Beyond That Slope

My friends always called me and my wife, Kunjal, an odd couple. There was nothing normal about the choices we made in life. The benchmark of normalcy is living a mundane, monotonous life without taking much risk and without any great ambitions. That was exactly the opposite of what we were. We were ambitious (we still are) and we are adventurous, sometimes bordering towards recklessness. But the one thing we take great pride in sharing as a common trait in us is that when we fall, we don't waste much time in that state. We learn and move ahead. However, there are a few lessons that have remained etched in our minds permanently.

So, we were on a vacation at Mount Abu and since we were completely unaware of the place, we relied heavily on a tourist map. For days we roamed across the place visiting all the major tourist destinations listed on the map. Towards the end of our trip, Kunjal happened to notice the thin lines on the map that were passing through the area demarcated as forest. We realised that it was a jungle trail, generally used by nature enthusiasts to explore the forests. We promptly decided that we will explore at least one trail. We tried to hire a tourist guide but none was available. After much deliberation, we decided on a date, time and route that we would be exploring.

On the day of the trail, we were pretty excited, especially Kunjal as she had never explored a jungle ever. We set out at around 3:00PM towards the starting point of the trail. Somehow as we were nearing the spot both of us had a feeling it won't go right. My wife who is generally not so spiritual suddenly felt the urge to stop at the temple of Lord Hanuman just a few metres away from the starting point. We prayed for our safety and set out for the task at hand.

The moment we started the walk I noticed a couple of guys sitting on a bench near the main road staring at us. I stared back looking into their eyes as if challenging them. My confidence in my self-proclaimed martial prowess vanished when I saw two more men nearing them on a bike with a black polythene bag. For those from India, black polythene bags are used to transport majorly two items; any form of raw meat or liquor. Looking at the form and size of the bag I could deduce that it carried the second item. At that same moment, I saw a couple of people ahead of me, one a tribal woman gathering wood and the other a tourist clicking pictures. These two individuals reinstated my confidence as I felt that this route would not be deserted. I wish I had known how wrong this assumption was!!

The initial few minutes of the walk were pleasant. We were walking along a cliff which gave us a magnificent view of the adjacent hills and the forest below. As the walk progressed the eerie silence proved too distracting for us to enjoy the surroundings. Suddenly I was cautious of every movement around me. I remember getting startled at the sound of my feet breaking a twig while walking. As the walk progressed, both of us lost all interest in conversing with each other. There was an unsaid communication between us and it said just one thing, "Let's get the hell out of here". Suddenly I remembered those guys at the entrance. I was scared that they were following us into the forest. I kept turning around looking at the deserted path behind me to see if there was any hint of those men. I never said anything about this to Kunjal as I feared she would panic.

At one particular turn, we got a clear view of one of the sunset points. As per the map, it was the end of our trail. We could see that we were far from it but just the sight of it and the crowd around the place made us hopeful. We thought we were nearing the end of our trail. Suddenly there was a huge cheer and howling noise at the sunset point. The people were screaming for reasons best known to them. I took that as a sign to move on. I thought maybe they were cheering us, knowing very well that they could not have ever known of two such souls looking at them for inspiration from a far-off point in the jungle. We moved ahead thinking that at any point now we would see the throngs of tourists having fun at the sunset point. But we were walking for another half an hour with no sight of civilization anywhere ahead of us. It was starting to turn dark and with that our fears were getting reinforced. I started imagining all sorts of things that could happen if we were stranded in the forest and with every passing visual in my mind, I had started to believe that possibly this would be the last evening with my wife.

We reached a particular point on the trail where there was a rock face almost 10 to 15 feet high on our left and a thick dense bush on our right almost 6 feet from the ground. We were silent and I was still looking behind me to see if those men were following us. It had been close to an hour and a half since we had started the walk when the map had told us it would take just 25 minutes.

Suddenly there was a sound on our right. It was a sound similar to the crackling of dried leaves when someone steps on it. We halted for a second and continued walking. Again a few steps ahead we heard the same sound. We were now sure that there was something or someone in the bushes following us. At this point, Kunjal just broke down. She insisted that we head back the way we had come, all the way to the starting point. I tried to reason with her that it will take us more than an hour and it will pitch black by the time we even cross fifty per cent of the path. But she was right when she asked me if I knew how much more we had to walk to reach the destination. I didn't know and I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. I saw that ahead of me the upward slope of the road was ending. I told her that we will go to that point and see what was beyond that slope. If it's still forest then we would go back. She reluctantly agreed still scanning the bush to see what or who was following us. Those 100 metres were the longest for us. We were aware of the sound still following us. I was almost tempted to scream out in anger and challenge the source of the sound. But I knew it would be the dumbest thing I would have done.

As we neared the slope, we noticed a group of men and women walking on top of the rock towards the left. At that same moment, we reached the top of the slope our destination revealed itself in full splendour. We were at the sunset point. People were chatting, laughing and enjoying the street food. For individuals who always loved to move away from crowded locations, we were actually delighted for the first time, in many hours, to see these people. We wanted to belong to the crowd that we hated so much before this walk. Standing at that point we forgot everything, the isolation of the jungle, the suspicious men at the start of the trail, and the footsteps following us. I suddenly realised that I was exhausted and my throat was parched. I could see Kunjal was in the same state. We moved towards a stall on the street just down the slope and bought a bottle of water.

Out of curiosity, she asked the man about the jungle trail. What the shopkeeper told us would give me sleepless nights for the next few months. He said that the trail is pretty dangerous. There had been numerous instances in past where tourists have been robbed by tribal people, women were raped by men posing as guides and several cases of animal attacks, especially at the hands of jungle bears. He said that just half an hour back a bear was spotted beneath the sunset point and it ran towards the direction of the trail when it was scared by the tourists' cheering and howling. I suddenly remembered the cheering we had heard during the walk. And I was thinking that they were cheering us to move on!

We left the place and headed straight to the hotel. That night I couldn't sleep. The moment I closed my eyes I could hear the crackling noise of leaves. What would have happened if we would have gone back just 100 metres away from the destination? What was it in the bushes? What if it was a bear or a tribal or anyone meaning harm? What would have been our condition right now if we were still in that forest?

It took me a few days to completely recover from that shock. Kunjal was in the same condition, but she realised that both of us could not be like this. She put up a brave face and tried to cheer me on the remainder of our trip. To this day the memory of that evening gives me the creeps. But over the years I learnt to look at it differently.

Every time I hit a roadblock in life, see my plans failing and was thinking about giving up, the memories of that trail flashed in front of my eyes. I ask myself, what if the destination I want to reach is just on the other side of the slope? What if I'm just 100 metres away from my goal? I ask these questions to Kunjal too, when she is in a similar frame of mind. It has worked for us all these years and I am sure it will work for the rest of our lifetimes.

Come to think of it, isn't life the same? You're walking ahead without knowing where you're headed. You just have a goal, and an aim in mind and believe that the path you have taken will lead you there. There will be countless hurdles, mental and physical. There will be people around us who cheer us, only to know that they were actually harming us, knowingly or unknowingly. And maybe when you're close to your goal you may decide to turn back and move to the starting point. It is said that almost 90% of people in this world give up on their dreams just when they're about to achieve them. I am sure I want to be part of the remaining 10%. It's just a matter of going beyond that slope.