The last time i climbed those hills was when i was still young and a few kilos less.And that was when i was still running and exercising and would never tire.Now it's a totally different story.
Anyways that isn't what this is about.
It was a trip planned for Virag and Joseph.It's a pleasure showing them around. When there's a pair of new eyes that see your country, your villages and your small world, it's like looking at all of it for the first time for you too.
After a week long 'Perspective Building Workshop" we went over to our school.After we hand painted a five hundred and a few more cards with those tiny palms and were all coloured in bright colours - pink,red, yellow, orange, blue and green, off we went strutting to the Juang village near the school and spent some lovely quiet hours just sitting at the porch of those lovely huts of the even lovelier Juang people..getting drenched it moonlight and finding our way back through the narrow lanes of the village with just that light above..It was lovely..the bright moon..the village and the people..The funniest part was when i asked the driver to switch off the lights and drive on our way back to Keonjhar after that nocturnal walk. I could sense he was totally apprehensive but what choice did the poor guy have? Once i realised he wasn't going more than a snail's pace with the lights switched off ,more so because he was scared than the real danger in it, i asked him to switch it back on..Ok there was no road that could be called one and was more a few small and big rocks piled on to give the impression..but haven't we been there zillion times already? i thought we could drive through those jungles blindfolded and there was this huge moon , almost full, shining down as if the sun had given it the power-of-attorney for a day..
If that was,'t tiring enough, i invited V and J to go on a trek..Sunday, a few friends, a hill beckoning and a trip that was begging to be taken since the stars appeared in the sky..
Oh..back to my track..er..trek..the ground rule when you go for a trek is never start with a full stomach..and mine was not only heavy but would have fallen off if i wasn't blessed with a flat one, not-genetically. As we started and had only walked about two kilometers i was panting like a dog..And we had still not reached the foot of the hills yet..
And guess what? Today being a Sunday and the week of picnics around this part of the world there were about a thousand people who had decided to chose our destination as their's too..The only difference was they came loaded in buses and jeeps and cars..and we were on foot..taking the road not taken..atleast not by the civilised folk....And we were stared at like we had just escaped from a zoo..Ok we made at unlikely team..two whites and one a shade of brown...But they could at least hide their incredulity till we passed them. I swear i had fight back the urge to go and put their tongues back safely to where they belonged and clip their lips more than a dozen of times..
We started on the trek through the winding footpath made since ages of travel by the people who live up in those hills. And we met quite a few of them..It was a rush today because of the weekly "haat" or market, which is where all the economics , sociology and history happened for all those people..And what took the cake was they had cattle accompanying them in those roads broad enough only to let one person pass at a time and filled with huge rocks and stones smoothed down with years of walking on them..it was quite slippery and a slip would mean a fall of quite a feet and at least a dozen broken bones and scratches..No..you wouldn't really die because the foliage is too thick and would break your fall..
The tribal people were far more decent than the "civilised" ones..There smiles were more genuine and curiosity more to know about the people rather than act "oh-i-see-foreigners-all-the-time-and-they-are-so-common" and ogle at them like it was just the opposite.
After walking for almost an hour through those meandering roads and gaining altitude with every step, we came upon the lake all of a sudden..It was breathtaking..in more ways than one..we were taking in air by gallons...and the view was magical..But that's about it..in the scene which ideally should have been accompanied by a soft rippling of water and the sound of the waterfall had about four different music systems bellowing at just below the 20 k decibels mark..and all those songs which made no sense at all..On second thoughts they did..but you'd have to have a knack for lewd double-meaning lyrics to understand them as well as a love for loud hammering that's a combination of hard metal and war drums..
When we reached the fall Joseph went into it like a fish which had been kept captive on land against his wishes..There he was..swimming and getting freezed in the water that made our feet numb..that's about the part of our bodies we managed to wet..
In the meanwhile we had visits from hundreds of the picnic-errs...staring at us as if that wasn't what they were really doing..Some overgrown teenagers beyond their teens did start to act smart, like most of them usually do..behaving worse than animals in jungles..making remarks that violate the basic rights of any human..that of dignity and respect..what with the social networking sites they virtually live in..they think everything goes...for them, it isn't real people and real feelings..i don't blame them either..It's what we get from too much exposure to all things western and yet not understanding where the rights of your freedom end and where you start encroaching the space of someone else..Seems stupid but they need to understand that watching almost naked women gyrating in music videos is one thing but expecting every woman to dress like that in real life is a different matter altogether..and all the while i was thinking about Virag who took pains to dress according to Indian sensibilities and her whole reason of coming to India was to find the inner beauty that we Indians supposedly are endowed with loads of..
As we came back there a bunch of students who came running for photographs..Virag and Joseph said they faced it all the while in India at tourist places where people wanted to take pictures with them..Joseph said he was really cool with hanging just above the fireplace as a prize certificate in the drawing rooms of the thousands of households..He also said he should actually start asking for money in return of pictures like every baba and shopkeeper did when he wanted one and save on a few rupees..
So..there..We came back through those hills..meeting those tribals again..some drunk beyond their senses and totally oblivious to the world and doing and saying things which had me in splits..and some did make sense..their anger against the civilised world which had the best of everything and yet never spared a thought about the elephants that ate their crops, the poverty they live in..oh let's forget that for a while..We also manage effectively to leave behind the plastic cups and bags and loads of garbage after we have had our picnic..for them to clean..It's their waterfall..their lake..but when have we ever spared a thought??
We were finally back..totally tired from the day of walking and climbing those hills..and those stones i stepped today were all worth the effort..because i learnt some things our books forget to teach...
