The City Girl and Mother Nature

Before I start, this hit counter is damn cool man! And addictive! I keep going to my blog page and seeing oh wow! One more hit. Then it hit me (I’m the queen of puns) that I’m the one who’s been visiting my page and running up the hits! Hmph!

Got a haircut this weekend. Thought it looked very cool. But am not sure how to read reactions like this
“Hey haircut!”
“Yeah ”
Silence.
Now what was that reaction about? I mean really cool that you noticed my haircut but I didn’t quite get to hear a “nice” after that! So do you like it? Or is it so bad that you notice it but are polite enough to keep your opinion to yourself? Hmph anyway!

But that wasn’t quite the highlight of the week. The highlight was my Hrishikesh rafting trip, rechristened as the Zee-is-a-scary-poo trip!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever known how scared I am in life till this trip happened. I suffer from a disease called severe morbid thought provoker syndrome which I diagnosed at every step during the trip!
1. Fright of the bus toppling over when we went up the ghat road
2. Fright of me toppling over while trekking down to reach the camp
3. Fright of toppling into the river and getting washed away forever while rafting
4. Fright of crocodiles jumping through the water and chewing up my arm (Ok so this wasn’t such a big fright but I must confess the thought did cross my mind a couple of times)
5. Fright, that in the darkness of the night, the ghosts would decide to take a liking towards me for some vague reason, and decide to haunt me for life! Ok actually, I did think of the reasons too….that I was their lost lover from my previous life….that I was humming a song which they liked… that I was missing my boy and if their love story didn’t succeed they hate everyone who is not single (the downsides of not being single sigh sigh!)…..that I was the only one who was actually scared of them (this would be the pure evil ghosts who get sadistic pleasure of scaring poor little girls who are already scared of ghosts!)….and so on

But, on a serious note, there is nothing like the feeling of sitting by the river and just staring into space as the water sweetly gurgles by, the sun gently lightens up the hill tops, the soft, silky sand runs between your toes and the sensuous breeze strokes your face……..

And then there’s the feeling of sitting in the raft and you cursing yourself for being overweight and thinking you are the sole person to blame if the raft capsizes
……….the feeling of killing your arms while paddling through the water and cursing yourself that the first time you ever exercise in life is when your life depends on it!!
…….the feeling of the icy cold water numbing your body when you decide to jump off the raft in a moment of bravery later classified as a moment of stupidity, without knowing how to swim and you spend the next 1o secs gasping for breath and asking them to pull you out …….and get out to people laughing at you….you were wearing a life jacket, you know, you dweeb!!!
...........the feeling of the wave gushing over your face, you choking from the shower, yet enjoying the struggle, and the feeling of being able to conquer a rapid without the boat capsizing
…….the feeling of being soaked from head to toe in icy cold water and yet all you want to do is throw your head back and laugh……..

And the feeling of returning to the camp dirty as hell…. of avoiding the shower cause I’m shower phobic (long story…..next time)….of using the bio friendly loos and hating every minute of it….of nursing bruises and body ache and promising yourself that you’ll never do it again…

But as the bus descends the hills and you take one last look at the camp, you break that promise and the minute you’re back in signal area, you sms your friends fixing up a trip with them on the next long weekend you guys can take off……