Tirumala Hills (Part 1) - A Night in the Jungle

Sept 25th, 2010, 12:36 am….

No. It wasn’t a dream….

 I opened my eyes. I was on a soft and smooth bed of granite stone, gazing at the stars. I wondered who stole the tent at this time of the night and in this thick forest. Then I realized I was not in the tent. It was quite warm in the tent so we all had come out and slept under the sky in the open, scattered all across the huge granite monolith. My sleeping bag was of mediocre quality and hardly comfortable… but why was I so comfortable?!

Serenity was at its zenith and the moment was a blissful eternity. It felt like a twilight, of divine proportion, between sleep and wakefulness. I could see the Great Bear in the sky. I hardly knew the constellations, let alone identify them. But who cares! God has made everything so perfectly jigsaw that it is impossible for man to put it together. And when he finally can - after a lot of contemplation, meditation and enlightenment - he’d prefer to leave it to God Himself.  The vacillation of the state of mind between sleep and wakefulness was tranquil. Looked like, time had stopped. Or rather, in that state, the concept of time would appear totally bewildering and alien – as if the moment was captured onto a canvas.

Then I noticed. A beam of light moving in the trees and bushes about a hundred meters beyond my feet slightly towards the left as I lay down onto my sleeping bag. The beam was there for a few seconds. Then it disappeared. Was I dreaming? I was not sure. It took me some time to gather my senses. Something was amiss.  Why did that light beam appear? Who was it? And many more questions started coming to my mind….

Now, what the hell is all this? What’s going on? Where was I and why was I there??

I recall now. It all started with the hiking and trekking trip we had planned for Gunjana Waterfalls in Tirumala Hills…

Sept. 23^rd, 2010. 6:38pm…

“Gosh man! Where are you?” and Sachin had replied over the cellphone “Moin Bhai, I am at Troops Bazaar…”. I was relieved. We’d make it to Kachiguda Railway Station in the next 20 minutes. I was at Lakdi-ka-pul. But it gave me a jolt when he completed his sentence “…going home to pick my bag and come to the station” Now that’s really going to take time! His home was in Dilsukhnagar and it will take him almost one and a half hour in this peak traffic time… and the train will be leaving at 7:15 pm!  A typical Hyderabadi situation, it is!

Finally, come 7:17pm, I and the other 17 people boarded the train. We departed from Kachiguda Station for Tirupati.  Sachin would board a bus and reach Tirupati directly. So much for a “Hyderabadi co-ordination”!!!  Ultimately, you see, AAL EEZ WELL!

Reaching Tirupati next morning we all managed to have a typical south Indian breakfast at a restaurant close to the railway station. Tirupati, a major pilgrimage city located in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India, is a well-known and important holy place to the Hindus  where resides on a hill the temple of Sri Venkateshwara.  Located very closed to the tirumala hills and the Sri Venkateshwara Nation Park (a forest reserve), Tirupati is the main location from where all tours and treks are initiated [you can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirupati_(city) ]

to be continued...