The damn intruder; Ever so freaky

That night I slept, ever so excited.

Just the previous night I had gone to bed in tears because my dad had ditched me once more and I was really frustrated. He had refused to buy a bike for me.

The next day though, turned out to be great. I don’t know who convinced him, my gramma, mum, Su or Simba but he agreed to go and book a bike in the evening. Ever so happy I was. I had a test in college the next day. I studied sincerely and finished studying by the time he came back from office. Mom agreed to come back home by herself. So Dad and I left to the showroom and booked the bike, a black Scooty pep+. It’s weird really, one time you are so pissed off with them (dad and mum) that you never want to talk to them again, and the next minute, they are greater than you can comprehend. I came back home, ever so excited. I didn’t really tell anyone about the bike. I would tell them after the bike was delivered.

I was trying to get my mind off the bike to revise what I had studied, when there was a power cut. Suddenly I had all the concentration in the world and I was studying with the light of the emergency light. It was then that I realized I hadn’t seen my mum from about an hour. I called out to her. My gramma answered instead. She said my mum was doing Yoga upstairs. So I continued to study in the dark until my mum came down. She claimed that she had heard someone breathing loudly right beside her while she was doing Yoga. I joked that she mistook her own breathing for someone else’s. (Okay we do crack stupid jokes at home.) But she sounded like she meant it. I started yelling loudly that cops were coming and I warned “the intruder” to shoo off. None of us were really serious. We just laughed about it.

After dinner I lay in bed, reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I read until two cardinals were brutally murdered. It’s supposed to be extremely gross, but I just laughed when I read it. I shut my book and turned on my iPod. For some reason, I felt a slight tinge of fear. I remembered all these movies when someone is really happy and suddenly he is attacked or something terrible happens to him. I ignored my thoughts and increased the volume on my iPod and fell asleep.

Later that night, I lay wide-awake on my bed, feeling adrenaline rushing up through my body. I had heard a noise outside the room. I couldn’t recognize what it was. Then I heard it again! Someone was tampering with the latch on my door. I wondered why because the door was wide open. I was turning away from the door, my pulse rate ever so high. I heard the jeans I had hung on my cupboard move. My cupboard door creaked and I almost yelped! I didn’t have the guts to turn around and see who it was. It could’ve easily been the wind, but it was hardly a windy night. My imagination went wild. I pictured a thief stabbing me with a knife or puncturing my lungs (Why? Thanks to Angels and Demons; How? I have no clue) or shooting me or even poking my eye. (Lol) I lay there, so helpless. I tried to yell but I had lost my voice. Someone was now fiddling with the curtain rod and then a deodorant bottle fell down making a terrible clatter. It didn’t seem to bother the intruder. Now I was positive there was a thief in my room. I slowly rummaged on my bed for my iPod, my most priced possession. I value it more then I value myself. I found it at the edge of my bed and I slowly pulled it under my pillow, hoping a dagger doesn’t pierce my hand. The intruder was right above my head. I jerked my head like I would’ve done in my sleep and opened my eyes ever so slowly. I saw the belts hanging on the curtain rod swinging. I was so terrified; I could’ve peed in my pants! But I didn’t. That just shows how brave I was. :P I looked at my table. Everything was a mess. I thought to my self “If I was scared the time in Wayanad when I was falling off the cliff, I can’t fathom how scared I am now!” It was the first time in my life I ‘heard’ my own heart beats. I have ‘felt’ it before, but now I could actually ‘hear’ it! I was scared to death! It seemed like the thief had also heard my heart beating ever so loudly! Suddenly all the noise stopped. It was as if nothing had just happened. Not to me though. I looked for my phone. I gathered all my guts and turned on the torch in my phone. I focused the light on all the nooks and corners of my room but saw no one. I focused under my bed. Nothing. I decided to go back to sleep and pretend nothing had happened and I was dreaming. Damnit! I just couldn’t. I got off my bed, quickly took my iPod and my phone and ran ever so fast to my gramma’s room and jumped on the bed. I saw that it was 3:15 am. I lay awake till 4:00 am. I just couldn’t get myself to sleep. I turned on my iPod and listened to Watch Over You and wondered if someone was watching over me from my room. I closed my eyes tight. I fell asleep.

Whatever was that? A thief? A rat? Or a ghost?

Day 4: May 19th, 2008

“Chirp chirp chirp”. It’s amazing how such a small insect can make such immense noise! At first we didn’t know what was causing the racket. We though they were crickets. It is after I went to Kudremukh that I got to know what it was. But I still don’t know the name of the insect. :P We woke up to the sounds of the forest and the flow of water. I was the first one to peep out of the tent. There was a faint mist hanging all around us. The car was covered with mist as well. So was our tent. Money (Refer prev. post) was nowhere around. I walked straight up to the river and watched a man bathing his cattle. Seemed like they were enjoying it. The cow’s name was Amba. :P After a little chat with the man and dirtying Hrishi’s floaters I went back to the tent. Navu and Sanju were off to fetch us some breakfast. Su and Hrishi were still sleeping. I tried waking them up. A vain effort really. So I brushed and washed my face and went back to the river. Navu and Sanju returned quite quickly with “Gerala Barodaz” (Kerala Parotas). :P It was pretty tasty. For once, something I ate didn’t have coconut oil in it! Phew! It was time to start packing as we were to visit Edakkal Caves and then return to Bangalore that day. We removed the tent. Rather Navu and Sanju removed the tent and Hrishi helped. Su cleared up the mess in the car and I supervised everything. :P We found Money, bid goodbye to him and pushed off to Edakkal Caves.
12 kms from Sulthan Bathery, 3 caves are located at a height of 1000 mts on Ambukuthi mala near Ambalavayal. The caves can be accessed only by a 1Km trekking trail from Edakkal. We were asked to stop the car at the very bottom of the hill. Hrishi parked the car and killed the engine. The 1 km trek would have been absolutely tiring and exhausting if not for the jeep ride. I had never gone in a jeep before. After going in this one, I realised this would be the craziest jeep trip in my life. He was riding at what seemed like 80kmph. The path was very narrow and only one jeep would fit. So if another jeep interfered, we would all be goners, because the road was so curvy, we’d never know what is ahead of us and we wouldn’t have time to slow down. But then the jeep people had it all planned out. There were only two jeeps and neither would drive when the other one did. So we zipped and zoomed along the curves for a minute and Wow! We were already there! The place was pretty crowded. We were supposed to buy tickets to get into the cave. Sanju was so totally freaked out to enter the caves. He had Claustrophobia. He had had bad experiences before. But a stranger who had just come out of the cave convinced him that there are no such areas inside and that he could go without fear of losing breath. (But trust me, the stranger, while talking looked like he’d pass out then and there!)
The cave was not at all what I expected it to be. It was Huge, with sunlight pouring in from everywhere. A Geologist would’ve thoroughly enjoyed this. There were inscriptions all over the rocks. It looked beautiful. There were huge boulders all around us. There was one right above my head, which didn’t really have support from below. It took support from the rocks on either side of me and it looked like it would plunge down on me any minute. It was uncanny. As far as Hrishi could remember, this was not how it was. He claimed that there was a really tall mountain, which we’d have to trek. There seemed to be nothing like that. After killing a little more time clicking pictures we left. We saw a small door in the side. Not many people were there. We went out and now we knew what Hrishi was talking about. A 1000 mt high mountain stretched upwards before our eyes. Holy cow! That was a long way up! Navu was exhausted after the previous day’s trek and refused to come further. The rest of us moved on. There wasn’t any path. Only rocks. We followed the few people that we could see and reached a small landing from where we had to hang on to a rope and climb up. Hrishi went up first. He made it look easy. Su went next. She was wearing her Adidas floaters, which have absolutely no grip. She climbed up the ladder and held the rope. I had faith in her. I thought it would be a piece of cake for her because she was the “Goddess of treks” or something. She had gone for so many treks before this and done scarier stuff. But no. She freaked out big time! She refused to take another step. Poor female. I’m glad she didn’t come along, considering what was in store for us. She wouldn’t stand a chance with those floaters. With a mixture of apprehension and excitement, I went up next. I climbed each rung of the ladder slowly. Now all I had to do was get a tight grip on the rope and the ground and walk swiftly upwards. I reached up in a jiffy. Sanju followed me. He climbed with ease. We left Su behind who joined Navu. Two down, three more to go. :P
Thankfully the three of us could actually reach the peak. The path was super crazy! At a few places it was at an inclination of about 85 degrees. I’m NOT exaggerating! It was rock climbing with no safety. Hrishi led the way of course, Sanju followed and then I did. Both of them were awesome. What the heck! I was awesome too. :P
We found depressions of about an inch or so in the mountain. Meticulously, we dug our hands and feet into them and climbed up slowly. I was wearing my shades on my head. Hrishi cautioned me that I shouldn’t panic if my shades fell off my head. He said that wasn’t an emergency. Lol. I completely understood. I couldn’t afford to dive for my shades when my freaking life was at stake. Helping each other, (Rather them helping me) we went up. At places the climb was slippery, and seemed unending. All the time I was wondering how we’d go back down. As I already said, the chances of slipping off are much higher while climbing down. Surprisingly, within 20 minutes we reached the peak. I climbed the last bit and stepped up.
Wow! It was a breath-taking view! We could apparently see the borders of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It was spectacular! Seriously, the trek was worth it. We sat there for sometime enjoying the wind in our hair. :P We were there for hardly ten minutes. We started our ever-awaited downward trek. I swear on God I have never done anything scarier! I had to sit on each damned rock and climb down. Hrishi and Sanju are both 6 feet and 4 inches (or more) tall. They could with very little difficulty reach the ground when they sat down. I, a foot shorter, was struggling to get down. I had to sort of jump down instead of just sitting and getting down. Worst part is, even when you jump, there is no flat land to get a grip on. There was this one part where the ground was at an inclination of 70 degrees. It was probably 5 metres long. I wasn’t wearing jeans, so even when I sat my butt didn’t have proper grip. Lol. There were very tiny cavities where I could hardly put my fingers. I started downwards and suddenly lost grip. My heart skipped a beat! I panicked! I screeched! I screamed for my mommy! I was continuously slipping for three or four seconds. I was scared to death! Damn those shorts! Hrishi said to calm down and carried me and helped me down. My legs felt like jelly. I had never ever been so scared in my life except maybe when I had to undergo a Root canal treatment, which the dentist did without anesthetizing me. Ughhh! Hate her! Anyway, back to the trek. I was so shaken for like ten minutes and then the shock turned into excitement. The rest of the trek seemed pretty easy after that stretch. We reached down faster than we went up. We met Su and Navu down and I narrated my exciting story of almost falling off the cliff. :P Half laughing and half-shocked they listened as we waited for our jeep. There was a lassi shop there where we could wash up n all. Buttermilk had never tasted better. I drank 3 glasses of that and the others did too. Our jeep arrived and we went back to our car.
Sun burnt, exhausted and drained of energy we finally left to Bangalore. It was around 12 I guess. We drove for quite some time until we reached Muthanga. Navu insisted we go on a Safari and apparently this was the perfect time to go for one. We parked a little off the highway and went in for the Safari. We took the same old Fanta bottle from our car and got into the Safari jeep. A man was clinging onto the car at the back like a monkey. He was the one who’d spot the animals and let us know. Within 5 minutes we spotted an elephant. No. Wait. Oh yeah! An elephant’s tail is what we spotted. Right. And then Sanju realised he had left my shades in the office where he booked the jeep. Immediately he called the office and asked them to keep it safe. Fortunately the driver’s phone had network even in the middle of the forest. No water, no animals but yes network! All hail whichever sim card he had. Honestly speaking, I got bored during the Safari. All we saw were a herd of elephants and also a few spotted deer, not from up close and we gained some little information about the animals. I remember the driver saying an elephant could run at 60kmph. That’s all. Sanju fell asleep. :P Hehe. Noticing that we were bored the driver took us to a small stream where animals usually came to quench their thirst. The water was so cool and nice. Navu was so happy she ran to the water and got a head massage by putting her head under the little waterfall. Hehe. I followed and saw a few water-skaters. I had never seen these insects before. They’re called Gerridae and rely on surface tension to walk on water. They were pretty cool. We decided to bring our car back here and stay here for a while. We went and got our car and stopped at the same Fanta shop and Sanju got some food packed for us. We went to the stream and to our disappointment saw a million cheap looking men in the water picking up stones for some Godforsaken reason. We ate and decided to not get into the water. We spent sometime there playing with the sand. By now we were all sleepy and tired and cranky I guess. Little did we know that all the sleep would be gone in less than 10 minutes.
All was silent and calm. Staring at all the greenery I sat in the car waiting to get home and sleep. It had been an exhilarating day so far. Hrishi was behind the wheels now. Realising that he was slowing down, I took my eyes off the trees and looked ahead. There was a Maruthi 800 in front of us coming from the other direction. They stopped. They seemed to have found something intriguing on their left, inside the forest. Curiously I raised my head but didn’t see anything. As Hrishi went further, I realised that there was a whole herd of elephants right there! They were hardly 4 or 5 meters from the 800. Were they crazy? Why were they standing so close to the elephants?! And it’s not like they were watching silently. There were stupid kids in the car that couldn’t shut their yap! (Ugh! Kids!) Someone probably made a gesture asking them to move away. Unfortunately, “Someone” turned out to be the elephants themselves! To my horror, all of them rushed to the road and stood like an Army ready to attack. Come to think of it now, they were standing exactly like the Indian guys in the movie Lagaan. There were 6 or 7. All full grown. One among them was a tusker. There also was a baby elephant. I remembered how protective elephants were about their little ones. Immediately I had a flash back. The Safari driver had told us that in the recent past, an elephant had rammed into a jeep and made the jeep go flying in the air or something. Fortunately, no one was hurt. I could feel my pulse rate rising. Nobody had realised that there was a Tavera right behind us and just behind that, a truck. Sanju slowly, noiselessly, took out his camera to click some pictures. But before he could, the tusker dangerously banged its front leg on the road. Next minute it was charging right at us! Bloody hell! Hrishi reversed the car and almost hit the Tavera. We had Navu screaming her lungs out. “HRISHI! DO SOMETHING!” That’s precisely what she said. We all were terrified. I was laughing my head off. Navu and Su had frantic grins on their faces. Sanju, who had forgotten about the camera, which was still in his hand, had all eyes on the elephants. Hrishi was busy trying to save our bloody lives! He took a quick U-turn but the 800 was still standing there. The elephants went berserk. There was utter chaos. The 800 finally moved and we moved forward too. Can you believe our luck?! After the 800 went forward, there was a truck on our side of the road coming from the opposite direction. He quickly moved away. The Tavera also had taken a U-turn. We moved around 100 mts away and stopped. All of us sat quietly for a while. We looked at each other and burst out laughing! We laughed for quite sometime. We were flabbergasted. We were speechless. We just got attacked by elephants! After about five minutes a truck guy said it was pretty safe to go. We took yet another U-turn and zoomed faster than anything. We saw the mother elephant standing facing the road as if about to attack. Freaked us out further. We zoomed faster. After a while we all settled down, each of us replaying the scenario in our minds. One of us spotted a wild Bison. It looked really smart. It literally posed for the camera and then we were off again.
There were no more events to drive us over the wall while going to Mysore. When we reached Mysore it was around 7 I think. Sanju had a headache by now. We went to TNT (Tunes N’ Tonics or the other way round. I don’t remember). We sat down and enjoyed the music playing there. “My dream is to fly! Over a rainbow so high!” Su and Hrishi had something that made Bud Wiser. Navu had a mock tail. Poor me! I’m a minor. I wasn’t even allowed to touch anything. :( :P When we walked out of there, we were all in high spirits. At least I was. Even though I didn’t touch anything. :P We went to a place for dinner. ‘Bombay chaat’ or something. I swear I don’t remember much that happened there. I was all dizzy and all I remember is that everyone was calling me “driver” and I got a couple of calls. And then we were home. The rest of them watched the movie “Office Space” I think. I was fast asleep. It was one of the craziest, most exciting day of my life. :)


My special thanks to Navu, Sanju, Hrishi and Su for making the trip so awesome. :D
Ok I’m acting like I’ve won a lifetime achievement award. :P Never mind!