“A place where time stood still”

"A place where time stood still” Sharavathi backwaters,Honnemardu ( Shimoga Taluk) Our journey to Honnemardu started off with the 11pm train from Bangalore to Shimoga aka Shimoga express. Not much happened in the train journey ,everyone was sleepy and tired except a few who were busy playing cards. At around 1 am, the guys completed their game of poker and started talking vociferously. The ticket collector, who was sleeping in the next cabin, rushed in and shouted at them for disturbing the other passengers and ( the other reason) for not letting him sleep. “Blink Blink” 2 seconds later, the lights were turned off and I could hear a whisper “psst where do I sleep “? 2 bogie train aka Rail bus We reached our first destination “Shimoga” at 6.25am, and barely had time to run and catch the connecting train to Thalguppa. Unfortunately we got separated into 2 separate groups but as all of us got seats to sit on, we enjoyed the 98km, 3hour journey. Now when I say “ train” , you would imagine a huge engine pulling a line of bogies, erase that thought, this “train” had a small diesel engine and 2 small bogies. According to the notice found inside the bogie, the train could ferry a total of 60 people. The cost of each ticket was Rs 19. We were irritated when we found that the train made frequent stops, it was more like a bus journey than a train journey. Here’s a few interesting facts about the train. 1. The train, according to the driver, gives a mileage of 30km/litre. 2. Apart from the driver and the TC, the train had an in-house gate keeper. What’s that you ask? When the train approached a railway crossing, the train would stop, the gate keeper would jump from the train and close the gate and stop the vehicles with his red flag(bus,car..). He would then give the all clear signal by waving his green flag. The train would pass and then stop after the crossing. The gate keeper would now open the gate and run to catch the train. Simple right, yep it was fun at first, but overall it made 32 stops and that got on our nerves. 3. The train, as Anand rightly pointed out, passes through remote villages and according to him, at a certain steep curve, the train just refuses to move and the passengers get down and push the train for a few 100meters.Fortunately we didn’t have to undergo that "part of the journey" and we reached our destination without any mishaps. 4. At one particular village we saw around 20 villagers waiting for the train and we thought the train would now be over crowded. To our surprise only 2 people got in and the rest of them stayed back. Wow it was like the whole village had come to bid them goodbye. You don’t see that sight everyday. 5. As we passed through numerous stations, the train started getting overcrowded and we being “gentlemen” gave away our seats to the villagers and some even let small children sit on their laps. This reminded me of a scene for Swades. 6. I almost forgot to mention that Anand was earnestly asking a few questions to the conductor and the next thing you know the conductor came and sat next to him and started telling him about the train, its problems and its history. Anand was shaking his head up and down, like a cow, well very similar to the one we see in Happydent advertisement. 7. I really envied one Mr Shyam who slept like an angel, one hand on his chin., the modern day thinker…. We reached the last stop, a small village called Thalguppa at around 10 am. After a quick tea and coffee session at the local hotel, we set off on the last leg of our journey (16kms). Please don’t ask me how 23 people(including the cab drivers) squeezed into 2 vehicles ( a Tata Sumo and a Trax).They initially quoted Rs500 for the one way trip but after a bit of bargaining came down to Rs 200. At around 11 am, we reached our destination the backwaters of Shravathi,Honnemardu. We were greeted by our guide and caretaker “Ganapathi” who immediately said:“ Please form a single file semicircle” and gave us a welcome speech and introduced himself and his assistant “Madhu”. (Please note : no welcome drinks, no jasmine garlands and definitely no belly dancers) He then chalked out the days’ activities and gave us a brief overview of the ground rules and showed us the circle (the food court, where we were supposed to have all our meals), the well (where we were supposed to wash our plates) and the “rooms” (where we were supposed to dump our luggage). Backbreaking trip to the hilltop Madhu then took us to our “rooms”, he said it was a simple 5 min hike. The 5 min walk turned out to be a 15 min back breaking , huffing and puffing trek to the top of the hill, It was up up and more up. When we reached the” rooms” we found that they were just a couple of old dusty rooms. We looked around for “ Anand” to complain and of course kick him. He confessed that although he knew that the rooms were on a hilltop, it was his first time via the treacherous back breaking route,.We forgave him because he was in a bad shape just like the rest of us. We then did the next best thing.. Cursed Ganapathi and the organizers in 4 different languages. All things said, the view from the hilltop was spectacular and maybe that’s why they wanted us to climb the hill. Everything has a reason….. After changing into our swimming gear we went down and met Ganapathi who gave us a lecture on safety and how to use the life jacket. He asked us to jump into the water and swim to the nearby island. Not all knew how to swim, so Ganapathi literally had to teach them how to stay afloat, use their hands to move forward in the water. Surprisingly none of us were bothered about the dept of the water. Everyone was busying practicing their strokes when I heard “Madhu”( the other guide) shout out to Ganapathi ..the translated conversation went something like this … Madhu : Ganapathi Ganapathi: (ignores the Madhu) Madhu : how many were in this team ? (desperation in his voice) Ganapathi : ( busy teaching kulli Deepa how to stay afloat ) 21 Madhu: (standing on a tree stump, busy counting) Oye I can see only 20 heads. Are you sure its 21? Ganapathi: Count again Madhu: (counting again and almost panicking)Are you sure its 21 ? Ganapathi : ( thinking for a second) Oh.. I almost forgot one of the girls didn’t want to get into the water. Madhu: (lets out a sigh of relief).sigh* We then started swimming towards the island. That was the most amazing part of the whole trip, ”reach the island ”. We sort of made our own "small groups of 3 and 4" and headed off towards the shell shaped island. Each individual had a different experience trying to reach that island. Many didn’t even pass the safety of the tree stumps, most had to return back because of leg cramps. What each underwent in that 500mts cannot be expressed in words. Out of the initial 20 only 10 made it to that island. The ones who made it stood at the pinnacle and then it hit us , we had done it. We were overjoyed at accomplishing such a big feat, we congratulated each other and then suddenly we realized that Ganapathi didn’t tell us what to do once we reached the island. It was the second time in a span of 2 hours that we cursed Ganapathi, in 4 different languages. We soon realized that we were stranded on that small island (click on the pic) and the only way back to the mainland was to swim back. Alas we didn’t have the energy to swim back. Luckily a few of them were struggling in the middle of the lake and Ganapathi was paddling the “coracle “and bringing them to safety. We hitched a ride and when we were near the shore I saw him with this weird expression, like a naughty kid getting ready to throw the cell phone into a glass of Horlicks. Suddenly Ganapathi titled the coracle in such a way that a couple of them (11 ppl were hanging on to their lives) went overboard and the boat started taking in water. He started yelling “ get out , get out its sinking”, most of them were too shocked to react and so he started pushing everyone overboard. I looked at him and smiled before jumping back into the water. I later learnt that he wanted us to swim to the shore hence the sudden diversion. Most of them were badly shaken by the episode. We were exhausted after the swim and had a satisfying lunch. Ganapathi then told us to change into dry clothes and to get our blankets from the “ room” .He informed us that we were to camp overnight on one of the numerous islands. The very thought of climbing the hill to get our blankets was upsetting, but eventually we made it.

To be continued after the break... (Nirma Nirma Washing powder Nirma)