A walk in the rains

Rain : Scientifically the condensed moisture of the atmosphere falling visibly in separate drops and philosophically the condensed moisture can be your feelings. When you watch the rains, there is some strange connection with your feelings,  you allow your feelings to come out and feel the drops of memories. Imagine how it feels when you walk amidst rains in a dense forest that is completely disconnected from the world and think only about oneself, while its a crazy dream to have very few people actually think about even trying it.

I was fortunate enough check-it off from my wild fantasies, Rainathon - III gave me an experience that I would cherish and rewind them time and again. Being a traveler I have had many bike rides in rain, and enjoyed every bit of it, had always wondered how it feels if you do that for a day. When the opportunity knocked my door and saw the ever increasing list of like minded people who wanted to try this, I had no option but to say YES. 

In a mechanically busy daily life, I got a call from my brother-in-law asking me if I am interested in Rainathon, though I was never part of earlier rainathons, I always had the update on event,route,experience,pics etc.  I immediately said yes, and also requested him to add my wife's name to the list. Later when explored the details, after Charmadi and Agumbe this time the team had decided to go to Bisle ghat, a place near Sakleshpur.  Soon after that I started getting mentally prepared. I searched the web for location, places nearby, distance to be travelled, most importantly list of people we are joining. The group that we are in plays a most significant role in the success of any trek/walk. While I knew very few of them, I thought making few friends would not be a tough task. We already had a whatsapp group that was excited and eagerly waiting for the day and few conversations in the group helped everyone to know if not nothing at least the names and their profile pics.

The day ticks as scheduled!! I quickly wrapped up my work and was eagerly waiting for the clock to tick the right time for cab. Reached home bought few small little things that would needed for the travel. Around 10:30pm me and my wife reached Kiran's house, Mahadev Bodas also joined us,  hired an auto to Jayanagar 4th block and bingo the bus was already waiting for us, It was our 1st pick up point, we were first one to board. Soon we updated our status to travel coordinator and in the matter of next 90 minutes we covered all the pickup points and we were ready to leave. One by one everyone started coming in finding the seat beside the people they know of. 

Once every one except few, who were to board from Hasan were in, the coordinators started the big task of gelling up the people. The complete group was divided into 4 different teams and told to be together all the time, team lead had the responsibility of ensuring we all are in the bus every time before starting. After a formal introduction, we started playing Antakshari, believe me it was so awesome that we ended up singing practically every possible song that we know of, while the competition was there for namesake it made us know the people a little, which helped us to gel up more and more, in the process we did find out few awesome talents and few hard-discs which had 1 TB song collection in their memory, and of course few new friends. 

The awesome Bisle team and few more folks ensured that no ones sleeps in the bus, and we kept having tea breaks every now and then, we reached a home stay near Sakleshpur around 5:30. Freshened up a by 7, went to a fort called Manjarabad fort. It is fort built in star shape and is built by Tippu sultan, did spend quite some time there. It was windy, cold and there was quite some rain too, we were wondering what would it feel at the end of the day. While coming down the stairs Diganth a well known actor in Kannada film industry met us and took few photos with us. We reached home stay had breakfast and headed towards Bisle ghat.

On the way we found some paddy fields, few of us decided to try  planting rice. They got in the field,  tried few experiments in planting. Some people did properly and some people found their innovative ways of doing it. While we all enjoyed the scene; after we left I guess the workers had tough time to put everything back in order :-) 

After this break we  reached the top of Bisle ghat and a jeep that was scheduled to be with us was waiting for us. We prepared tea and buns in a nearby bus stop, food team served it to everyone. For the first time we tasted tea in rain. It was good to see everyone excited about the walk, Team leads were updated about the events. As it was getting late and after some precaution and instructions we quickly started walking.

Soon the team started walking to their comfort level. It was only drizzling and there were no heavy rains in the beginning, as we were not completely drench even after 500mts of walk,  the kid in us woke up as we started splashing water on each other!! Happiness is only found in such small little tricks, no one gets angry or offended its just time that you enjoy being there. After our first stop we had entertainment break. Some singing talents were on display. Soon we started seeing people checking their footwear and legs. Leeches had already smelt the human blood by now, they were ready for lunch and our leech expert Medha Gokhale was ready with counter attack. We all were carrying salt with us and sprinkle it to get rid of leech. 

People started realizing its not as easy as it sounds to be,  these are the type of challenges one needs to accept for himself, here the person is on his own to find himself, to challenge his fear, to challenge his limitations, to explore a new world, to experience something different, to come out of those routine life, to discuss with oneself, to allow your thoughts to roam around with no external disturbance, reasons are many solution seems to be simple; dedicate some part of life for your own good. This is the time where the organizers get the best blessing for having been selflessly organizing this. 

Not just finding yourself, another lesson that we learn is team work. We spend so much in team building activities in this super fast corporate life, and solution seems to be simple and quite interesting and free of cost, bring in your team, leave them in stranded in a place, tell them the way to proceed and leave them on their own with no network. One never needs to go through a team building session. Not just this, every trek/ride I went I learnt this and many new things every time. If there is no network, no mail, no electronic media, and you have no means of communication, all you got to do is to walk for few hours, and because you have nothing else to do; you think for yourself  in many better ways and come out as an improved person.  Mostly that's the reason our elders were much happier than us, they used to find a lot of time for themselves. Here is an excellent example of how a team work gets developed on its own.

After about 3 kms it started pouring  heavily, everyone started walking thinking the intention of rainathon is served and how well!!  within minutes we were all drenched completely, we kept walking and walking; we crossed 5kms, 7kms, 10kms, and were nearing 13kms completion with almost no break except for some slow downs. We found our jeep waiting for us with food. In this heavy rain, they had put a tarpaulin , cooked the food, they surely need to be thanked unconditionally for this, slowly in groups, people started reaching there. Few people were holding the tarpaulin, and few were having food. Few were standing outside for their turns patiently. There was no rush, no questions asked, no one ordered them to do what they were doing, it was all VOLUNTEERED for a single aim of "food for all". As they say beautiful moments are never captured they are felt, This definitely was one of them, there are no photos but the preparation, tasting and arrangement depicted the beauty that can never be planned out.  No one wasted food and everyone contributed in ensuring that the food is served to all.

After food, walking is tough for many reasons, we already had good food, we had covered around 12-13kms, and we had to cover 6-7 more. We started moving ahead with a new challenge of reaching the base before the sunset., everyone accelerated their pace a bit. There were few who were finding it a little difficult, we kept boosting their morale, inspiring them to walk more, at the end of the day we all finally made it to the base just in time.  It was so beautiful moment that unknowingly everyone clapped for each other. There were kids, there were 50+, there were couples and then there were the young ones, but all of us making it on time with each others support just meant the right reflection of rainathon's motto.

Once we all came together, we got a little freshened up there, and headed towards Bangalore. Before that  we felicitated a person called Babu, who was a "runner" in post office. (long years ago people would collect the posts and walk to respective houses and deliver the letters.) Not just that soon I realized this guy had blended the professionalism and social service to such an extent that he was named best in both, as said in Sanskrit (योगः कर्मसु कौशलम्) I saw the real meaning to it in this person. We were fortunate enough to witness felicitation of this person. We then distributed few fun prizes among our group, which helped know different observation from the people. We shared our feedback with each other. We realized how happy people are with their piece of experience, these for me are the best rewards an organizer can get. 

For those who are interested here is the link for path we walked

After this we went to Sakleshpur, had dinner and headed to Bangalore. People were too tired we decided to sleep. We reached Bangalore around 4:00am in the morning. When we got down we realized we just had the rich feeling with so many good memories. That is the reason why I tell you dear reader:

Have a smile.....walk a mile

Enjoy the moment...for a while.