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Jul. 28 1997
Failing yet again to resist my primordial instincts, I went camping over the weekend in the white mountains in New Hampshire. Equipped with nothing more than a tent (with no instruction manual - how primitive can you get?), 3 candles, a book of matches and a gallon of bug repellent, 4 of us set out to brave the wilderness. Having heard about the lack of game in those parts where a self-respecting outdoorsman couldn't possibly live off the land, we had taken ample provisions: a dozen boiled eggs, a large number of chicken drumsticks marinated overnight, 4 packs of maggi 2-minute noodles (masala flavor), 3 packs of top ramen noodles(someone in the group didn't like maggi), corn-on-the-cob, lemon juice, a 24 pack of coke(chilled), orange juice, murukku, mixture, cake, chips & fruit. Someone's bright idea of taking a cooker full of puliyodarai was unfortunately shot down due to lack of time. We also took some tortillas as backup.
Since all of us were veterans of four years of hostel food, we were quite confident we'd be able to survive a whole night on so little. Having reached the mountains, we took a $20 package deal, that gave us a ride in a cable car, an hour's worth of canoeing in a nearby lake & an hour's worth of mountain-bike riding. I discovered, quite by accident, that by paddling on the side & to the direction opposite to those of my partner, I could make the canoe turn in-place! Came in handy when trying to avoid running aground.
Then came the exciting part: putting the tent up. With 2 computer engg. graduates, a computer science Ph.D. and a civil engg. graduate you'd think it would have taken a lot less than an hour. Once we'd completed the all-important task of photographing ourselves in front of the tent, we started working on the fire. This was easy, thanks to the pyromaniacal tendencies of yours truly that my parents would vouch for.
This was followed by the food, which after the day's exacerbations, vanished quickly. After a brief discussion on the pros on cons of eating burnt chicken over undercooked chicken, we let loose some raunchy songs in tamil, and the spectators who'd wandered away after watching our travails with the tent, came back!
After having shouted ourselves hoarse, we decided to turn in for the night when we made a startling discovery! The national bird of New Hampshire happens to be the Mosquito! Two+ years of absence from our hometown had made us soft. And the bug repellent was more like human repellent - phew! how those guys stank.
There's something about the dark star-studded sky (that you imagine while staring at the bland blue-and-white tent roof) of a summer night, that brings out the quiet, introspective inner "you". For some reason, all this inner "you" can talk of is women, and other things supernatural. And that's what we talked about, our voices quiet, reverential. I started doing push-ups, which seemed the natural thing to do just before going to sleep in the great outdoors. I stopped when one of my buddies wondered what my silhouette must look like against the camp fire.
We woke up the next day real early around 11:00AM. The camp grounds were kinda primitive, with only a shower (hot water, of course) and no jacuzzi. We somehow managed to get the grime, squashed mosquitoes and bug repellent off us. Nothing much exciting happened after that. Just went on a couple of nature walks , checked out the babes and then we hit the road for the trip back home. The next time I get the urge to go camping, I'll try watching the discovery channel - gotta shake this habit of instinct driiven trips to the backwoods.
Created Feb. 14 2001. © Pradeep Selvakumar