“What is the time?”, I asked.
“6 mins to go.” Guru replied.
I looked around for a rock to sit. I found one, a very small one, but enough to seat myself for a couple of minutes. If not me, my legs needed that rest. The other 3 of them were sitting on 3 small rocks opposite to me. The shade cast by the trees was a blessing at that point in time. Those 3 water bottles and the hand pump were helping us quench our thirst. Karthi was wearing a dead look. Those fifteen minutes of rest was a huge relief. It was the first time in about 3 hours that we saw some people. We heard unknown whistling sounds and looked around in silence. Two saint-like people walked past us, and our eyes followed them until they were gone behind the trees of the forest. We held back our tongues until they were out of sight. On one side was the hill and on the other side was the forest. We were right in the middle following a footpath. Welcome to the world of Mystery-land.
“Just think of where we were 9 hours back?”, I asked. “We were at home.”
The Previous day
I was driving back with my family from “Bombay Halwa House” when this plan came up. Kartik was keen to make the trip happen. I was for it, but we had to decide on the mode of transport. We thought about the possibilities of both motorbike and car, and as our desires would have it, we finalized that we would race through motorbikes. We expected tough objections – but were pleased to see the plan being accepted. Kartik called up Guru and Karthi and confirmed that they were joining too. A BULLET journey would have been more enthralling, but its unsuitability prompted us to take Karthi’s PULSAR along with mine. We still had confusions regarding the mode of transport, the mystery still remained as to which would get finalized. More mystery was created by several people during the interim and finally, we decided that we will be taking our bikes, after Karthi sought permission from home to avoid all sorts of further confusions.
That Day
I heard a distant sound of a very familiar music. It was reaching closer and closer. I looked around for the direction of the sound. I tried all four directions. The source of sound was untraceable. All of a sudden I woke up with a startle and switched off the alarm. I looked by my side – my daughter was fast asleep. I was sure that hadn’t I reached out to turn off the alarm, she would have woken up. I sighed in relief. I glanced at my watch – it was 4 AM on a Sunday morning and we had a tough day ahead. I refreshed myself quickly, locked the front door and went upstairs. Guru and Karthi were already ready. I had my fill of milk and we got ready to leave.
It was still dark – the only lone figure on the streets was Narayanan uncle who greeted us towards the end of his morning walk. For a usual citizen of India, that would be a midnight walk at those early hours. We started our bikes, the weather was chill. The pillion riders (Karthi & Guru) shouldered a bag and Karthi also carried a coconut in his hand – courtesy my mom – a god fearing woman who trusted that coconut more than anything else. We took the Chennai Bypass through the cold morning wind that made my exposed skin go numb. I directed my mates to Mahindra City – to give them a feel as to what it actually looked like. We had a cup of tea there and then it was time to continue the journey. By the way we had broken the coconut in front of a roadside temple in Perungalathur. We took the highway, drove a little faster as the dawn was slowly breaking up. It was an experience of life to see clouds of fog near Chengalpet floating around us – it felt like we were in some hill station. I never imagined such things to be happening around Chennai. We rode the motorbikes faster when the sun peeped up from the eastern side over the sea. We overtook each other several times and were thoroughly enjoying every moment of the ride. We stopped few miles before Dindivanam to give the cameras some work and then proceeded further not to waste more time.
At the beginning of the diversion before Dindivanam, we reshuffled ourselves so that everyone could get a chance to ride and rest. We entered the state highway and raced faster and faster till we came to a temporary halt at Senji to take a view of the fort. We then planned to visit it on the way back and continued our journey. At around 8:30, we reached the place where we wanted to. We looked around – there was a hill in front, the most worshipped one – especially on every full moon day. The hill looked ordinary – pretty ordinary to me. It does appear normal to every human, but few know about the mysteries revolving around it. Welcome to the world of Tiruvannamalai – the so called mystery land.
We had our stomach filled at a restaurant and marched towards the temple after parking our bikes at the bus stand. Our target was to walk around the hill – not by road, but through the forest around it. We had a quick look inside the temple and started to energize ourselves for the adventure. We had heard Kartik’s stories about the mysteries surrounding the place and hoped we could get to witness some. With a gulp of tender coconut, we walked into the forest taking the deviation from the road. The place looked calm, didn’t have a soul within sight and looked frightening. We knew we were 4 of us – but what would happen if a group of gangsters attacked us? What do we do? We didn’t have any weapons; all we had was 2 cameras, cash and few credit cards. Or what do we do if any animal attacked us? We would run for life, but atleast one of them would be a feast for the animal – especially Karthi and I being the plumper ones would be preferred by them. We had seen video clips of lions and tigers attacking humans – but when it comes to the real experience, I bet anyone would urinate in their pants. Suddenly, a man appeared in front – he looked like a foreigner. I chose not to talk to him, but Kartik was not as quiet as I was. He engaged himself with a conversation with the Russian and we came to know that he got to a place called “Amma Cave”. We asked him for directions and he was kind enough to guide us. We walked along and the place became more and more deserted. We were walking along a small path with stones on both sides and all we could see on either side was a forest look with lots of bushes and trees – you would never have an idea if a wolf would jump out from one of those bushes and hold our flesh. We walked in a file and instructed the last member to keep talking or singing along so as to assure ourselves that he’s not lost or caught. We followed the arrow marks on the rocks.
After sometime we observed a diversion from the usual path and we saw the rock-mark. It said “Amma cave”. We pondered for a while whether to make a visit to the cave or to continue our planned journey. We chose the instinct of looking out for the cave – the path directed us towards the hill and we were sure it would be denser. We never knew how distant that cave was from the place we were at that moment. But our guts pushed our feet towards it – we started making our way towards the hill in search of the cave. All we could see was the path in front of us and bushes and small trees on both sides of us – we were sure that our potential energy was increasing. There were some moments where we seemed to lose our path as we couldn’t see any arrow marks, but Guru’s persistence and adventurous energy pushed us further to get back to the arrow marks. Karthi was already tired and was finding it difficult to trek, but we raised his confidence and gave him that energy to speed up with us. We saw huge rocks at a distance and wanted to reach it, but our current destination was the cave – so we marched forward till we came closer and closer to the cave. Throughout the journey, we never knew how far it was, and that was the most adventurous, entertaining and exciting part of it. Another difficult part was that we had only 3 bottles of water and had to sparingly use it. Being a sportsman helped in terms of stamina, but this was very different. Karthi was cursing all of us and desperately wanted to go back – he started negotiating the further plan – poor fellow, he was almost in a state of collapse. We lifted up his spirits and continued our trek – narrow paths led us to that huge rock that we saw earlier – and much to our astonishment, that was just beside the cave. We looked behind and had a spectacular view of the whole city below us. Never in life had we witnessed such a beautiful moment. The 4 of us, with all guts had climbed up the hill to find it amazingly peaceful with a nice breeze striking our face. I clicked few snaps and we had a mouthful of Cadbury Temptations. We also went close to the edge of the cliff and that was the peak moment of the adventure. We forgot about all our commitments and responsibilities – never bothered that we had to go to work the next day, but just enjoyed the moment - a once in a lifetime experience.
The cave was very small – there was literally nothing inside, but the purpose of the visit was not lost – we had enjoyed too many unplanned experiences and the satisfaction levels were already shooting up beyond thresholds. It looked like we all were having an orgasm. We spent few mins in the cave and started retracing the path downhill. The return was faster than we expected and we reached the point where we first observed the diversion sometime back. Karthi was still pleading us to retrace our path and not continue the trip, but Kartik was adamant that we should go round the hill (about 12 kilometers) and we all agreed. Karthi didn’t have a choice but to follow suit. We walked like adventurers on a marsh-land cautious of the surroundings and look out for any animals. That fear was still within me, I confess. We still obeyed the principle of the last person singing and kept on walking. I don’t remember what all we spoke about, but the experience was wonderful although the sun was burning hot on our heads. Definitely our caps helped. Guru kept on talking like a chatter-box and that kept us going. The path was deserted and that made the journey more and more interesting. We were running out of water and were desperate of some halt at some place where water was available. After more than an hour’s walk we reached a place where we found some human presence. A small local boy directed us to a water pump that looked like a nectar-pump at that moment. We filled our stomachs and bottles with water and planned to rest for 15 mins. I washed my head, face and all possible places with the water and felt refreshed for the 2nd half of the journey.
“What is the time?”, I asked.
“6 mins to go.” Guru replied.
I looked around for a rock to sit. I found one, a very small one, but enough to seat myself for a couple of minutes. If not me, my legs needed that rest. The other 3 of them were sitting on 3 small rocks opposite to me. The shade cast by the trees was a blessing at that point in time. Those 3 water bottles and the hand pump were helping us quench our thirst. Karthi was wearing a dead look. Those fifteen minutes of rest was a huge relief. It was the first time in about 3 hours that we saw some people. We heard unknown whistling sounds and looked around in silence. Two saint-like people walked past us, and our eyes followed them until they were gone behind the trees of the forest. We held back our tongues until they were out of sight. On one side was the hill and on the other side was the forest. We were right in the middle following a footpath.
“Just think of where we were 9 hours back?”, I asked. “We were at home.”, came the reply.
“Ye, I should blog this experience.” I confirmed. “Ok guys, it’s time to move on”, came the call and we pushed on, insisting Karthi that we can’t afford to extend this break. We moved on, but this time the environment was little different. It was still hot, but we felt energized, thanks to that break, but my right knee was in pain. I struggled to walk, but kept on going – in fact I started leading the group. I didn’t stop and that made the others to follow up quickly with me. I had only one target in mind – to complete this journey in quick time – whatever happens. Guru was continuously talking and we were continuously listening. From somewhere a dog appeared and it started walking along with us. We looked at each other to see if this was a mystery element, but ruled it out half-heartedly. We met a couple of other local boys and enquired about the other mysteries about the hill. We continued our path this time with the dog to accompany us. It rested whenever we did and walked along whenever we walked. It acted like a true companion. As we walked on an on we started hearing vehicle horns and were sure that the journey was nearing its completion. Our tired legs were happier than we were. At last we reached the end of the path and drifted ourselves to the main road. We took an auto and went straight to the parking stand. We picked up our vehicles with tiredness all over the body and went straight to a restaurant to have our fill. Chicken, mutton, fish and eggs filled our tables as we hogged. We couldn’t allow tiredness to get over us as we all knew that we had to ride back 200 kms to get back home – and we wanted to get back before dark.
We ate our heart fill and started our journey back. On reaching Senji, we had a look at the fort from outside and continued our journey back. On seeing green fields, we stopped for some photographs. By the time we were 70 kms away from home, it was already dark. We rode back with the same energy through the same road that we took in the morning just waiting to get back home. With all our energy drained and waiting to jump into the bed, we reached home to find delicious food waiting for us. We had a quick shower and ate while already half-asleep - then collapsed to what completed one of the most fantastic adventurous days in my life. Thanks to the coconut, we were safe home.
