ASHES

We started with a late night bus journey which ended in the early hours of the morning. I have often failed to understand what many people mean when they describe the air as ‘crisp’. But at 8am in the morning surrounded by the beautiful Shivalik hills I kind of got the idea. Exhausted from a sleepless night in the bus I got no rest as we staright away got on the road to go for rafting.

Rafting is an amazing experience, not scary (or certainly not the one we did) and very very fun. I jumped out in the water and I thought that even the water was crisp. It tasted better than bisleri and was chilled like no other. It was really relaxing lying in the Ganges. Then came the most absolute fun part of the whole trip for me. It was worth going to Hrishikesh already. I did the cliff jump. I know everyone must have done it by now. But that was one emotion I had never really experienced before, fear. Standing on the edge of a clip and talking about jumping of it sounded foolish to me. But I did it, and once again after that. Mind you there were three golden words that helped me through as I screamed “Jai Kara Ki” and both my feet had left contact with surface. Three seconds later I landed in water. The feeling that I actually jumped from the cliff was a huge rush and immensely satisfying. Ofcourse I was helped by the fact that a girl had done the jump just before me so I didn’t have much choice than jump did I?

We came back to our hotel, finally had some rest. By the time it was night it was alcohol time. But to entertain everyone there was some artistic contributions form various people. People sang songs from ‘do dil mil rahe hain’ to kishore kumar general hits. And then I was called to sing in front of this crowd. I had had I had the perfect audience for it. The song goes like ‘patli kamar chikna badan’. Everyone just loved it and I was glad that I could raise the tempo of the evening. Then I also sang another song amidst “requests” ;). The next one was up there as well ‘me aayi hu UP Bihar lootne’. I got loads of compliments and advise to be the agla idol.

The next day was slightly less inspiring. Although I did manage to graze my skin across rough rocks and pebbles while rock climbing. But beach volleyball, a game of kabbaddi made it an all round enjoyment day. That night was to be our last night of our retreat and so we danced. Imagine 90 odd people shaking a hip in absolute enjoyment. I had seen such a thing for the very first time. I normally don’t dance among a group of unknown people. But the songs were good and I jumped in as well.

I like dancing but strictly as an expression of my happiness. It was probably the first time when I was dancing with a lot of women around. But the best part was that nobody bothered. The point was that everyone was letting the hair loose as they say. Although at the end of the day dancing with women around is slightly restrictive, you know what I mean. But you can’t keep the restriction if the DJ puts on ‘sapne me milti hai’. That is one of the songs which calls for the “maa kasam dance”. I really missed the days of absolute dancing in the hostel with all the guys. Nothing can beat that!

As I was packing my bags to board the bus to leave for Hrishikesh the only thing on my mind was the call I had with the client which I had to rush and attend and then leave for Hrishikesh. On our way back to Gurgaon there were multiple thoughts but one that was taking most of my mental space was to keep a hold on the other thoughts and key it into a blog. I did not know most of the people around me in the office before the trip. The only difference now is that a lot of people now know me thanks to my singing or in fact my choice of songs (which transpired the nick name item boy :P). I will cherish everything I learnt through this trip, about Hrishikesh about people around me and of course my own courage levels, for a long time to come.

Labels: feeling