There is no rushing a river. When you go there, you go at the pace of the water and that pace ties you into a flow that is older than life on this planet. Acceptance of that pace, even for a day, changes us, reminds us of other rhythms beyond the sound of our own heartbeats. –Jeff Rennicke
“White water rafting” I screamed as soon as we left for Rishikesh. I’m a person who is generally over enthusiastic about everything- about LIFE itself. It has been my dream to experience the power of Ganga for the past one year and finally when it happened I was overjoyed! So all four of us booked a cab and off we went to get lost among the Shivaliks. The first day we spent swimming and lazing around the hotel and then finally the day came when we were about to start our rafting session.
We chose a 22 km long(4 hours) route that started from Marine Drive(Yes there’s one near Rishikesh too) all the way to Rishikesh, at a place called anaime beach. It was really close to the hotel where we were staying.
Our rafting started at 11:30 am and the first thing we did as soon as we jumped into our raft was to jump out of our raft into the cold, freezing, hypothermia-inducing waters of Ganges. By the way,it was just Nisha , the instructor and I. So Nisha and I splashed around in the waters of Ganga wearing our lifejackets and helmets.
The feeling of swimming/floating in the Ganga is beyond description. We were surrounded by hills on both sides and we could see an odd truck or two traveling atop one of the hills. And we could see our Dad waving at us from atop the hill and finally disappearing at one of the bends. We went along with the current. There were other groups who were floating past us and those groups were made up of ten people and more. Here we were , with just three people on a raft I was a little apprehensive about how we would cut through the rapids without falling off. Anyway, It was momentary because I was glad that Nisha and I could do whatever we wanted to do as and when we pleased. The welcome rapids were easy to cut through and weren’t that difficult .The next rapid that we faced was called balancing rapids. The instructor asked us to stand on top of the boat and balance ourselves. ”Ermm..What?” I said because the waters looked scary. The rapids were hitting our boat slowly and I could feel going up and down along with the movement of the boat. I said “But what if we fall into this scary water?” and the Instructor said “Nothing will happen just balance yourself”. Anyway both of us tried doing that but we fell as soon as the boat moved down with the rapids. We did not fall off the boat just into it.
As we moved on we experienced other rapids too whose names I can’t recall. What is etched in my memory is the beautiful scenery I experienced along the way. We saw caves and hilly rocks that looked mighty and huge. These ancient hills were mesmerizing to look at. And how can I forget, doing a backstroke on the ganges was a beautiful experience. The warm sun shining down on us, the blue sky, the cotton-y clouds which seemed to move along with us, birds chirping and flying over us all of this created a sense of peace in our hearts. Then came a moment when the instructor asked us to jump into one of the rapids. Now this rapid looked downright scary. The waves were swirling and twirling. The current was very strong and suddenly the instructor screamed “Jump” and I said “What???!!!”. He said “This is a body rapid please jump right now”. Nisha and I jumped. Atleast I closed my eyes when I jumped into the seemingly angry water. I held on the boat as tightly as I could because I feared getting lost. And the waves hit my face. I moved up,down,up,went left,right,left,right and it went on for five minutes. Finally when the rapids vanished the instructor pulled us up by our lifejackets. Then we rowed along for some time. And we rowed, swam, rowed, and swam till we reached Shivpuri. It was a stop by and the instructor said “I will go look for more people to join our boat because it may get dangerous ahead and we need more power in our rowing”. So at Shivpuri(we were still twelve kms away from our destination) two men from this huge Bengali group decided to join us for the next half of our trip. And they said “Oh my Gosh , we will have to put a lot of effort in this one because the boat in which we were in had ten other people”. We were like “Good for you!”. So we moved on. The rapids from shivpuri onwards looked livid. All the other rapids were easy to cut through and finally we reached a very very dangerous looking rapid. Infact, the rapid sounded irate from further up. It was a grade –III rapid called Roller Coaster. The instructor warned us saying "Please don’t scream and yell when you are cutting through the rapid else you will not be able to hear my instructions clearly!". So In we went and boy it WAS SCARY. There were rocks all around and the waves were crashing all over. The instructor screamed “Hard Forward!!!!!” and then “Whoosssh” a huge wave hit our raft and I fell into the water along with the other two guys. Nisha was saved (though she feels bad about it) and fell into the boat because the huge wave of voluminous water came from her side of the raft. And I remember this huge wave of white water covering my eyes and Nisha putting her arm forward with a scared expression on her face screaming “Nehhaaaaa!!!”. And there I was in the water bobbing along the strong current and waves(I was wondering “Goodness, how can anyone ever swim through this current without drowning?). The instructor threw a rope at me and I held on to it at the second throw. He pulled me into the raft. The other two guys just kept floating along the waves and I could see the panicked expression on the face of one of the guys. He later called it a “Near death experience”.Haha!.Anyway the instructor pulled them into the raft with the rope. One of the guys lost his “Prized-goggles” in the water while sifting through the currents.
Roller coaster was the only rapid where I was yanked right off my boat into the murky waters. Rest of the rapids were easy to cut through. I wanted to cliff jump as well but the water level was too low to try that lest I break my skull! Finally we reached our destination after four hours of continuous rowing. We were totally drenched, soaked and thirsty at the end of it all.All we wanted was for Dad to just pick up us as soon as possible. It was an experience of years to come before I try the more dangerous Brahmaputra river for white water rafting?!:D. The thought itself gives me an adrenalin rush!Whoooopie!
