6. YHAI Sarpass 2006 - Base Camp Kasol Day 2
I was dreaming about god knows what..Sleeping in my comfortable sleeping bag. You will be surprised how much you’ll love that thing when in extreme cold. I was hearing somebody singing. Somebody that bad is bound to be Sunny…wait sunny wont sing jis desh ki dharti, ae mere vatan ke logo..or ye desh hai veer jawano ka. Another fact supporting my belief was the time – 6:00 AM, I doubt he has seen 6:00 AM ever.. Soon a guy came in the tent unzipping it and flushing all of us with unholy 6:00 AM sunlight from which iitians have a vampiric symptoms. Subah ho gayi hai chai nahi peeni hai kya… I t was the damn old age loudspeakers. Waking up was difficult owing to the weather but we managed (dont even think about sunny). I dont like tea that much but i gulped 3-4 that day just to feel my insides. I tried to brush my teeth – the water was….any superlative degrees
of cold. Everyone said to do it anyway because its the warmest water i will get in any camp i was about to go. It sent chills up my spine and woke me up. We were ordered to clean our tents and a special attention to our tent was given. It was a mess…in only 6-7 hours we spent in it, we managed to pull out every piece of clothing from our bags, everything we owned – cameras, mp3 players, utensils etc. etc. was out, and ya sunny sleeping on top of all of it :) We cleaned it or (read : managed to wakeup sunny and just dumped everything back into the bags)
The breakfast was awesome. Thanks to amazing cooking and more to the rock by the river which couldn't have been better. Praths did showed up some symptoms associated with excessive grey areas he has. We all were enjoying the view – rapids, Himalayas, and the forest…..suddenly this guy blows off..i am not an engineer..computer science is not an engineering..i am changing my branch to civil. Fortunately i thought, he obviously hasn't filled a form for branch change and so it was all a one minute call from inner soul…unfortunately he had a 10 pointer :P so he can get any branch he wants anytime he wants. We tried to talk him out of this unwary decision but he wont bulge. Saurabh even tried with his evergreen simple and clear question – kya chahta hai ???? So he called his parents and kaka kaku just said to do whatever he feels right. So he decided to take civil when he will be back to college which died out pretty soon.
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We were informed that today we have to warm up. YHAI style – climbing a 2000 ft mountain with one blanket, one water bottle and a sleeping bag in your backpack. We were told to report in a formation and assigned roll calls. I was number 26…Also we were informed that it was our day to perform at camp fire. With plans coming and innovation working..we grabbed our backpacks ad stuffed it with what according to them was light stuff. We also were given squash and two water buckets (filled). They were readily carried by the balti brothers (the nomenclature was fun) along with their backpack!! The trek started with a great enthusiasm. The path was beautiful and calm. Only Chirping birds and laughter was in air…it was awesome. Everyone was talking about the things we can do in our camp fire. Amid bhavesh’s too dirty and gross jokes which were lowered in intensity by his charming and vivid persona and singing, the time flew like anything. The trees were too tall, their bottoms going feets down on slope. Suddenly, everyone was ordered to be quite and we wondered if we encountered some animal or something..
It was a school!! and not just any school. Had I had been in this school i could have won 100% attendance every time. It was in a big opening surrounded by trees in three sides and by mountains in the fourth one. A bright coloured, rised building served as the school. The classrooms were basically for just keeping bags and classes were conducted in the outer periphery of them. Imagine sitting in a warm sunny morning, surrounded by nature….god knows how those kids concentrate :P We had a chance to overlook their assembly which was beautiful..
We soon continued and reached the top in no time. Everybody was exhausted but the view ahead filled one with a great comfort. It was breathtaking and surprisingly soothing. From a window of trees and overhanging we had a full view of a snow topped peak with sun behind it.
We settled down threw our backpacks and started discussing night’s program. We selected Bhavesh for anchoring cuz of his excellent and excessive talking “skills” Everybody put their thinking hats and the ideas soon started pouring in from everywhere. It was the fun and seeing us, anyone could have
predicted that these 50 people would be very close for next 9 days. We decided on everything We finalized on a play which portrayed ethnic differences, a song by eesha (along with raghu and bhavesh on flute which was a ultimate hit) and a culminating song (mile sur mera tumhara) sung in 4-5 languages. Mr. Bond (a overknowledged gujju uncle who had 10 years of experience in trekking) made his presence felt and didn't let us forget for a second of his overenthusiastic nature. He made us make room for a song by his daughter at last. With some tit bits of songs and shayari thrown here and there the schedule for camp fire was completed. After resting for sometime we started to descent which was very fast and easy. We reached the camp by late afternoon. After quickly grabbing a bite (with a special iitian style – 6 guys eating in a small Tiffin), we started practicing for evening.
Now its Showtime…with an aesthetic mood we performed and everything went as perfect as planned. The flute and play were phodu..We had a big attention grabbing session of bumps and shadow photography afterwards which most probably ended any faith left in others for the future of nation ![]()
Download this MP3 - (Right Click)
We sat for sometime at the rock. The river looks too b’ful in moonlight. We were soon spotted by the kitchen workers who sent us back to the tents. We were to get a god nights sleep as tomorrow is a tiring day……
The camp fire and its preparation bonded the group together like anything and i knew we were heading to a legen – wait for it – dary trip.





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