All our life we chase after something or the other. We desire, we crave, we fight, we lose and we burn with envy. But when we burn for the last time, we rest in peace in our graves. No more desires and no more cravings. An eternal peace spreads through.
This was not what was in my mind when I started for Kasarsai with Yogesh and Vamsi last Saturday (28th Feb 2009) at 4.15 pm. We were bit slow because of the hot sun. Near Hinjewadi, just 7 km from home, I started feeling I can’t pedal anymore. My bicycle was going damn slow even after applying lot of force. I thought Enduro3 race and Plus valley trip sucked away all my sinews? The road was flat but I was struggling to move ahead. Then the noise came that every cyclists on earth dreads most, ‘ddhakddhak ddhakddhak’. The rim was hitting the road, I had a flat tire. There were two shops at the Hinjewadi circle, the first one was working on another bicycle so we moved on to the next one. After giving my Cyclone to the shopkeeper we went to the other side of the road where we had two glasses of sugarcane juice each. When I came back the puncture was not fixed and the fitter was working on another bike. He told the tube has to be replaced as the puncture was on a patch (I thought he is making me fool, even the patch can be removed by burning it with the solution and a new patch can be fitted. I decided to fix that tube later myself). I took out a new tube from my bag and asked him to fit that one.
We started around 5.15 pm from Hinjewadi to Kasarsai with the mission to reach there before it gets dark. We reached the Dam in next 45 min and took some pics of the enchanting sunset. The road ahead was uncharted territory. With winding dirt roads along the opposite end of the lake we started our hunt for a place for camping. We wanted a place with some trees around and flat ground. After going a long way ahead we reached Kusgaon. From the villagers we came to know that there was a place down from the village towards the lake where we can find a flat ground for camping. The road from the village till the camping ground was the most thrilling; there was a gentle down slope with a water stream slithering along it making it muddy. When we reached the lake we had a 2 inch thick coating of mud on the tires.
It was almost dark when we reached, first thing we did was to take out the torches and take few pics. Soon the hunt for some stone to make the stove and wood for fuel started. Yogi and I were searching together when our LED lights fell upon something dark. I went near it. I turned it around using my foot. The environment around us filled with the resonance of my and Yogi’s voice which uttered the same word – ‘Lakdi!!!’ There were two half burnt logs lying around which I and Yogi carried till the area where we planned to have out stony stove. We collect some more dried hollow sticks which actually once belonged to the reeds near the lake but have now been abandoned by their germinators.
We were about to design our stove when the villager (Santosh) who had showed us the way to the camping ground came. He talked to Yogi in Marathi; I already knew what he wanted to say. I had got the clues around, the half burnt wood and the black earthen pot had already told me that we are in a place where our soulless petrified cadaver goes into the elements. The cremation ground not the camping ground. Santosh advised us to camp at the Ganapati Puja Pendal at the center of the village. He told us that the villagers are really scared of ghost and are very superstitious. If they find us there and some light burning, they can mistake us for ghost, guess the consequences yourselves. I imagined the last scene of Delhi 6 movie and knew that the only difference from that scene that will happen to us is that there won’t be an Ambulance to take us to hospital and there won’t be any Bittu around to hold our hand and give life back. The camping can be our last camping if we don’t hurry back to the village. Yogi and Vamsi went with Santosh to get some wood from the village and I waited in the graveyard alone for them to come back.
It was pitch black all around, no wind and no noise from the lake apart from the rare ribbiting of a toad. I had my torch and started hunting for stones for the stove and soon constructed one.
I never believed in ghosts, but I was listening hard for any villager coming around. I didn’t want anyone to discover me. I was feeling an odd sense that time. I was feeling like how amazing is the human society. We fear ourselves. We fear nothingness. We fear when there is nothing around to fear about. We fear our own self. We fear because there’s nothing to not fear about. We are so weak; we created the civilization because we feared to be alone. Fear can be constructive. I started smiling. I knew if any villager sees me I will scare the hell out of him acting ghost no matter what the consequence will be.
Yogi and Vamsi returned with some wood and dried cow dung to burn fire for cooking. We had got some vegetables, rice, oil, salt and Biryani mix to prepare Biryani but we had to drop the plan and go for Cup Noodles because of lack of time. It took a lot of time to warm 2 liters of water in the stove. We had the noodles.
It was 9 pm when we started for the village from the enchanting solitude of the ground that I will no more call as camping ground or graveyard but a symbol of human weakness, a spot designated by humans as the exit point from this world and entrance to the next; a spot which reminds us that no matter who we are, we have to visit it atleast once in life.
We spread the Tarpaulin sheet and our bedding on top of it and started gossiping with some of the villagers who were also sleeping in the Puja Pendal. It was 11 pm when we decided it’s time to snore.
But there was some other plan led down by the script writer sitting somewhere up there, I heard the place is called as heaven. Thing is, in the age of Industrialization and globalization, wildlife has adapted well. They increased their number and decreased their variety to three species, namely – Humans, Dogs and Mosquitoes. Though the first one was sparingly populated in that area, the latter two made their presence felt throughout the night. I am really unskilled in the art of sleeping with face covered with a blanket and this lack of talent always lead to some change in landscape of my face whenever the 3rd species is nearby.
The 2nd Species has lots of similarities with the 1st one. They have borders and LOCs like we have. And intruder is barked out, or barked till the barking specimen is out. Like human this species too prefer night time for the attack for the advantage gained from the darkness and laziness of the defending legions. But unlike humans the battles consists of only one hard lined strategy – the higher the barking amplitude the more the probability of conquering the territory. But luckily the guy above programmed a constraint; a variable he named as Stamina; which refrained the barking being to continue the session beyond 2 hours without a lull.
Though there was lull from the 2nd species, the guy above had more plans. He has another variable called as climate to which be he passed a variable called ‘Chilling Wind’ when the timer showed him 4 am. With lots of change in sleeping postures, from Vitruvian Man to St. Jerome in the Wilderness I finally found warmth in the foetus in womb posture.
We woke up at 6.30 am and packed up to leave, when one of the villagers we were gossiping last night invited us for Tea. Last time I had tea was during the Xmas Trip to Mahabaleswar near Pratapgad fort. Tea! I know why I don’t drink tea. Apart from not too fond of the taste I have left it for extremely special occasions. I had the 4th tea of my life at Kusgaon at the villagers place. His name was Papu and had a nice home near the Puja Pendal. The tea was really special for me. It was my first camp of life and the dinner at graveyard was really one of those memories that will always remain with me.
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