Lurrrnings del Lohgad

Recently enticed by repeated mails containing explicit pictures of the pristine and undesecrated beauty of a place called lohgad we decided to take advantage of a god sent Sunday of cancelled classes to make the trek. It was an opportunity not to be missed, to quote a regular trekker. At that time I was skeptical, to be very euphemistic… actually I wanted nothing of it. I was used to the comforts of planned holidays and outings even if it meant a little bit more money. Why would anybody deliberately go through all the hardships consciously aware of his impending doom?

I was torn between the devil and the deep sea – actually I would say “sleep” and “a long awaited trek” or the pessimist in me says “deprived sleep (on a chance of a lifetime)” and “an unnecessarily uncomfortable dirty wet tiring journey”.

Well these were what I actually learnt from the outing.

1) If there is something interesting to look forward to, then sleep deprivation does not actually bother you.
Rudely pushed into the trek which began at 5am and the preparations for it started at 3am and considering the football match preceding it – well in other words I didn’t sleep that night. And I even considered dropping out of the expedition. But then after the journey began in the cool morning breeze, I lost all the sleepy feeling and actually felt energetic. Wish I could say the same for all those classes… profs and wannabe profs who are reading this may take some pointers.

2) When chilled to the bone, the feeling of indifference that sets in actually lets you enjoy more.
My rain jacket gave up on me. What else could it do if being clearly outsmarted by the heavy and continuous rains… after a few hours of soaking, it started transferring water through to my t-shirt. Sometime later my t-shirt passed it on to my innerwears and so on. So finally I was wet to my skin. Since the wind also wanted to show his fury, there was continuous buffeting of the rain by the wind around us and whenever this happened, a shiver would run down my spine. But on reaching the peak, it was just chaos unleashed. There was a fog made up of the wind and the water. So thick it was that it was just… just… umm uh… er ah thick. With the chilling winds lashing at us, we were feeling cold in the bones. But the indifferent walk on the top and the opportunity to see the topmost source of the waterfall is a feeling that just cannot be described.

3) Even the most difficult of journeys can be a great one if you have friends along.
We traveled by the general coaches of the Indian railways. I have always had an aversion to traveling by the trains as I have always considered them stinking and dirty. I am yet to be proved wrong. But the fact that you got friends along gave me an entirely new area to concentrate on. At least, even if no other topic was being discussed, I could crib about the trains (reminds me of the homing journey experience during my engineering days). Another thing I hate is wet clothes. Now both were combined into one combo-offer, but I just didn’t notice.

4) Simple things in life make the moment.
The occasional views from the train and the trek path, the lush greenery around, a walk in the clouds, posing for photographs, silly poses caught on candid camera, the occasional mock fights, PJs, good jokes, slapstick humor, biscuits, hot chai, the long forgotten lowly but extremely tasty bread-jam, running downhill, the pain in the thighs, the pain in the joints, the pain in the soles, the limp, the sympathy from friends…


There were other very obvious things that I had unlearnt, which I learnt again like indiscriminately eating food that appears tasty can lead to bad stomach problems, wearing shoes on treks is actually safer, polythene covers keep clothes dry and if you want dry clothes it is better not to keep them soaked in water, rain is mainly comprised of water, and so on.

In summary it was a ruggedly refreshing experience much different from the artificially planned ones. Thanks a lot zombie, tripathy, ani, sush, tanu, shacha for making hell enjoyable.

photos from the trek are here