Skandagiri : A Hike To The Other Side Of The Fear #BestOfTravel

My mind was pushing me to stay in the comforts of my bed and not to venture out in the dangerous world outside! The usual comfort zone dilemma just before any major travel plans, probably!

Finally I pushed myself out of the bed and decided to take that tough first step. After all what I wanted was to understand the inner conflicts of my hero.

Somehow I made it till the busy Bangalore traffic to get to my train. A part of my mind was happy that Bangalore traffic was always stagnant. There was always a chance that I might miss the train and I could cancel my plan. But the other part of the mind was anxious about missing the train.

The snail that Bangalore traffic was finally helped me to reach the train station and I hadn't missed the train yet. So the plan was still on!

A bit more than a couple of hours of slow train journey took me to this modest looking Chik Ballapur railway station which sort of reminded me of Malgudi days.

I felt, it was my lucky day as no one had stopped me or questioned me till then. Then started the task of finding the starting point of the trekking trail. Google wasn't very helpful at this point. So I had to play a little bit of Sherlock Holmes, to find that first feebly visible arrow mark which was scribed on a boulder with a granite piece along with some other Kannada scripts.

Following someone else's path is the easiest thing to do when it comes to decision making rather than making your own path! So I just followed that arrow. Stepping on the the loosely bound granite rocks of various sizes on the solid red soil, I started my Skandagiri trekking.

I decided to leave the regular trail and take a shortcut keeping the next fort wall in sight. I evaded the thick bushes and big boulders on the way to reach the bottom of one of the next nearest fort walls. If I had walked on the regular trail, it would have taken much lesser energy. More than that, there was no way to reach the top other than climbing the granite wall which turned out to be quite risky.

Since I was all alone and didn't want to get injured, I walked all the way back and got back to the regular trail. It is good to make your own way, but it is not very advisable to think that you're smarter than the hundreds of people who had already made the path! I understood that there are no shortcuts in life to get to the top and the same is true in hiking too.

Without much commendable events, by following the easily visible trail, I reached the top after around three hours. There it was, a dilapidated temple made with erecting and stacking granite slabs and plastered on the top with mud and red soil. There were grass growing on the top of the temple on the hard soil. The look of the temple had the authenticity of more than a hundred years!

There I was sitting at the top of the mountain looking at the villages and towns down below on one side and Nandhi hills on another side, conversing with the nature and to myself. Then I heard a real conversation and it was approaching towards me.

I turned around and looked. I saw two guys coming towards the top from the other side of the mountain. Within no time they saw me as well. I was anxious again. Those were the local people. But I decided to sit confidently.

With a bit of surprise on their face, they asked, " What are you doing here? Are you alone?"

"Yes, I am alone. I came here to camp at night" I answered.

"But you don't have any camping equipment"

"I'll sleep inside this temple" I said pointing to the temple.

"Isn't it safe?" I asked after a bit of pause.

"Well, yea its safe. Just be careful about the wild animals at night". They carelessly tossed the idea of wild animals into my mind.

I couldn't hide my fear at that moment, as a reflex I dropped my guard and asked "Wild animals?! What kind of animals?!"

Again, carelessly they said, "Maybe foxes. But don't you worry. Just make some fire and they won't disturb you".

"Are you guys gonna stay here for the night as well", with a bit of hope I asked.

Pointing to the village down below they said,"No, We are going back there now. Good luck with your stay"

And they left, just like that!

Maybe they said that just to make me nervous. Or maybe there can be foxes. Maybe they lied, I didn't remember reading anything about any animals. Maybe they are right, they are the local people!

My thoughts started to mess me up. Just like my mind, the sky also started to become cloudy! When I was about to think whether it was some sort of Bollywood movie to see the clouds all of a sudden to match your emotions, I realized that I didn't have much time to gather dry wood and leaves to make fire at night. I ran around to collect whatever was dry before the rain and I was feeling the fear and pressure of staying in a remote place all alone.

Fortunately it didn't rain. By then I had collected the resources I needed to stay there for the night. I knew it was my thoughts messing me up. The fear wasn't real. The solitude at the mountain gave me time to rewind the whole event of that day.

It was my thoughts that created all these anxiety so far. I was anxious all the way thinking if someone would stop me or harass me. That anxiety was a result of my thoughts generated from baseless information on the internet. Nothing happened as I had feared. So I finally understood that the fear is fake but threat can be real. I had a choice to be fearful over my thoughts or to brush it off till something really happened. I could have prepared for a threat, but I shouldn't have feared because of my own thoughts.

While I was enjoying my newly found realization, the Sun came out from behind one of those clouds and showered a beautiful golden orange light on me. That was a beauty to witness. I felt that I had earned that spectacular view on that day! I sat there soaking in the beautiful light and on my better thoughts.

Time went by and the Sun had signed off from its day job. Slowly it was getting darker. The darkness had started putting everything I was seeing into the realm of unknown. After some time, each and every movement of the plants and trees around me felt like strange animals moving around. Each time a heavy wind blew shaking the branches hard, I felt there was some wild animals ready to jump on me.

My own thoughts had started creating the fear of the unknown again. I knew that it was nothing, but there were moments I didn't want to believe that. I was about to forget the presence of wild animals those people had mentioned earlier. Maybe monks would have been able to control their thought, but I wasn't able to do that.

To give a bit of relief, the half moon had come out from behind the clouds and lit up the place. At that point I was able to look at the valley and appreciate the beautiful view it had offered. The light-bulbs were switched on all across the valley. It looked like the reflection of the star studded sky on the valley, just the difference being they were bigger and closer than the stars.

With those views calming me down, I took out the biscuits and bananas I bought for my mountain dinner. I ate them sitting under the stars. But the surroundings were getting cold. The frequent winds made it colder. Interestingly I hadn't brought any warm clothing. All I had was a couple of T shirts, a news paper, a matchbox, water and the dinner items.

As the cold wind was accompanied by a drizzle, I had to get inside my only shelter, the temple. As I went inside the temple, the drizzle became a rain. I thought of making some fire inside the temple to keep me warm. But when the smoke filled up the entire room making it difficult for me to stay inside, that plan was failed miserably. I put out the fire.

I'd noticed that the hour hand of the watch was very reluctant to move after it became dark. I was beginning to think that it was some sort of strange phenomenon.

I decided to try and sleep. I took a few sheets of news paper that was left after trying to make the fire. I laid it down to make my bed. The solid red soiled ground was cold. The news paper didn't make much difference, but at least my clothes wouldn't get dirty. I put on all the T shirts I had brought. Then I put my legs inside my small backpack. And I tried hard to sleep.

I don't think if anyone had ever succeeded to sleep after deliberately forcing themselves to sleep. In short, I couldn't sleep. My newspaper bed saw me turning from one side to the other all the time.

I fell asleep when exhaustion took over everything. But that didn't last more than a minute. Those strange noises made by the wind by passing through the trees kept me awake. On and off I was falling asleep and waking up suddenly.

Finally at some point I really fell asleep. Sensing some movement at the door step of the temple, I woke up. I was sure I saw something at the entrance which was in fact a couple of meters away from me. I reached out to the long stick I had kept for any emergency. I knew it wouldn't be of much of a help during emergency, but I still kept it. Just like I had the LED torch light which I had bought on the roadside for 20 rupees.

Afterwards we all took the sunrise pictures.

After that I went and packed my bag, rolled down my 'comfy bed',cleared the place and started to climb down the mountain.

While climbing down the hill in that golden hour, I was contemplating the whole series of events. I was happy. I had achieved the purpose of my journey. I had felt the fear, I had lived and undergone the inner conflicts and I had the experiential knowledge. It would allow me to tell my story better.