18th-
5:30 am left home with my backpack to Bipasha's place. Left from Vikaspuri towards Nizamudin where our qualis was waiting with Arjun and Suchira Banerjee who had been dismembered from their dogs Paws and Brandy. Guzzled down chai and left Delhi (yes!) through Patparganj, Modi Nagar through Haridwar (where the water had taken a vacation), Rishikesh and reach Shivpuri. ‘Great Indian Outdoors’ was our camp with Nalin and Bhaskar being THE hosts there. Camp Rapid Descent was where we were assigned our tents. We had lunch and headed straight for our rafts upstream at 'Marine Drive'. This is where some commands like 'Forward', 'Fast Forward', 'Backward', 'Right Back', 'Left Back', 'Stop', 'Get Down', 'Highside' and 'Relax' were drilled into us. We started on a lovely stretch consisting of rapids christened as 'Good Morning’, 'Three Blind Mice', 'Black money' etc. As we reached our base, Some of us decided to get off our rafts and swim ashore. Arjun Banerjee and I tried to fight the current but this is Mama Nature baby and we had to be saved by a Kayak and a rope respectively!
As the darkness thrust upon the beach we decided to Chill out and be high! Little realizing what awaited us…to begin with, the long cross country march, to get drinks for the Drinks. Destination reached. Mission accomplished. We tucked ourselves in a cozy corner engulfed with huge boulders & tiny lanterns. And the ferrymen slowly got sloshed.

19th-
We opted for the 9 am rafting trip from Rapid Descent to Laxman Jhoola and took the same guide- Ganesh, and our own li'l 9 man raft. Bhasker joined us this time (after all, he knows the cream of the crowd when he sees it) and we headed down the awesome mind-disseminating stretch consisting of 'return to sender', 'Crossfire', 'Golf Course' and 'Roller Coaster'. This is where two of our raftmates, Venky and Bhaskar, hit the drink, intentionally or not is a mystery that flows with the river. Mid-way we all got off for the 25-foot cliff jump which would awaken you to the fact that you are not acrophobic (afraid of heights). I did this twice and the second time landed on my behind so hard I cancelled my third jump.
Had we had enough? No way. We went back to 'Marine Drive'(which we had already done the day before) and came back to camp, via the river. We rested for a few minutes and then we headed for a bridge nearby for the bridge rappelling (6 of us and no one was acrophobic, awesome) which was a starters for mountain climbing. The rope would take a load of 4000 kilos and would take a jerk of 900 kilos (needed to know that, just in case I shook a bit somewhere ;)). This was done well by all of us and with all our egos pumped up, we headed back for camp where we played volleyball and chilled.

20th-
Day three was dedicated to rest. We played more volleyball, learnt how to play the game a little(Bipasha determined to return with a trophy), then hit the water, had Breezers, again hit the water, then headed for a little cave further up from base camp where a monk (also a term used for ‘bachelor’, yes of course, a ‘sage’ too), had offered penance.
Got back to camp, packed and returned back to the bump and grind and work routine we love to hate so much.
Nevertheless, that was one amazing break!!
All’s well that rows well. Yo baby yo baby yo!

red text: Arjun Banerjee