Journey To Naneghat

“Get up, Get up, Ruhin. It’s already six o’clock. Get up.”

“Please, mom, let me sleep. I was having such an interesting dream! Moreover, it’s Sunday!”

“No excuses, my boy. Don’t you know what we are doing today?”

“Hmmm...let me think...Oh! Yes, yes. Yes, I will get up.”

Bleary-eyed, itching all over, and frequent yawns bursting out of my mouth, I somehow slouched over to the basin. Looking around, I spotted my father, and with a closer look, I understood that he was in the same state as me. Only mother was active, hopping and running about, packing this and that like an excited gazelle. After teething my brush and eyeing my wash...oh sorry, sorry, I mean, after brushing my teeth and washing my eyes, I looked a bit fresh (though, inside, I was not). “Put these on. Quick!” My mother said, thrusting a set of clothes at me. I locked the door and hurriedly changed...well, I would not say so hurriedly. I was still in my wake-up phase. We got ready, opened the door, and thus, hereby, therefore, (and a bunch of other old-school words), began our journey, voyage, trip, excursion, expedition to ‘Naneghat’.

With a quick stop at ‘E’ building in our society, we picked up a friend of mine, Nayanika ‘Dido’ Pal, or for short, ’Dido’ or ‘Nayanika’ who was, as usual, busy tapping away at her mobile. Age 11, origin Bengali, Dido is quiet, shy, obsessed with her phone and manga (A Japanese style of the drawing), and can also be humored easily. She also serves as a great mistress to her German Shepherd dog, ET. We drove on, stopping at the nearby fuel station, to refuel and pick up my other friend, Abhinaba ‘Babu’ Pal (Not related to Niyanika Pal). Age ten, origin Bengali, stout, not used to much physical exercise, bespectacled, slightly shorter, and a few months younger than me, Abhinaba has an everlasting devotion to his parents, teachers (In short, all elderly to him), Hindi, Mathematics, and last but certainly not the least, God. Abhinaba’s parents followed us in their car at a distance.

We three soon began talking. Jokes, facts, riddles passed from one person to another. The sound of our laughs, chuckles, guffaws echoed across the car. At last, after an angry demand for some peace and quiet from my mother, we took a pause. Dido’s head remained fixed on her phone, but I and Abhinaba looked outside. What we saw took our breath away. The landscape around had changed from the dusty roads, honking cars, and big buildings to huge, majestic, lush green mountains of different shapes and sizes leaning over us, topped with thick, puffy clouds and hundreds of waterfalls, from big and roaring, to tiny and tinkling. I called Dido to have a look. Immediately, the sound of the camera, the starting of a video danced across the car. Phones were lifted, photos were taken, videos were made.

After doing a quick review of the photos and videos, we started talking again. This time, we played games. Stone-paper-scissors, Dragon ball, Lady-hunter-tiger, Matrix, atlas, the memory game, we left none. Unfortunately, they all bored us. So, I set my mind to work. After a few minutes of concocting, brainstorming, and planning, I invented my own game! This game, simply known as ‘The Number game’ is simple, requires hard brainstorming, and is also very thrilling. This game requires a minimum of three players. A person in a group thinks up a number from within a range of 1 to 10. The other players each get one chance to figure out what the number is. The one who finds out the right number is the grand winner, and he gets a chance to think up the next number. If the above does not happen, the previous person gets yet another chance to think up a number. We played this game to a great extent. I even requested my mother to join in! But after playing for a short while, she quit the game.

Just then, the car stopped and my father called us to come out. And why, you may ask? Well, as got closer, I understood. We had stopped at what you may call a ‘dam’. But instead of stopping a flow of river water and creating electric energy with it, this structure was a kind of an organized collection of waterfalls, the ground beneath them flat and clean. Well, that was enough for me and Dido to stare at. Ignoring our parents’ warnings, we bounded at the structure and began playing in it. I was a big fan of waterbodies, big or small. So, what could stop me from playing in them? My father rushed over and guided us to the edge of the waterfall. There, I and Dido saw a huge mega waterfall, roaring down the slope. I was tempted to jump into it, but the height made me back away, and I started playing in the water again. Now, what was happening to Abhinaba, you may ask? He was busy putting on his raincoat (With generous help from his parents, of course), and some minutes later, we saw his stout frame splash into the water. Well, as you have been informed at the beginning of this journey, Abhinaba was stout, and he was not used to much physical exercise. And thus, he slipped many a time over the smooth, slippery, stones. However, I helped him a lot, and from then, he is eternally grateful to me. Throughout the entire journey, he had referred to me many a time as his ‘true friend’.

After playing to our heart's content (actually, a lot less than our heart’s content, my mother had dragged me into the car, repeatedly saying that ‘the actual destination is much more exciting than this place’. This saying is totally untrue, as you will learn later), we had a short snack of chips, sausages (Generously supplied in large amounts from Dido), and popcorn (again, the source was Dido) and started our journey again. This time, all three of us (even Dido!) kept our eyes glued on the windows, marveling and talking about the outside scenery.

 According do Google Maps, the journey would be over in a few minutes. It was right. Just a few minutes later, the car stopped, and our happy, excited, eager faces became filled with bewilderment and mystification. Our fast, chattering mouths stopped and gapped as wide as basking sharks. And yet again, why, you may ask? Well, as our eyes traveled to the front of the car, all we could see was a white, thick, fog! “Now how am I going to drive through this fog? If I even give it a try, all I will get is a serious accident!” Well, just as we were going to lose hope and turn back, hey presto! Suddenly, a team of guides appeared out of the fog! Not only did they guide our car to safe parking, but they also explained to us that we could not drive further (with great difficulty, my father was able to decipher the flow of Marathi words that came out of their mouth to a meaningful explanation). Then, with a separate local guide, we set off.

Everywhere our gaze fell, we could see small waterfalls and white, thick fog. My father, me, the guide, and Dido lead the way, Dido always prancing into a nearby puddle or running through a stream. Her mostly dull, gloomy face now held smiles and practically radiated with joy. Abhinaba and his parents lagged far behind, Abhinaba always screaming “Wait for me!” Sometimes, with great difficulty, he would catch up with me, exclaim “Caught you!” only to fall behind again. My mother was in the middle, taking photos and videos like anything. With some inquiries, my father understood that the fog and rain here was the permanent climate here, and did not happen only in the rainy season.

After a long walk (with a few hot vada paos safely tucked into stomachs on the way) we finally reached our main destination. Though my mother was very excited (and was back into her ‘gazelle’ mode) I was a little disappointed. The ‘Reverse Waterfall’ was a massive, railed, cliff, with a big waterfall rumbling down it. The specialty of this waterfall was that because of the wind, all the water was taking a turn, and instead of going down, the water was coming right back up, and drenching everybody (I called this the ‘waterrise’ as the water was rising). Well, there was another waterfall close by, so the trio of us (Me, Dido, and Abhinaba) jumped right back into it. This time, Abhinaba’s parents joined in too! Abhinaba’s parents climbed into the waterfall with great difficulty, posed for a few photos, and climbed back out.

After playing to our heart’s content, we set of again. This time, we journeyed to a cave. On the way, there was a steep, long, slippery, and broken up a flight of stairs. While descending it, my father clutched my hand so hard, it turned a terrifying shade of reddish-pink (I think he was very afraid. When I asked about this later, he said he was trying to help me, but I am not so convinced). On entering the cave, we discovered hundreds of markings of an unknown language. I was walking about, feeling these strange inscriptions, I was stopped by my mother. She said the salt in our hands could damage these strange inscriptions, and wear them away.

We left the cave and came back to our car, changed into dry clothes, climbed back in, and began our journey back home. The journey back home was quite uneventful. We talked and played games as usual. We stopped at a small restaurant to have a short snack. Then, we set off again. This time, we did something new – we upgraded the Number Game! Know, the range was within 0 to 20. Bigger range, bigger thrills! At the end of the journey, we dropped off my friends at their respective homes. I and my family came back home, wolfed down a simple dinner of boiled rice and mashed potatoes, and finally, after a long, long, tiring, day, we hit the sack. And thus, therefore, hereby, ended our journey, trip, excursion, voyage, expedition to Naneghat.

 -A travelogue by Ruhin Saha