.
Without thinking much about that news we continued to see more of
Manali. We clicked a lot of pictures
sitting on rocks lying down on grass and god knows what else.
The teachers informed us that we have to group up for visiting the mall road.
It was the only market in whole
Manali.
Our teachers went ahead and we followed
them in a queue like some school kids, as we reached we disclosed that it was
nothing but just a market, there was nothing special about it, everything was
just ordinary. We could have enjoyed much in the rain forest besides it but
what can we do it’s our teacher’s who take the decisions.
The girls went busy in window shopping. And at that moment I and
Max were feeling a little detached from
them so we decided to leave them on their own and step ahead to the rest of
market.
We offered
Gauri that he should come
along with us but
Gauri is
GAURI….
anyway we started exploring more of mall road and kept on walking.
After sometime we realized it was quite late and we should catch up with
teachers, we called up girls but they were still busy in shopping.
After half an hour they finally showed up and surprisingly they haven’t shopped
as much as they took the time. Girls will be girls. We can’t blame them for
what they are.
But we were pretty much behind then the rest of troop. Cash called up our teachers and they
told her which way to follow for our next destination, the “hidimba devi temple”
the roads passed in clicking pictures, and chit chats. Distances don’t matters
when you’re with your loved ones. We reached temple or I say the stairs of
temple where our teachers were waiting for us, not waiting but actually resting
on the stairs.
We started stepping up for the temple and in the mid way we found some peoples
who were renting their yaks to tourists for clicking pictures.
“30 bucks for a picture on yak?” that
was pretty costly but it doesn’t matter when that picture become one of the
greatest memories.
Well the yak was not the only animal that was a tourist attraction, there were
mountain rabbits too. Their fur was 10 times bigger so was their size then the
ordinary rabbits. We did clicked few snaps with the rabbits too.
Girls didn’t stop at animals. They rented the local mallu dresses and clicked snaps wearing them.
After a 30 minute of snap session, we went into the temple area. girls and Gauri went inside the temple while I and
Max decided to stay outside it. He doesn’t
believe in god and I believe in one god. For me it doesn’t matter which temple
is it, god doesn’t come in poly form. You can just take his name whenever you
feel the need. If you know god is everywhere then why do you search him inside
temple?
After our temple visit, we were on our way back to hotel.
While walking back, Max and I stopped
at a painting shop, he wanted to get some show pieces for his friends. It was a
wood plank cut in a leaf shape, on which the painter paints scenery and write
whatever you wish.
It didn’t take a lot time since he was a pro in painting. We
hired auto back to the hotel, while girls were still in market busy in
shopping.
We dropped in mid way to hotel because we had something
better in our mind. Our teachers had denied us to go to river when we asked
them for it.
Girls and rest of group was still in market so we thought to
utilize this time in doing something exciting.
We went on the bank of the river where we sat for some time. It was killing
wing blowing on our ears. I could literally hear the sound of cold wind and the
thundering water of river,
we clicked few snaps but didn’t dared to put legs in the water since it was
freezing cold and flowing at heights of
speed.
As the dawn started to begin we stepped back to our hotel. Another party night
was waiting for us.
The girls came back to hotel in an hour, that’s part of the routine I wasn’t
wondered with it. But Gauri who was with
girls, had the only keys to our room still he didn’t cared to rush back to hotel
even after knowing that we are waiting to change for the night, which really
freaked me out.
After which we started to put on some happening cloths for
the night. I wore the latest t-shirt that I bought from palika market when I was in delhi. My favorite bullet jeans (it’s a
year old still I love it) and the jacket I bought in last year winter. Gauri asked me for a t-shirt that he
liked a lot. by heart, I wasn’t really willing to give up that piece, I
recently bought it from spunk, but I did wore his shirt for two days so that
was like a debt on me, that’s why I had to loan it to him.
We went into the club but the party was hardly any fun in
there, might be 4 or 5 guys only, but we came with the dancing shoe and we did
used them. We pumped up the party to heights, crazy moves, peppy moves, killing
and graceful moves. We ruled the floor.
The party followed with the cake cutting ceremony for
Max, it was his 20 plus something
birthday.
We mashed the cake on his face but no one dared to give him any
birthday bums cause of his gigantic size.
Party done so was the birthday, now it was time to have the
dinner. Due to those sweating hours, I was madly starving, I don’t know how
much I ate that night but for the record, it was twice as I ate normally.
Day 5
Day started with an aching leg and shoulder that was a clear sign of a
happening last night. The toughest task was to come out of bed, rest was easy.
Max was preparing coffee for himself
&
Gauri had just came out of
washroom.
It was my turn to get ready. I went inside the washroom and surprisingly there
wasn’t any hot water on the tap. It was too late to call the room service so I
just pushed my head into a tub of cold water and pulled it back instantly in a
friction of second. Yes it was damn cold but I realized it sucked out my
laziness instantly. I did it again and again till my body adapted the
temperature. I took bath somehow and came out of washroom. Wore a t-shirt
followed by a pullover a half sweater and jacket, the last night’s bullet jeans
that was lying on a chair beside window and the same old shades I wore whole
week.
We locked the room and went outside the girls’ room. We
waited for a while and when they came out we went for the first meal of the day.
We had a great chat about the last night’s dance, the embarrassing plus crazy
steps and laughed a lot.
We
chose a big car for us and went into it. This car was about to take up to Rohtang, an icing place few hundred
meters above Manali. I was waiting
for this day from the last 4 days of trip since I had never seen ice in my
whole life.
The car had 8 of us. 3 girls on the back seats and 3 boys including
me on middle seats. The front seats were taken by a junior and the captain of our
ship.
On the way the driver stopped the car where we rented few
warm clothes for the chilly we were about to face. It was just like a suit that
my father used to wear in his air force days but with a stuffing of cotton. I
wasn’t willing to take any of them since from childhood, I had this clear image
of actors dancing and singing in ice wearing the hottest clothes, be it the soldier soldier meethi batte bol kar or kyu chalti hai pavan… na tum jano na hum. But
when I look at my friends now in these cloths I can’t imagine anything but a
bunch of terrorists training for the next attack on Kashmir. After a long mind
battle with myself I took those clothes to protect my own clothes from wetting.
The journeys to Rohtang
begin once again. Roads were really terrifying but they passed with an ease
because we all were enjoying a new session of antakshri.
After sometime we stopped at a local station as the road to Rohtang was blocked up to 2pm and we had
to wait until the barriers were cleared again.
While roaming in market a guy offered me paragliding for 800
bucks per person. I was clearly uninterested in his offer but to kill sometime
I started to negotiate with him for a little less amount. After half an hour of
negotiating he agreed at 400 bucks per person, “Damn I am getting good at it
now.” I said it to myself.
All of us agreed and jumped into an open jeep and the jeep
drove us to a peak point for paragliding. I sat on the open edge of jeep while the
rest of them sat inside it, “such a pussy”
I mumbled. The roads became spookier but I loved it, I had always preferred the
wilder side of nature. There is a intoxicating pleasure in it.
As we reached, Max took the
initiative and wore the gliding gear. I was about to go right after him so I too
got into it.
A trainer was about to go with us for safety reasons since none of us had any
training in paragliding, although I had done it before but it was just one
time.
So
Max ran for
gliding but boom! He slipped his leg and felled down, now I was uncertain that
I want to go or not, but it was too late by then, I had to go, I barely ran a
meter for the take off and I was in air. It was an easy part. I doubt how
Max couldn’t do it? It was due to his overweight
or wrong technique?
While in the air, I was waving my hands like crazy and screaming as loud as I
can. I was enjoying the silence of hill, the beautiful landscape. I was
admiring the best creation of nature.
Landing was way smoother. I just jumped on ground and
removed the gliding gear. I wished it was a little longer in air. We always
want more, isn’t it?
As I landed two guys showed me my paragliding snaps and cam
recording. I loved it but as I heard the price for it, those became useless for
me. The snaps and cam recording were worth 300 bucks for each.
It was way more then
I imagined so I had to give up that offer. I was already in debt to Max as I had forgotten my wallet at
hotel and I didn’t have a penny with me.
So after I landed, I recorded the gliding session of the
rest of the group. We clicked some snaps at our landing station and by then it
was time to rush into our car again.
We were on the way to Rohtang
once again. Roads got more thrilling and creepier as dirt and wet mud was all
over the road, one wrong move and we were in hell. It was too thin way that
only one vehicle can barely drive over it and the driver’s stories of car
accidents acted fuel in fire.
We reached our destination.
ICE was all I could see and I loved it.
We wore our ice shelter (that’s what I called it) and ate
our packed lunch that we bought from hotel. As we didn’t had much time we
jumped on horses we hired in mid way of ice peak. Those horses were tied in a
row so that they could be handled by a single person, horses were quite old
according to the guy who was handling them, mine was 15 year old Max’s was youngest. I don’t remember his
age though.
We reached the ice peak within some 10 minutes. It was
really quick as we could have taken much more time than horses did.
That place was just above everything, it was just as I have
imagined heaven would look like. Although I could hardly breathe in that place
but I ignored this thing completely as I was too much enjoying the love of
god.
Within few minutes we were fighting with snow balls.
Smashing and hitting each other with snow is ultimate experience until someone
throw a snowball at your face. It feels just like a snow bite on your face.
We carved our names on snow and clicked snaps beside it,
although we used our hands to carve our names, my crazy mind was visualizing us
melting the snow by other ways.
We clicked as many as snaps we could have and later our
teachers instructed us to start riding our way back to cars.
The journey was about to end for us. Rohtang, was the final spot. While going back to hotels no one
spoke a word but just slept. The roads were partially visible cause of dawn as
well as the frost over the windows. On the mid way Gauri asked driver to stop at a corner, he was about to vomit and
when the driver stopped, along with Gauri
the junior sitting over front seats with driver threw up too. It was quite
ironical. Both of them puked together, a snap moment but I was too tired for
that. once our journey continued, everyone started talking about throw ups and
I didn’t really liked it, talking about throw up makes me feel sick. So I just
decided to close my eyes over this topic.
As we reached the hotel, we smashed into our bed ASAP, and
after a quick break we went into dining hall. After we finished our dinner, we
all ganged up in the boy’s room and decided to play Truth or dare.
No one in that room knew that I was quite a player in that
game since I had played it all my school days. And that boosted my spirit to
take the game on a wilder edge. Although I can’t reveal all the dares and truth
we played as we promised everything we do in that room stays in that room, but
I will open few non hurting, light dares.
We spin a bottle of mineral water in the middle of the bed
and the first to go was Tani, “dare”
she said with an attitude. ”go to the
swimming pool bare footed”, I dared her. “But that’s too much” said
another girl. “How can I play with a bunch of kiddos” I said to myself. “Okay
just dance in mid of bed. Max, play a
track” I said annoyingly and then she danced.
As the night grew
more peoples started to join us in that game.
“Dare” said Cash. “Sing a song like a beggar and ask for some change” dared another girl. Everyone was dying
with laughs when she sang “allah k naam
pe kuch dede baba”. Bottle spin
again and now it was Gauri’s
turn.”Propose a guy” dared another girl and he did being a sport.
Me?
I got truths
“are you single?” asked a girl.
Ans. Yeah, pretty much.
“How many girlfriends
you had until now?” asked another.
Ans. I don’t want my brothers sitting here to get jealous so
ill skip this one.
(Every guy threw a pillow on me.)
I got a few dare by guys too.
“Lift Max”
I tried but failed. What could I do, he weight twice as much
as me.
“Hug a girl in this room”
Well that wasn’t a biggie for anyone. even a bro or friend
can hug a girl. I don’t know why the guys became cheaper, but I didn’t show any
sign of anger at that moment.
I made a move on Cash
and suddenly hugged the girl sitting next to her.”
A friendly hug, just part of the game” I
told her instantly and she didn’t mind at all.
Well that’s all I can reveal. All I can say is that the game
became way wilder that night.
We ended the game at 2:30 am and the girls went back into
their room. The last day of tour ended with a thrill.
Next day was a nonstop
journey from Manali to Chandigarh to
delhi to Japiur. In the whole
journey, all we did was sleep, sleep and sleep some more. As we were about to
reach Japiur I called my father to
send a driver to pick me up at Narayan
circle. I crashed into my bed the moment I reached home. 4 star, 5 star, no luxury can beat my own
house for me.
I laugh whenever I see
pictures I took during whole journey. Every snap is a gate way to a story
behind it.
I made friends,
I made moments,
I made few untold relationships,
I made few bonds forever,
I made peace,
satisfaction,
I made love to nature,
I made a week which
will remain in my head till I grew grey…..
