I wanted to go to the Kumbh Mela.
The Kumbh Mela was on same day as the Mahakumbh which happens only once in 144 years and the whole world seemed to be converging to it -- umpteen crore Indians, hordes of foreigners and an innumerable number of reporters. I had been watching the developments on the TV and press curiously. But when I tried researching it on the Net, I was really hooked. The best sites on the Kumbh Mela were by firangs, and the BBSs (Bulletin Board Service) were all about how so-and-so was planning to come to the Kumbh, and where they could stay, and some so-and-so saying that he had reached the Kumbh, and how he was totally overawed...

Life was boring and Bombay was getting to me. Travel, they say, broadens the mind (my body is broad enough as it is), so when a friend and I met to go Bungee jumping, we decided to go backpacking in the wild, wild east -- Calcutta, Sikkim and Assam. So off we went with a chaddi and a backpack -- no hotel booking, no travel booking, nothing. Just a one-way ticket to Calcutta...
For me the adventure started rather early in the proceedings. The night before ETD, I was down with cough and fever, and mom was on the point of vetoing the trip, but I held firm and insisted that I will go. Next day I went to the station and found that I had missed the train by 5 minutes! I had misread the train time to be 6:30 a.m. instead of 6.00 a.m. PANIC SITUATION!

“Enjoy Goa, best vacation destination in India.” I was leafing through the classifieds, and the travel section was full of such ads offering various package tours and hotel stays in Goa. As I read through them, I grinned at the memory of our last trip to Goa.

We had got a free hotel stay at Goa through a credit card agent. He had first come to me and offered a credit card.
“Only six hundred rupees saar.”
“Get lost I have four credit cards”
“OK…I will give it to you for free saar.”
“Get lost. What will I do with another card ?”
“I will give gold card free saar.”

One upon a time in a galaxy long long ago….at least that what I feels like right now. Many years back when we were in MBA school, we decided on the spur of the moment to go to IIM Calcutta for an inter MBA school festival that they were going to have.

A lot of debating, shilly shallying, yes-no happened and till the penultimate day, we were still not decided who should go to represent the institute, and chances were that finally it would be a no-show from our end. Then we got news that IIM Lucknow was having a fest at the same time, and two of our colleagues had gone by flight to attend it. This sparked off our resolve and we decided that we would go to Cal.

Midnight day one: Am in a five star hotel, drinking Bacardi and eating kebabs
Midnight day two: Am somewhere on a mountain in absolute pitch darkness. Am wet, hungry and shivering.

This is the story of a spur of the moment trip – two people, a last minute plan and a memorable trek in the Sahyadri mountains.

This kind of timing and the sheer unconcern with which we were taking the trek was absolutely crazy. A night trek, in the monsoon –no light due to cloudy nights, little food, no sleeping bag, tent or mat, no light, no ropes, no first aid – and I, at least, had absolutely no idea of the route. But I was not bothered because I did not know the dangers, and Bharathi was not bothered, because she knew all the dangers.