It was
a glorious sunny afternoon. It was around 12, and we had just plonked ourselves
in our raft, ready for the 26-odd km ride down the hallowed curves of the Ganga.
There were 4 of us , plus a guide and two of his helpers. The water was delightfully cold, the flow
frightfully strong-ideal for a great day of white water rafting. Or so we
thought.
 |
| and it begins! |
The
guide shouted that we were approaching the ‘Three Blind Mice’, a grade 3 rapid,
which consisted of a series of three small rapids (hence the name). Fresh with
confidence, we were rowing forward with great aplomb. We struck the first rapid
head-on, still rowing against the will of the water, and then it happened. We
overturned.
The
only thing I remember of the fall is seeing something fast and blue and
swirling for a fraction of a second, and then I was out of the torrent, gasping
for breath, hands trying desperately to grasp something. For a moment I was
clutching the raft’s rope, and I tried to pull myself up, but the damned thing
was still overturned. I felt myself being pulled under the raft. Now that was a
scary thought, and I hastily managed to somehow push away from it. I was quite ok up till now; I was kinda
wishing earlier we would overturn for the heck of it. Suddenly I felt a hand grabbing my neck, to
the point of choking. Things got really scary then. It was one of my friends,
he dint know how to swim and he was turning frighteningly white, swallowing
water with each passing second. If he
went down, he would make sure I went with him, and that really freaked me out.
It took some real effort to make him let go of my neck and grab my shoulder. We
crossed the other two rapids this way, him losing more hope all the time.
After
the gushing rapids had passed and we were in somewhat calm water, I looked
around. One of our oars was floating close to me; I grabbed hold of it. I saw
one of the helpers to my left. Heaving a sigh of relief, I asked him what to do
now. The look on his face when he muttered this brought all the dread back:
“Bhaiya mujhe terna nai aata!!”*^#$%#$ I cursed him for all it was worth, but
it was all I could do. Apparently, the freak was new in training, and this was the first time he’d overturned. So now
I had two really scared guys clinging onto me, and this made my hands rather
useless. I coaxed them to tread some water with their feet and try to make for
the shore. Using the oar as a support, we managed to force our way across to
dry land. Oh, the earth felt real good then! Luckily, the side we’d chosen saw
the sun for most of the day, thus was thankfully dry. We climbed on top of a
cliff, and saw our raft a couple of kms away on the opposite bank. The main
guide guy had somehow steadied it and managed to get it to the shore. The other
helper guy was trekking towards us with another of my friends, and that brought
cheers.
A
half-hour must’ve passed during all this, and still there was no sign of the
fourth guy. My other friend was at the front when we toppled, so there was no
one ahead of him, and he couldn’t be behind because the flow would’ve carried
him onwards. Fearing the worst, we asked the helper (the other one, who knew
how to swim) if people actually drown here. His words brought no
comfort…
We
shouted across to the main that we were missing a person. He went back upriver,
scrambling over rocks and bushes searching for some sign of him. The waiting
was unbearable. Finally we saw his head surface over the farthest ridge on the
opposite bank. Phew!
We
still had to hike over treacherous terrain to reach the raft. The gripe was
that we were barefoot, the rocks were slowly turning hot with the sun, and God
they were so sharp! It was like walking over an endless trail of hot spiky
nettles. And of course no one wanted to jump back in the water again, so there
was no other option but to continue this way for what seemed like eternity.
Finally
we reached the raft, there were hugs all around. I guess we were pretty relieved.
The guide and one of my friends had struggled some more and brought the raft
across to our side of the river. We’d
lost all our paddles except the one I’d saved, so we ended up rowing with our
hands for some time, until we reached a public beach. Our guide had called
ahead, and there were people waiting with reinforcements. To our surprise, the
guide refused to continue further, he hadn’t swallowed so much water ever and
in his own words, “Mujhe khud chand sitaare dikh gaye!”. He was eventually
replaced for the rest of the way. There were still 18 kms to go. There came
scary rapids which tossed our raft so high that the paddle won’t reach the
water and we’d be rowing in empty air. There were times we were almost
vertical, and then the water would come rushing on to hit us in the face, hard. We were very determined not to fall again, so we held tight.
On the
way, we even stopped for cliff jumping. Some of us dint want to, though, the
thought of being in the water again was too much to digest. The jump wasn’t
much, must’ve been around 10ft or so, and I’d jumped from higher up(in a
swimming pool, though). But it was swell nonetheless, the sweet splash of
hitting the cold water falling through thin air. That’s me going eeehaaaaw-
We continued on, faced some more rapids, and finally the calm waters at Rishikesh came to embrace us. Our story had spread here; there were random strangers asking us how the whole experience was. People rarely overturned at that section of the river, so that's what all the fuss was all about.
It turns out there's a rapid called the 'Wall' further upstream, where there's roughly 1% chance of NOT overturning. Here's what it looks like:
Next destination? You bet.
X
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