23 June 2006

Oh! It was a thriller!!!!!!

"Thriller!" : I was reading this post on Hallucinator(Shruti)’s page. And no need to say, as always, very much impressed with the topic and the poetic way of explanation. Yeah She had a thrilling bicycle ride in the dark… And again when I think of my own ‘thrilling’ experiences… I can count three momentous moments, now, not exactly ‘thrilling’, though.

1. When in college, we used to go on one-day short trips to some surrounding places. A group of 15 collegers on a trip is no-attempt-needed to keep the fun meter booming, it happens automatically. So, it was the fun that is important to us, not the place we visit. Welll… we were on a hunt again, in search of refreshed fun, to the same old hill on the outskirts of the nearest town, named Chikka Tirupati. It’s a set of five big hills, called “sanjeevini parvata shreni”, the biggest is the one we wanted to climb that day.

It’s a hill with sophisticated steps carved out of the rock. A temple of Venkateshwara on top of it is a treat to look at. This hill has 1000+ steps before the temple is reached. And the temple, pretty old and torn, opens only once in a year, on the day of ‘Jatre’.

Well.. We wanted to just climb the hill and comeback. So, we chose a different path… not the usual steppe to reach the top. So went over some villagers’ fields, finding the very unusual way… I think this is the very usual mindset with a tripster team. Trekking, it’s called popularly. Spoiling someone’s field is not it, I thought though ;)

Again… I’m going away from the actual topic of my ‘thrilling’ experience. If you are wondering what is soooo thrilling about it… Yep.. Climbing a hill is not so thrilling, but falling off it is!!!! It sends jitters to my mind when I think about that moment when I was ‘about to’ fall off to the ground 1500 ft bellow!!!!

Atop hill there was a ladder, seemingly carved in the old stone age :D , rusty and torn… I wonder who constructed it and for what reason. But it was erect with full gusto.. standing in the rains and the clouds, snow and the Sun. It was made from the strong iron, so its still strong enough to cater to crazy people like me, I think. Well.. I had that ‘burning ambition’ to climb it every time we went there, but because of one of my friends who used to pre-see danger in every opportunity, would spoil that enthusiasm with some stealthy words..(how I hated him!!) but that day it was not to be.. he was not there with us, that day. And there was no stopping for me..! I started climbing it.

The ladder was standing on the biggest rock on the hilltop with no further support on any side of it. Just the rock and the ladder. Its 100 ft off the hill towards the burning Sun. The ladder being rusted and spoilt as I’ve mentioned already.

I was exulting on achieving my burning ambition of ages that day. I was climbing towards the sky, 14 people stood down watching me with terrified look and no one could stop me… They all knew me; and the fact that I was not going’ to heed to their pleas was evident to them. They just allowed me climb. I was going up with speed too!! Imagining that scene again leaves me in shiver. I don’t know what was going on in my mind that gave me such a gut. My theory then was "if it was created by humans, which meant it was possible for people to climb it". Pretty simple as it sounds :P

I didn’t look downwards, but kept climbing it to fill my enthusiasm. I was happy to be climbing. Then came the time of my life. I put my left leg on a wrong (completely rusted off) step and it slipped. Oh! An air of fear hit me for the first time; I thought it was the end of me…! But hung on to the stronger steps with my hands, and fortunately my right leg was intact, in its position. God gives courage to everyone to face such adverse situations with strength. It seemed to be a miracle for me then and thanked the almighty for that grace of life. I stood there for a couple of seconds, and glanced down, towards my friends who were staring up without even flipping their eye lids (J), tensed… they seemed to me as small children from there… and next moment I took off my eyes from them, I didn’t want to see them as I knew that I would get tensed after looking at them. I took my eyes off to a distant rock down the hill.. it seemed like a small living being, oh! That sent a wire of shock to my nerves. I tried filling strength to myself. Boosted it with the slogan of Jai Bajrang Bali and tried putting a step ahead. And I did.. There were 20 more steps, and what more.. the quality of the steps deteriorated further top. But managed to climb them all. And on the last step I tried standing for a while and wave to the dumbstruck crowd anxiously watching.

1000s of feet off the ground, standing without any support, but only a rusted ladder, needs a heart of 1000 watts power. I managed to stand for fraction of a second, but retreated as I found it hard to keep. Retreated for a few steps, and stood leaning to the ladder and leaving both my hands to freely float in the cool breeze! Someone shouted from down, “For God’s sake!! Come down”!! I could feel the anxiety in the pale voice coming from another world.

I didn’t want to trouble them anymore and slowly retreated downwards. It was a fantastic experience, I enjoyed it to the core, and came down with loads of memories, fresh memories of watching a bird of Jove fly very near; memories of the toughest rocks seeming the material of child’s play; memories of the dumbstruck people screaming for my safe journey back…! Oh it was a ‘thrilling’ experience.

I thought of not elasting the post, but it took too much of space, as opposed to Rk's comments! So, I'll post other thrillers in my next post. Keep hooked.

2 comments:

RK said...

You seem to be fond of getting into very adventurous situations, atleast that's what I feel after reading this post and the one on Elections. ;)

Srik said...

RK,
I am fond of such situations,
Believe me its a real experience, and the election stuff is not my exp, but one of my teachers' experience; of cource, I've glorified the other insident.

But the ladder climbing is my own thrilling experience.