As a lady watched we climbed in through the other side of the vantage point. Though not a notable face, I watched her for she was the only soul watching and I desperately needed a reaction; I could see an amalgamation of shock and amazement in her eyes, for obvious reasons.
2 hours ago, Main entrance: Ravi and Chandra were desperately trying to finish the rather unusual no. of oranges they had bought in the tribal mela, probably to impress some of the ladies there. I tried to pull out my camera to take some pictures of the main entrance not knowing that all the effort with the camera will be futile*. Kallu, with his usual sense of hyper gaiety, was trying to adjust his camera memory card which BTW was enough only to accommodate a few more pictures while helping Ravi in Operation Oranges. Abhi and Chaitu again were busy with their own Charge Coupled Devices. For a moment I thought that we looked like a bunch of freelance photographers trying to get a desperate breakthrough story in a rather morose historical cave.
Operation Oranges was partly successful. Ravi decided to dump the remaining as he realized that eating any further would infuriate Abhi – the beast, probably the only one of its kind on the planet. We passed through the electronic, bar code driven entry gates and entered the main arena. I must admit, Mr.Naidu did a decent job. A bunch of guides, all dressed in gray uniforms were waiting for their share of Bakraas near the entrance. We picked one to guide us through. He introduced himself as Jairam Singh, an Oriya settled in Borra.
Our first visit to the Vantage Point: The view was magnificent and complete with a fresh water stream, mountains and deep valleys. As we enjoyed the view I noticed an old board anchored to one of the nearby rocks. The board read, Warning: Do not enter the water stream. It is known to have whirlpools. Caverne extraordinaire: Jairam with his peculiar accent narrated the history of the cave, manipulating facts to try and induce some sort of interest into his audience. I do not want to narrate either the story behind the discovery of the cave or the formations cave it self because they as usual are magnificent human interpretations of simple nature. The only interesting aspect is that they stood undisturbed from greedy human interventions for the past 150 Million years (at least board read so).
We walked through the cave listening to Jairam's blabber and doing the thing we were the best at. Clicking. Well now that I mentioned about Photography I can't resist but mention about Chaitu A.K.A Govinda, his extraordinary apetite for photography and his weird eye gear!!! You've gotto see the pics.
So we clicked everything that walked, crawled, stood straight or lied flat, with and without us in the foreground. Damn these Digital Cameras there is not importance left for Photography anymore.
The Two Caves: On our way back to the entrance, Jairam made an offer, rather a challenge, something our crew couldn’t resist. He pointed towards two caves which he referred to as left and right cave. He then narrated a rather bizarre story about two British explorers who tried to explore the right cave but never returned and as always we decided to buy trouble for 200 bucks.
My heart was screaming bloody Mary when the others decided to accept the offer. I was sure that something weird was going to happen, but then I gave in owing to the peer pressure. We had to trudge through a pile of plastic and wrappers (I guess these would stay for another 150 million years tooJ) before we could reach the entrance of the cave that was so dark that I could not something that was even a feet away. The only thing I could hear was the hysterical laugh of Kallu and repeated assurances from Abhiram. Some people can never give up their instincts, I thought. As I struggled through the first climb (my slippery sports shoes didn’t help me much) when I saw some light. It was Chaitu’s face lit in the dim light of the Camera LCD. He shouted, “Wait guys, I want to click”. For a moment I thought I should reach for a stone and fling it towards his head, but resisted. Every climb from there on seemed formidable and adding to my woes were Jairam’s untimely comments about quicksand on the right, my shoes and burps of hysterical laughs by Kallu.
Finally we made it we were out of the cave. After clicking a few more photographs (that was our primary goal remember) we slipped through the edge of the mountain to reach a, the water stream. I sighed in relief, exasperated with my decision to join the meaningless adventure I swore not to repeat any such act in the future. Having decided I wanted to enjoy for every bit of the effort I put and believe me, the stream was worth the effort and I guess it was so due difficult path.
Jairam signaled that it was time. We rose from the river filled with contentment and pride for making it through. I was particularly happy for overcoming my worst fear, and making it through. Unaware of the climax I innocently enquired about the way we would take to go back. Jairam with his usual, dull composure pointed towards a 300 ft Rocky hill. I was shocked, but then came the infamous statement from Jayaram*** which could have made me climb Mt.Everest with great ease. Pure survival instincts or male ego, I was better this time. We climbed the rough terrain made of marble (as if that was solace) barefoot and made it.
Our second visit to the Vantage Point: Definitely something I will remember for quite sometime. And considering my acute acrophobia it was quite an accomplishment to climb up a view point which I would otherwise view only from the other side of the railing.
And guess how did we celebrate….
We clicked. *I accidentally formatted my memory card.
**For a detailed description of the trip refer to Kallu's blog.
***"Kya Sir, Andhra ki ladkiya bhi yeh asaani se chad jaate hain..." I will never forget him for saying it:@
