Trek to Ramadevara Betta

It wasn’t supposed to be like any other Saturday, waking up before the alarm clock and waiting for it to ring while on my bed reading news, I was excited. Different thoughts rushed through my mind and I had no answers. I was going out on a trek after many months and I wanted to have a good time, but with no known faces around I wasn’t sure if I would have as much fun.

Getting ready within quarter of an hour at 6 o’ clock, I was ready to catch a bus to Majestic  from the HAL Police Station, a distance that I thought would take forty minutes to reach. Bamn! There came my first surprise when I reached the station exactly in 15 minutes and had to wait for a good one hour until the meet up time.

Music plugged to my ears, Kindle in my hand I took a corner seat on the outside of the station and got engrossed in my book whiles the wait. In between, occasionally I would see some random guy in loose trousers and a bag on their shoulder and think of them to be a BTC mate, but again there was nothing to make me believe for sure.

Just 5 minutes before the scheduled time, I fished out my phone and called up Hiren for I couldn’t find them in front of the ticket counter. 2 calls and a bunch of confusion later, he asked me to join them on Platform no. 6 which I did, but took the subway while they were waiting under the foot-over bridge. One more call to Hiren, and I finally found the entire group there.

After boarding the crowded train, I found no familiar faces and since the bogie was full, I waded my through until I found an empty upper berth. Went up, music plugged and I started reading. Said a hie to Sonali when she came in to count the heads, at least to make sure that they didn’t miss me at the destination. I could hear people cracking jokes, laughing hard but since I was away..I missed that part of the fun.

Getting down at the station, we did a quick headcount in a circle and started walking towards our breakfast point.

On the way, I happened to interact with Raghu and as usual when IT people meet spoke of work and all stuffs IT. After breakfast and packing lunch that’s when the crowd had mingled well, I met Prasad, Kamal, Prateek, Nagesh. Prasad, Kamal and me, we bonded over bad jokes, PJs, puns and all things dumb and that started the trek when we boarded the same auto and made way for the starting point.

At the start point, people were divided into small groups. Well, not intentionally but that was according to walking pace and more for the fun they were having in a group. Walking along with Prasad and Kamal, I happened to meetup with Shweta and Vaishnavi. Joking around and teasing each other we started the randomness from sharing general knowledge to picking at each other’s job. It was fun all the way when everyone was trying to open up and each one welcome with a wide smile and huge round of laughter.

Getting confused a bit with the way, we finally reached the start point of the mountain base sometime around 11 may be. There we had a good introduction round of everyone, where I remembered more the names of companies than that of the people involved. But yes, the ice-breaker came late but effective.

It worked like shaking a jar of candies, so well mixed up that it didn’t matter that we were strangers only a few hours before.

The trek was good, most of it was hiking across the terrain, taking up the stairs and enjoying view like a bird. It was all good, and far more worthy than what my words could even justify. Upon reaching the top, started out photo sessions. A lot, like literally a lot, I would guess some 3000 pictures would have been clicked over the various small and large devices that we owned. 

Resting for some time, we started having our lunch and like school time shared them with each other. The lunch time saw some action when polybags flew around in the wind and people running to catch it. Well, that was fun with all the hooting, shouting and jeering that we did during those chases. Finishing with the food, we did a careful descent and planned to go boating after that.

More jokes, more photos, more laughs and a few kilometers later, we boarded an auto to take us to the boating point. There we lay on the huge rock, that stood by the lake and waited for our turn to take us around the lakes. Some of us who took the pedal boats, had mid-water selfies taken, boat races done and finally rounded off to catch the 4:30 train to Bangalore.

Reaching the station, we freshened up and then sat on the platform for playing dumb charades. That was accompanied with super awesome food – ripe jackfruits, chicken samosas, baked biscuits and flavored milk, etc.

Getting on the train, we were again split into multiple groups. In our group it was me, Sonali, Nagesh, Prateek, Vaishnavi, Shweta, Sundeep, Rakshit, Mithun, Ashutosh, Hiren, etc. The discussions stretched from treks, journeys to random things that people knew. We didn’t realize the time until someone pointed out “Bengaluru City” had arrived.

Getting off the train, giving our feedbacks and with a few more jokes shared, we departed after exchanging pleasantries.

Unlike what people say, you don’t need a reason to be happy. You don’t need a reason to have fun. Going about to do something for you isn’t always selfish, it is a treat well deserved. I did a trek to have an amazing Saturday, never expected the kind of fun that I had and the pleasure in meeting some amazing people along. 

Written By         : Swateek Jena

Organized By     : Sonali and Hiren

Date of event    : 27^th June, 2015

Theme               : Day Trek

Place                 : Ramadevara Betta

Pictures             : BTC FB Page