Ride of a lifetime

River Rafting was all set to be the biggest adventure I would ever have.

The adventure started at around 09:00 am ….before which I had a cup of coffee and 2 aloo pranthas…

A sumo was waiting outside the hotel for us …

We boarded it at around 09:00 am. We were supposed to go to a place called Shivpuri from where our rafting expedition was to take off….

It was situated at around 18 km from Rishikesh….

The only time that I actually felt that we were in danger, considering the whole adventure sports tag, was when the guide asked us to sign a paper stating that in event of any accident the camp wasn’t responsible. Adding salt to that our guide Dinesh told us that “sab bhagwan ke haath main hai” (although he was kidding)

Eight of us (Me, Anant, Ankit, Ashutosh Mahajan, Apoorv (billu), Varun Chadda, Vipul , & Prashant) were on our way but the trepidation goes away the moment you strap on your life jackets& helmets…..& more so when you talk to your guides, in our case they were Tripura & Dinesh…

They told us to follow the instructions properly as in forward, fast forward, stop. Back.. Etc…Thee then asked us who all were swimmers among us….,We had 4 swimmers …me , Anant , Billu , and Mahajan….

I and Anant were asked to lead in front of the boat while Billu and Mahajan were at the rear end…the rest were adjusted in between….

Before this the raft was inflated. Then 10 of us including the guide carried the raft to the river…it was quite heavy…as the journey started there was a fear ….it took some time to get acclimatized to the rowing technique….it took a lot of energy to row….my allooo prathas were helping me a lot.

The best part of rafting started with rapids. Rafting is done on rapids which are a white patches of foam on a flowing river caused by sudden gradient or by the river breadth getting constricted while flowing between rocks or by a sudden increase or decrease in the volume of the water. The first one was good morning….this was the one stage where I felt that I will be thrown out of raft…at this stage our guide asked us to row faster… but believe me I wasn’t even able to row. As I was busy holding the rope preventing myself being thrown out of the raft…

As the first rapid passes came the second known as roller coaster… it was said to be grade 4 rapid…(which is considered the hardest level of rapid available ).. By this time the fear had gone and the actual excitement came …we were enjoying every bit of the same… we could see large waves coming toward us …they splashed & made the raft unstable….then one by one came many rapids…at one stage our guide instructed us all to leave the raft and jump in the Ganga (unbelievable…).. by this time I was so fearless that I jumped into the Ganga… after spending some more time we got back into the raft….crossing another rapid….then again our instructor asked to go for swimming…this was the best moment were I was free to go any where in the Ganga… The flow of the river was so fast at certain points that I was flowing with the river……I was swimming from one rock to another….singing songs in the river… floating in the river….I enjoyed every bit of it…After swimming for quite a long time I sat on a rock in the middle of the river with the sun above me. By this time the raft was way behind and it was hiding behind some rock I couldn’t see it….I was sitting on the rock like a king ….then came the raft and I got into it ….

Then came another rapid …after we passed it we saw some people jumping from a cliff...we asked our guide to allow us to jump ….we tied the raft near the cliff……now came the best moment f the journey…me and Anant climbed the cliff which was at a height of about 25 feet…the jumping looked so simple from the raft but in reality…the cliff was a bit to high… I felt it when I was standing at the top... All ready to jump. I was holding the guide’s hand in fear…. He asked me to just jump….that was it …..The best moment I had ever experienced …and after some seconds I was in…..awesome….

After crossing the huge rapids like golf course, roller coaster, double trouble, .the remaining was ones are what I call mere puddles.

There was a moment when a raft which was near our met in a rapid and during the rapid it was almost half over our raft .At that moment I thought that there would be an accident aur khoob mazza ayega….but there was no accident …. :)

We carried on singing songs to different tunes….

As the journey was coming to end I again came down the raft near ram jhoola….here I felt that the water was cooler than before...

At around 1 p.m. our splendid journey ended….

By the end of the journey my whole body was aching. All of us were so hungry that we went to the famous Chotiwala restaurant all wet …

We returned to our hotel and had a nice sleep.

This was a journey which I would remember for a long long time.

A person really needs to experience it to feel it…

TRYST WITH MEMORIES

With only one semester to go, just tries to sum up all the good or the bad things happened to me. There are some fortunate events some unfortunate ones .The events that are indelible.

This is one event with I don’t know to put in the fortunate one or the bad one .THE TRYST WITH PROCTORIOL.

Unfortunate as it was one event which caused harassment. I was screwed to a level which I had never faced before. Was never in the red list .I was on the verge of getting many backs as the punishment would lead to suspension from giving minor test-2. The trauma faced for 4 days was like facing biggest test of life.

Fortunate as it is the one event in college which I can boast about .To be frank I am proud of this event….”are bhaii agar college main aakar ek proctriol main nahin baithe to kya kiya, Bina proctoriol ke kuch miss hota haii…” J

It was 19th October 2005, classroom LT1, during lecture between 3-4. It was a finance lecture. Miss Namita Mathur was supposed to come, but as she was absent Miss Santoshi Sen Gupta came. She came with the quiz .Probably it was the first lecture of her career. She was treated by the student the way other teachers are, in their first lecture with all the hooting, prompts, shouting everything.

Santoshi mam got irked by all this and she left the classroom, she sent other teacher to take the attendance

The next morning I was flabbergasted on seeing a notice hanging on the board. It had 7 names of unfortunate students of about 120 present on that day who were asked to meet the undersigned at 4:00 pm. My friends couldn’t believe that my name was in the list and it was they who made all this happened.

My next three hours went in planning what to say at the proctoriol. It was better to decide what to say rather then going impromptu.

At 04:00 pm. All seven of us gathered at the DKR‘s cabin planning what to say and what not to. All of us were called individually; the reason for this is that they never want us to stand united.

There was firing of question from all three of the proctorial board member.

Dr D.K. RAI (DKR) ,MR. SAMEER DEV GUPTA(SDG) & MR ANIRBAN PATHAK(AP)

SDG--“MR MADHUR BHATIA this statement states that you indulged in an indecent and unruly behavior in classroom”

“Yes sir, no sir but I didn’t …I mean .it was whole of about 120 students.

AP--“Who all were involved with you- name them”

“NO sir I can’t this wont help anyone.”

AP--“What do you mean? Name them otherwise you will pay for it. You will regret”(All were furious by this statement of mineJ)

”sir believe me I am the unfortunate one to be here. I had ever clean school life, my hostel records are also reflect my good conduct. This is the first time I am getting involved in any such things.”

DKR--“SAHEB AAP TOE AISE BOL RAEH HAIN JAISE KOI AADMI PHELI BAAR VOTE DEKAR AATA HAI TO BAHUT KUSH HOTA HAII”

“” sir believe me, job hi baccha Santoshi mam se pada haii he will never irreverent Santoshi mam…and I am one of them”.

“”it is funny how your mind comes up with such answers. Aap log har baar proctorial main aakar kuch naa kuch aise politically correct jawaab dete hain ki kya batayein..”

AP—“”YOU BELONG TO?”

“sir kota”

SDG TO DKR “sir main bata raha hoon kota main bahut badmash rehte hain …”

AS the panel was on their way to screw & harass me…there was an entry of Namita Mathur mam…she comes with the previous record of my marks in financial management….believe me there wasn’t any thing that could help me in any way as the previous marks in finance were not at all encouraging. This acted like aag main ghee.

The next morning, I was in quandary of what will happen next, hoping that all goes well and the final decision to be made in our favor, I left the hostel at around 10:00 am, there I again saw a notice to meet DKR at 12:00. We went to meet DKR believe me it was for 2 hours that we were standing with our head hanging down. Mr. DKR went on & on & on for 2 hours bhasan from 12:00 to 02:00.that caused in missing my lunch …..itna bada bhasan to mainae aapni zindagi main kabhi nahin suna tha. He used his patent dialogue in very low pitch ” saheb kab tak aap log ye khanamadoshi ki zindagi jeete rehenge….aap log itne aache gahr se aaye hain…aapke ma baap ne aapko padne ke liye bheja haii” blablabla

I was thinking that he will forgive us all after giving this bhasan, but he finally ended up giving us a gift. A gift in the form of show cause notice & it had all the possible punishment to be inflicted upon us of which suspension from minor 2 was main.

We went to hostel to write an application pleading why not to give us punishment .missed lunch, missed lectures, missed labs everything. Me and Raghav Khanna sat together to write a long application. I used many of my friends who were good in English. At this point of Raghav Khanna was busy cracking jokes and eating food from my almirah. This motu is never serious.

At around 05:00 pm we decided to go to VC. We were very scared to go to VC, as I have heard of him as a man who is badmash for badmash students and god for good students. We went . he said “I can see your harassed face “ he samjhoed us for some time, and then finally told us to prepare for the minor 2, but 50 % of our disciplinary grade will be effected .our punishments were mollified to a greater extend. We came out of the cabin elated & happy.

And finally the whole period of trauma & disquieting came to a happy end.

Some facts about proctoriol board:-

The panel will follow the policy of divide and rule.

You will be the culprit from starting to end.

There is no point in proving your point as it won’t help. No body will listen to your point that you are not the culprit.

Girls can never be the part of the proctorial. I have many examples leading to this conclusion. I tried to stop a girl who was screaming in the classroom that day, but the result was that I was on the other side of the story finally.

Girls usually don’t get any backs they pass with good marks, the reason is simple they say SIR (smile) & SIR (cry).

Some advice for the other students who haven’t faced it:-

Don’t ever carry away by the statements made by the panel .They will try to harass you in every possible way.

Never take the names of your friends .This will only result in expanding the list of the culprit it will never help you. This should be used as the last weapon.