Madness at Chakrata - part 3

The army personnel gave us a stare which could have bored holes right through us- "You don't mean there are two other fellows who are presently stranded in this weather ? How can you guys be so irresponsible and foolish ? Madness! We need to send a search party but that just cannot be done in this weather. It will have to wait for tomorrow morning. Period!" We tried our best to plead with him to at least make an attempt; the next morning could be too late. Some effort was made, but came a cropper.

We lay down in our shack, in the make-shift beds and spent one of the longest and most difficult nights. Sleep was of course out of question. We were seized with guilt that we had simply committed too many mistakes in this trip and had landed in a big soup as a result.

We had started off on the wrong foot. We had handed over letters of parental consent to the Himalayan Explorer's Club that the club would not be held responsible in case of any eventuality to the "wards". The letters were of course hand crafted by us. Parents were too far away and it did not appear necessary to consult them. We had already visited Tiger Falls the previous day, the main attraction at Chakrata. We were yet to recover from the few bruises that we sustained during that trek. It was completely unnecessary to try to up the ante by embarking on the current one. In retrospect, it looked plain stupid to have gone in search of a solitary cottage in the wilderness, based on hearsay, and with no maps to navigate us. The local villager's judgement should have been trusted and we should not have ventured when the weather was suspect. The luggage was divided in such a way that all the food items were with the three of us, while BAK and Anand carried just a bottle of ketchup between them. Bad planning, bad clothes, bad shoes, no torch....too many gaping holes. At least, we need not have parted company. That seemed the worst offence.

By now, it was raining heavily outside and the shack resounded with the clatter of rain on the tin roof. The wind toyed with the sides of the shack which looked as if it would give way any minute.
"BAK and Anand need not have acted funny. Especially when we were running late, what was the point in taking rest ? Sometimes, Anand is so reckless and impulsive. It's difficult to rein him in!", we defended ourselves. We had known Anand and BAK, their families, for well over three years. We gave each other company not just in the hostel wing, but even over a few trips to Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai and other places in Uttarakhand.

The hours went by painfully. We hoped someone familiar would knock the door and end the nightmare. No one did. Sometimes, we peered through the door and gazed at the landscape. The possibilities were as frightening as the weather. Do we go back to Roorkee tomorrow morning or hang around here for some more time ? How do we break the news to others ? Could there be a remote possibility that the duo had missed the army camp altogether and had gone back to Chakrata for the night ? Questions were many, but answers few.

Day break and a light drizzle. It looked as if the best course of action would be to get to Chakrata. We reached the main road of the town from where buses took one to Dehra and beyond. We waited.

Two figures emerged out of the haze and walked towards us. The events over the last couple of days blurred the boundary between dream and reality. We had to be sure that this was for real. It was.
We quietly boarded the bus and took our seats. There was little to be said. Chakrata left a bad taste. We had had enough of the mountains and longed to get back to a life more normal, more routine.

We avoided the topic over lunch and dinner tables with Anand and BAK. At times, we learnt that they had in fact reached the cottage and spent the night there with ketchup for dinner! Others told us that bears had pounded their door and kept them awake. From other versions, we heard that they had seen huge footprints of the Yeti when they emerged from the cottage the following morning! We were sure that they had come down to Chakrata for the night. Anyway, it was all completely irrelevant.

Anand has a way with words. At the end of our four years at Roorkee, he wrote a poem covering every major incident that we were a part of, in my autograph book. About Chakrata, he recollected our reaction when he and BAK walked towards us and I quote: "When the dead came back alive, tears flow."

P.S. It's not as if we stopped making mistakes after this trip. We continued to make more of them in subsequent trips! Hence, the reader can stay interested to catch up with another story, another day!