‘Holy S***! What the hell am I doing here?’


These were the exact words of mine which I inadvertently blurted out, loud enough for a large section of people to turn their heads around. The trek to Parashar was supposed to be an easy one. Well, it was easy alright! Especially when we were all back safe and sound at our homes moaning and grunting when we had to twitch an inch. Goddamn it! These stairs to my room don’t seem to end. 
Anyone heard of Murphy’s Law? Well, if you consider yourself a movie buff or have at least the slightest sense of Nolan’s movies, you might as well know about it. For all the others out there, it’s a simple fact. 
"Anything that can go wrong, Will go wrong."
 It can be loosely termed as Karma. Before I go any further, I would like to go in the reverse direction and back in time. (How I wish it would have been possible literally!) Being a simple and a very reserved person, I was never a very outgoing person. I would prefer to keep myself within the vicinity of my comfort circle. However, No matter how hard I tried to resist this trip, my friends somehow convinced me to take this trip all the way up to 8477ft and into the coldest wilderness that I have ever been to.
The problem for me was convincing my parents for the same. The so called peers who induced this peer pressure were none other than Vaibhav - my roommate, Shubham Gupta – His lazy and a tad moronic friend and the surprise package – Shubham Arora, the topper. I had a brief period of two days to convince my parents for this trek and I lied to them instead of facing them. The lie too, was a very impromptu one telling them that I was in fact going to Arora’s house in Chandigarh (he lives in Ludhiana btw!) because Arora wanted to visit his sister there (who lives in Bangalore for real!) and invited me too! On the other hand, Arora lied that he was going to Chandigarh too! But to a friend’s party. Phew. Somebody correctly said, that to cover one lie you have to say a hundred more. I had to make sure all my tracks were covered. From checking the busy tone for Airtel in Mandi and switching off the phone upon being sure that the service providers would not speak in the local language, to making up random things at random times. For e.g. – I got a call from my dad on Friday itself around eight when I was actually in Chandigarh already on my way to Mandi. Since we made a pit stop to buy some food, I made up stuff that I was in Patiala, out for food. So on and so forth. The biggest shock came when I had just covered the uphill trek on Saturday and in the similar situation had to make up that I was ‘just roaming around’ and ‘that it wasn’t that cold there’! It was -9 degrees there and I had just covered 7.5Km of uphill trek in 3ft snow. Damn! I am actually not proud of what I did, and this is where Murphy’s Law comes in. Even though I had a nice time there, a part of me still was upset over keeping my parents in such utter darkness. And I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t lie to them about things as big as this again. Damn you, conscience! 
Anyhow, let’s move on a bit. The trek however was a completely once in a lifetime affair. It all started with a haphazard packing in which Arora packed more than anyone could carry and yet we took off from Patiala on the 30th. We went to Chandigarh and took a bus to Mandi. The bus journey was pretty calm and contrary to popular belief, there was no sign of any high altitude sickness. We reached Mandi pretty early and had to wait for a couple of hours for the rest of the group to assemble. Once all of the eighteen people were there, we left for Baggi, a village about two hours away. And finally, the real trek started when were told to start climbing this huge mountain in front of us. 

We all began with huge enthusiasm which for me cooled down after a mere 500-600 meters and the hard work had begun. We had not trekked for a long time uphill and snow started to appear in patches. Finally, we were engulfed in up to 4ft snow. Then started the snow fights with a huddle of people in the middle being bombarded by people on either sides of them, both ahead and behind. People shouting out to notify the incoming, alas it would be too late for someone or the other who would have been slammed in the face by then. We had to follow a small trail set by previous hikers and any step diverting from it would have surely dropped someone straight down the hill. It was surely dangerous as hell. We were continuously motivated by our trek leads who just ‘corrected’ some information about the distances covered and the distances left to cover. We were under a very strict regime who allowed a rest period of 10 minutes only on a first come first serve basis. Who so ever came after these 10 minutes didn’t get the rest. Upon sighting our guest house for our stay, we breathed a sigh of relief but those last 500 meters were the hardest. We didn’t stay long at the guest house before making the final move to the destination of Parashar Lake.
Coming back to the guest house we got to know each other in a session where everyone shared their stories and backgrounds. The night was chilly as hell, and as we lay in our sleeping bags, it snowed outside. Next day we began the descent towards civilization. It was an easy ride for the most part of it. That was till there was snow to slide and roll upon. However, since there was no trail to follow this time because of the fresh snow fall, we had to be extra cautious. As soon as we hit the muddy rocks, our spirits were all but blown away. Our speeds reduced and things began slippery and I had my heart in my mouth for each step that I took. I slipped countless number of times and each slip induced a greater fear of another slip. As Gupta and I reduced our speed, we were left behind by the group and then happened what I had feared. We were lost. We lost the trail. We saw two trails in front of us. One on the right with loads of snow and one on the left with mud. We chose the wrong one and ended up on the middle of a ridge looking down a cliff. We saw a couple of guys sitting there, right below us, perhaps at an angle as steep as 45 degrees. We bulked up some courage and then with the help of some trees and shrubs, slid down hoping that they would catch us. Fortunately, they did. And walking another couple of hundred meters, we were back with the group. However I was already very tired now and scared and it took us ever so long to get back. On the way back when we were all out of water, we searched for a stream of water and filled our bottles from the freshest source anyone could imagine. 
And finally, we were back where we started, at Baggi! This was my first trek and the experience was totally mind blowing. However, the feeling of coming back alive was the best of all. Right now, sitting in my comfort zone (sort of, my body hurts as if I have been hit by a truck no less than a dozen times), recalling it all, I think – It wasn’t so hard was it! :p 

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