I am not sure whether I am spelling this place correctly. I agree – It’s a lousy way to start this self depicted documentary.
Well, for starters, this place is somewhere near Kolar. If you are in Bangalore, you would be ‘there’ if you have enough fuel in your vehicle for the next two hours. I was there during the weekend. God – I still don’t believe it. I wasn’t myself as I was there trekking during the night. Yes – the whole night. And I wasn’t alone. There were 30 + morons like me who were willing to forfeit their Saturday night party to get stuck in the caves of some unknown jungle. That’s what I call as a distinctive, unique weekend.
We ended there by midnight. As you enter this place, you would be wronged by the idea of a jungle-trek expedition. As you look ahead, you have fleet of stairs going up as long as your eyes could see. It takes around 15 minutes to climb up those well erected, archaic, defined rock steps. Please don’t give out a shriek if you find creatures crawling on these steps. And you would find them in multitudes, but the best part is yet to come – They are harmless. They generally form a part creepy-riggly section of the animal kingdom. I bet the zoologist would shred me to pieces as his book would definitely have a better definition for these creatures. And in this case these creatures face more threat than the Homo sapiens (I see the zoologist smiling). If they had speakers in place, you would find the same song being repeated, ‘I just wanna say that they don’t really care about us’. For a change – the hunter becomes the hunted.
Once you are through the first barrier, you would ask me a singular question – Where the hell am I? The answer is a little surprising – The temple. Yep, there you go – You climb up these stairs and you land up in archeological temple with shrines of deities on both sides of the stairs, the periphery of these shrines being a swampy pond. You would then take the route beside the temple and the real trek starts. A 20-30* steep stretch shows you the way up, but at times the angles could be disturbing. You better wear a garment that allows you stretch. After the first 15 minute ascent, you would discover that you have reached altitudes, where the penetration of our fellowmen has considerably gone down. There is literally no one around you. The wind which kisses you on your face whispers some serene beautiful song which is unheard in the town below you. With the partial moonlight flowing, the flora looks eerie, but also adds that tinge of anxiety, which excites every thought of appreciating God’s creation. The winding path wouldn’t stop and you would start wearing out as you haven’t fully forgotten your Saturday siesta with a can of beer. After a half an hour ascent, you would be relieved to find a somewhat plateau kinda terrain. Actually it’s a farm. Watch your foot as your shoes may cling on to the contributions made by our farmer’s cow - The dung.
While talking of nature’s call, you would be tempted to ease yourself with the abrupt drop in temperature complemented by the chilly wind and if you are lucky there could also be the some kind of precipitation too. So go on – The farmer is snoring in his house and besides there isn’t soul to get you embarrassed. As you take a diversion from the so-called plateau, you find something that wouldn’t add one bit to your comfort – A cemetery (I better go and ease myself). You would find around 15 dead souls resting in peace and the track you need to take is close enough to awaken them with your footsteps from their perennial slumber. Well, after you survive that scare you would find yourself on the other side of the hillock, where the path is narrower than the size of my foot. A little bit of acrobatics would definitely help in clinging on to the hill and hoping that you don’t slip towards the other side of the hill. And even if luck runs out and you slip, there are a lot many bushes 10 feet down to cushion your fall. You climb 3 foot boulders and you jump them off so very often with the hill on your left and the ridge on your right. Your shoes would be put to their ultimate test. The bushes that grow along the hill do not help much as many of them are thorny. Once you are done with this tapered path, you would arrive at this juncture which connects two hills. This place is wide, wide enough to build your own farmhouse.
The other hill has something different to show you – Caves. If you suffer from claustrophobia, I would recommend you to stand out and enjoy the cool breeze. As you enter the first creek, you need to slide down 5 feet and that’s a phenomenal slide as you are not cushioned with a bed of roses. The garments brush the sides of the caves and the cave gets narrower with every step you take. At first you would have doubts whether you would get through these and I firmly believed that I would get stuck and would have to wait for an earthquake to get me out. Someone believed that I would be the benchmark for others to get in. See – Its like a sports coach making a statement, ‘If I can do that why cant you?’ A few steps later you would now be challenged in both dimensions – Width and Height. I would have been an easy trespasser if I had been here two decades before. But now, I am challenged for space. The ordeal continues as you are questioned on your flexibility while squeezing your way through the constricted crevices. The torch that you carry would require over charged batteries to keep you going. Ok – I replace our over charged batteries (As there is nothing like batteries that are over charged), with substitute batteries. Every crevice that you pass through shows you a different blueprint crafted out of solid rock. Then all of a sudden you are in the middle of the hill (I suppose), as there is huge open space inside challenging the size of your hall. The roof of the cave is around 30 feet up and there you breathe – Breath of freedom.
An unimagined uphill diversion within caves awaits you from this huge space to travel on the last paths of this rock oriented labyrinth. A few boulders to climb up and there you are – the moonlight beaming right into your face. The cave expedition is complete. As you come out of this labyrinth, you feel the ecstasy of achieving some unknown triumph. The air-stream is the same, singing the same song. It only requires you to have the right pair of ears to comprehend the notes of this uncanny melody. The synchronization is complete with the vegetation swinging to the tune of this music. I forgive all the thorns that pierced me. I forgive all those protruded rocks which questioned the existence of my garments. I feel ecstatic – one way of rediscovering myself.
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