Tours n Travails - Rishikesh. Part 3 of 4

The following interior monologue is based on personal experiences except the parts that might get me into trouble. Those are purely fictional.

This is the threequel. If you are expecting this to be any where as good as LOTR:Return of the King or PoC:At World's End then leave. Think Godfather 3 better yet- Shrek 3.

We take our places on the raft as assigned by Jeevan – Sergei and S.L. at the front and P.B. and me at the middle with Jeevan acting as our rudder at the back. Sergei, who I learn produces a successful comedy television series in Russia, has a small camera shaped like a mini-torch which he attaches to his helmet. We tell him to save the battery until we come to the exciting parts of the ride but he is unable to comprehend our advanced linguistic abilities in the English language. We realize later that he attached the camera upside down, which resulted in the video being shot inverted. I wonder where he hid the vodka in the wet suit. We first practice a few rafting maneuvers – paddle forward, paddle back, holding the outside rope line for safety, falling into the raft from the rim- all to be performed without a moments hesitation at Jeevan’s command. Meanwhile Avnesh and Ant move ahead in their kayaks and conversing with them keeps us entertained. Ant happens to be a cricket fan and he brags about how the Kiwis had recently defeated the Pakistanis. If rafting was anywhere as tough as beating the Pakis in a game of cricket, then I had nothing to worry about.

As we paddle on, I realize how calm and beautiful it is, with the green mountains on one side and the beach, with its sparkling sand, on the other. The peacefulness of it all makes me want to reconsider my plans to retire in a beach-house in Goa, although the absence of liquor shops and non-veg food counts against the quaint pilgrimage town. Also Rishikesh seems to have as many foreign tourists as Goa, though they come to the world capital of Yoga to attain Moksha in contrast to what they want to accomplish in the sin-state of Goa. It’s settled then, Goa it is. Meanwhile, rafting seemed pretty easy in still water and I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about.

We reach the first rapid – ‘Three Blind Mice’ and Jeevan starts giving out paddle orders so that we take the right line. The intensity of the river shakes the raft hard and the adrenaline begins to pump through the veins. I personally prefer my adrenaline to remain in its gland but I begin to understand what the adrenaline junkies harp on about as water splashes on my face and I am blinded for a second. As the rapid ends I feel exhilarated and can’t wait to reach the next one. Jeevan is less than impressed. Apparently in all the excitement we weren’t exactly heeding his commands. Just like school kids caught reading a dirty magazine, we promise not to repeat it.

During our course through the river we encounter other rafts, quite a few carrying pretty folk inside. However since I wasn’t wearing my glasses I could’ve been wrong. I begin to regret not bringing them along when I see people sun bathing on the riverbank. Not that I’m a voyeur, at least not a self admitting one, but when you gaze hazily from so far off you can’t tell whether it’s a he or she and that’s plain wrong. But then again my glasses are Carl-Zeiss so I wasn’t taking any chances. Beautiful foreign women in bikinis come and go but Carl-Zeiss anti-reflective photo-chromatic scratchproof glasses last 3-4 years if you treat it right.

Downstream the rapids get fiercer and more turbulent. At one point we are quite close to the mountain edge. I was afraid we’d be giving the phrase ‘on the rocks’ a whole new meaning but Jeevan pulls us through with his vast experience and bellowing. During another rapid, when I try to follow the “Forward hard! Forward hard!” command, my paddle doesn’t encounter any resistance, I look down and see that the wave has thrown us about ten feet in the air. Luckily for us and perhaps not so much for P.B, who seemed desperate to fall out of the boat, we remain in the raft. I would have been happy to oblige had he only asked.

In-between rapids, we jump into the cool water to beat the heat. My inability to swim makes me hold onto the side of the raft while the downstream force entangles my legs in strange positions. Avnesh notices my discomfort and tells me to hold on to the end of his kayak while he paddles on. We move this way for a while until he tells me to let go and swim to the raft. This reminds me of my father coaching me to ride a bicycle, as a kid. He lets go of the seat just about as I begin to hang of it. I panic and forget where the breaks are and crash into a stationary truck, but all in good fun. Needless to say that was the last thing I learnt from my dad, if you discount drinking. Getting back to the present, I make weird flapping motions with my hands in the general direction of the raft but the distance between us seems to be increasing which means- either I’ve just invented a way to swim in reverse or the velocity of the raft is greater than my so-called swim. Probably the latter. Avnesh realizes a lost cause when he sees one and uses his kayak to bring me back to he raft. Climbing back into the raft is another ordeal, partly due to Jeevans diminutive frame but mostly due to aloos in Noida. S.L takes a dip too and we consider it his bath in the sacred river. To bad he forgot his dettol soap in the jeep. Just to get the real sticky sins out.

While we paddle on to the end-point of our journey, Sergei teaches us a few words in Russian. We first learn the expletives as they are, most likely, the first words you will actually use in any language. For example I’m not all that well versed in Kannada but the profanities come in handy while conversing with an auto-rickshaw driver with a tweaked meter. I don’t know if they have rickshaw drivers in Moscow but why take any chances. Incase you, like me, have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge- “Dirac” is Russian for Idiot. Then we learn the numbers- adeen for one, dva for two. I ask him what is Russian for “beautiful woman” and the words themselves, quite honestly, are quite beautiful. I commit them to memory hoping to use them at least once in my lifetime. The dream is alive.

To be continued