Chapter 1: Background

I made a new friend when I visited Isha Yoga Center at Coimbatore for the Mahashivaratri event this Feb 13th. Her name - Aparna. 2 weeks later I just pinged her to check if she is free to watch a movie. Black Panther was just released and what with all the raving reviews and news of its box office collection, I thought it would be an interesting movie to watch. Anyways, when I texted her to enquire if she was willing to join me, she instead told me that she is getting burned out because of her hectic work schedule and that she was considering a full weekend outing. She asked me instead if I was interested in trekking. Soon as I heard the word 'trek’, I was immediately reminded of 'Kumara Parvatha’!!

There were multiple instances where I had heard Sadhguru mention about the KP mountain peak, that it is a special mountain wherein Karthikeya or Subramanya, the son of Shiva had left his body while doing meditation and that he was in an upright standing position. Usually sadhus enter into a state of samadhi either lying down or sitting in a cross-legged posture, but so strong was Subramanya’s intensity that he was able to enter samadhi in a standing position. That is why, Sadhguru asserted that, KP is a special peak and anyone who is receptive to energy levels of a place would feel tremendous energy at the peak of KP. I always had a thought in the back of mind to visit KP ever since I heard this story from Sadhguru.

Given that I met Aparna at Isha Yoga Center, she happens to follow Sadhguru too (though she denies that she is indeed a “follower”). So, when I heard the word 'trek’, I told her that I always wanted to go to the peak of Kumara Parvatha, though I'm not an avid “trekker” in any sense. Last time that I gave my body that amount of physical stress was when I ran a 10km mini marathon back when I was in college and my condition was pretty pathetic after 70 minutes of intermittent running and walking and stopping to catch my breath. Kumar Parvat on the other hand is the second highest mountain peak in Karnataka and is considered one of the most difficult trek here. Covering 26 kms of distance (to and fro) in a matter of around 10 hours through the jungle of Pushpagiri is no child's task. Combine that with the timing of our trekking plan - mid-March - which isn't quite an ideal time to consider trekking KP, since it would be scorching hot and all the water sources would have dried up, anyone in their right mind would call our decision to go for KP trek to be reckless and one done in haste.

After reading the above paragraph, if you seem to come to a premature conclusion that this is going to be a tragedy story, then you couldn't be more wrong! Let's me just say that my new “friend” that I initially introduced in this story is no longer just a “friend” and you can figure out the rest.

Once we decided to go for KP trek, we started looking for options. Aparna has had some trekking experience in the past and hence was leaning towards DIY style. Me, I was a newbie. Before she even suggested DIY, I was already looking for event organizers and their package price. Thrillophilia was offering a package for 3.3k per person which included pick-up from Bangalore on Friday night, a place to freshen-up on Saturday morning, brunch, a guide for the trek, dinner once we return back from the trek, accommodation at a homestay to spend the night and drop back to Bangalore on Sunday. There were few other trek organizers that we did check out, but we decided to go with Thrillophilia. Only downside of going with a random group like this is that you are unsure about the people who would be accompanying you for the trek and you wouldn’t want to get stuck with a wrong set of people and play by their rules for an entire weekend. But I was willing to take that risk to compensate for my inexperience in trekking. I told Aparna that next trek we go, we can do DIY style. So, we made the booking and everything was set. 

Friday came and since we were going with a trek organizers, not a lot of preparation was required from our end. Just a pair of comfortable clothes, trekking shoes (normal shoes would also do) and few energy bars/snacks is all we had to carry. We were added to a WhatsApp group early in the day and we came to know that about 15 others were going to join us for the trek. So “cool” was our organizer that there was no single announcement made in the group. No instructions were given and for about 3 to 4 hours since the group was created, there was not even a single message! I was a little taken aback by the non-responsible attitude of the organizers. Habeeb-ul-Haq was the point of contact. I called him up directly and he said that everything is as per schedule and there is no new information to be given, that we just had to be ready to get picked-up at the mentioned time and place. We were supposed to get picked-up at Domlur at 9:15 P.M. When the bus finally reached Domlur at 10:15 and left the place 15 minutes later, we came to know about how “easy-going” and “chilled-out” attitude our trek organizers seemed to have.

Chapter 2: The group

Now, about the rest of the group: Don’t know whether to call this luck or sheer coincidence, when we stepped into the bus, we were surprised to see that it was a female group!! There were 4 Tamil speaking girls, 2 other Hindi/English speaking girls, 2 foreigners (who were already fast-asleep when we boarded and who we later came to know were from New York and Scotland) and there was a group of 4 students from Sweden (One of them was a guy. So, not truly ‘all female group’ after all!!). Before we boarded the bus, Aparna was a little concerned that she might be the only girl in a group of 15 or so and that there would be these ruckus creating cliques of local boys that we have to be careful about. But this was crealy a female-dominated, racially diverse set of people that we didn’t expect and were quite relieved once we saw the group. 2 more joined us in Mysore and these 2 joined us 2 later during the trek, so we’ll talk more about them later. There was another group of 4 to 5 North-East Indian people that joined us directly at Coorg and they were mostly by themselves and didn’t mingle much with the rest of us. There was 1 more dude from the Netherlands who joined us at the last minute. So, all in all, around 18 in the group, 8 foreigners and rest Indians. Excluding the guides, there were 5 guys and the rest were girls in the end.

About our amazing bus: As diverse as our group was, the bus that was arranged for us was equally vivid! Flashy lights, bumpy seats, push-back feature that didn’t quite work, window shutters that were hard to either open or close, crazy driver and even more crazy DJ!!! There was a pretty big TV and when he actually did play a movie, the quality seemed to be quite good. But he played movie only for half an hour!! Rest 15 odd hours that we spent in bus, TV was off. Rather, the helper to the driver was showing off his DJ skills. Not a single song was left to play till the end and his song collection was pretty diverse. He was playing songs from Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix to some local “dapanguchi” Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam songs. He was playing some pretty good, old and new Hindi songs. But, every single song was played in bits and pieces. He just didn’t have the patience to play it to the full. And he didn’t seem to care to check if the people in the back were trying to sleep or not or whether the people he was hosting actually liked the songs or not. Many a requests to play songs of our choice fell on deaf ears! We were all trying to get a good night’s sleep on Friday so that we are all well rested for the trek next day. But we soon figured that was not going to happen. Songs were only part of our trouble. Driver was quite crazy too. He used to jump over the speed-breaks, waking us from our slowly dawning sleep and further he used to switch on the lights suddenly to check if we were all fine after every such jump! The bus stopped for a restroom break in the middle of the night and when we got down the bus, what hit me was the sight of one of the helpers in the bus in his underwear!! That tells a lot about the usual crowd that they do get for the trek and how lucky we indeed were to have the diverse and sophisticated group that I’ve described above.

About our guide: Habeeb-ul-haq was a 24 year old college drop-out, mountaineer enthusiast and had started his own event organizing company called ‘Backpackers United’ just 6 months ago. Had we booked the same package directly from his website, we had to pay 2.7k, instead of the 3.3k that we had paid to Thrillophillia. So well organized was this guide that he realized the next day morning that he had forgotten to get his own trekking shoes and hence couldn’t join us for the actual trek. He stayed back at the homestay and sent his 2nd in-hand guide, Avinash. Habeeb came across as little too much of a ‘easy-going’, ‘happy-go-lucky’ attitude, but otherwise a funny, energetic person. Since he didn’t actually guide us through the trek, I can’t really comment on his guiding skills. However, given the group and the serenity of the place where we were heading, Habeeb managed to pull off a successful weekend outing.  

It is in the bus that we finally came to know that we are going to climb the mountain from Coorg side. There are 2 routes to do the KP trek. One from Kukke Subramanium temple side and that is quite a strenuous trek - 26 kms to and fro, thick jungle cover, pretty difficult trail. This route is so strenuous that it can’t be finished in one single day. We need to rest at the base-camp (Bhattaramane) overnight and would have to come back the next day. We thought this route is what we are going to take for the trek, but apparently it wasn’t the case and that we going to climb from the Coorg side. That was relatively shorter - 20 kms to and fro, easier trail to cover and the trek can be completed within a day. Apparently we were a little misinformed from the Thrillophilia website, but newly revealed information came as a relief for me. I wasn’t quite ready for the longer, more difficult trek yet. 

Chapter 3: The day of the trek

Saturday, 10th March, 2018, After some broken sleep in intermittent intervals that we managed to get from our overnight bus journey from Bangalore to Coorg, we finally reached the homestay at around 7:30 in the morning, quickly got freshened up and had breakfast. Facilities at the homestay was pretty good and everything was very well organized. Authentic Coorg/Mangalorean style food was served for breakfast. It was Rice Pundi and coconut chutney. Filter coffee would have been better, but I didn’t have much to complain about the light instant coffee as well. For our lunch at the top of the peak, they had packets of some rice-bath ready and some snacks, chocolates and frooti sachets were also kept on the table for us to fill into our bags. But they didn’t actually announce the same and people like Shivam and Ben didn’t take anything from the table. Ben was pretty pissed about the organizer’s coordination skills. There were multiple other reasons for him to get pissed and I’ll talk more about that a little later. Around 8:30, we left the place and it was another 1 and a half hours of journey from the homestay to the starting point of the trek. 

Upon reaching the spot at 10 A.M, we finally started the trek. At the forest department check-point, we got the permission and I guess there is a small fee to pay which is covered in our package. Hence, i’m not sure how much is the exact fee amount. However, the backpackers from Netherland and Denmark were intrigued by the fact that they had to pay more than Indians for the entry (1000 Rs is the entry fee for a foreigner). The dude from Netherlands was a proper hitch-hiker and was planning on travelling the lengths and breadths of India in the next 6 months using the limited budget that he has. He mentioned that his average daily expenditure ranges from Rs.400 to Rs.800 and there were days where he had to spend as low as Rs.200!! So, for him to complain about the Rs.1000 entry fee was justified. Once we pay the entry fee, there is a small form that we need to sign, wherein we acknowledge that we will follow the forest rules about maintaining the cleanliness and not harming any wildlife that may cross our path. There was a water filling station and once we cross that booth, there is no other source of water for the rest of the journey until we come-back to the check-point.

At the checkpoint, our group was divided into 2. A fast trekking group, that will cover 2 mountain peaks - Kumar Parvat and Shesha Parvat - and hence will be covering a longer trail of 20 kms overall. The slower group would go just to the Kumar Parvat peak and would be coming down the same path as they hiked. We were not sure at that point if we wanted to be in the leader group or the laggers. So we settled in the middle. After may be a kilometre or 2, we were still catching up with the leader group and the lagger group was nowhere to be  seen behind us. We then decided to stick with the leader group and make it to both the peaks. Our namesake “guide” Avinash, the hippie dude from Netherlands and the kids from Sweden were walking as if they were taking a stroll in the garden and they eventually went too ahead of us. Right in front of us were the 2 guys who had boarded from Mysore. They were Shivam and Ben. Ben was from Denmark and had an athletic physique. He easily could have been in the lead and I was wondering why he was still lagging behind with us. Shivam on the other hand was a newbie, like me, to trekking and was holding Ben back. Few kilometres into the trek and the 4 of us - Ben, Shivam, Aparna and myself - became a group ourselves and we were together for the rest of the trek and even later. Ben was a professor of Economics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He had come to India to learn Yoga and had plans to stay in India for 3 odd months. So, Yoga and Economics - 2 of the hot topics that can lead to some interesting discussions and that’s exactly what ensued. For the rest of the hike journey to the first peak, we were talking about variety of topics ranging from world economics to corruption in India to Modi’s government to Game theory and time passed like a flash. Before we knew it, we were almost reaching the top. Initial 5 kms is a well defined, smooth and not-so-narrow trial with trees providing the shade from the sun. Only the final 2 odd kms were in the open sun and we had to climb over slightly steep rocky surface. We were pretty thirsty by then and Ben kept saying that if we had left over water by the time we go back to the base, that was extra and unnecessary dead-weight that we were carrying. At this point, we ended up drinking almost all our water. Finally we reached the peak at around 1:30 P.M and the view from up there was not quite as astonishing to be frank!! Avinash then took us to a viewing spot close to the peak and when we went there, we had no other option but to agree with Avinash. The view from that spot was quite amazing! We sat there and enjoyed the view for a while. We then took out our lunch packets and finished our lunch as well. Maybe because we were all too tired and hungry from the 8 odd kms trek, that the food tasted pretty good. I would be exaggerating if I had said that the food was “yummy”.

Going back to Sadhguru’s words about Kumar Parvat being a highly energized place and the tendency to stay in a upright standing position in that place, may I was little too tired from the trek or maybe I’m yet not receptive to heightened energy levels of a place, I didn’t feel any different, energy-level wise, at the KP peak. After a short break post lunch, I did try to do a headstand, which I can otherwise do under normal circumstances, but it wasn’t happening at the KP peak. I’m not sure if I can attribute this to the energy levels of KP peak.

Journey to the 2nd peak, Shesha Parvat: At around 2PM, we left the KP peak and started towards the Shesha Parvat peak. By the time we were about to leave the 1st peak, Avinash informed us that the 2nd slower group are about an hour away from reaching the 1st peak and that made us feel proud of our pace and stamina. We were still revelling in our hubris, that a disaster struck us. Avinash (our guide) mentioned that there were 2 routes to go from KP to SP and that he would take one of the route. People who are too confident can take the second route. Both the routes will meet at a common point and the trail from there onwards is well laid out. While Avinash took the 1st route, Ben, myself, Aparna and Shivam took the other route and eventually we got lost. One of the Swedish girls also was with us. Ben and I were exploring the trail to see if we can make it back to the larger group. Ben was a little ahead of me and I was trying to catch-up with him so that we don’t end up losing him as well. Shivam and Aparna were behind me and were coming a little slower. There came a point where I could only hear Ben’s voice if he yelled out loud, but I couldn’t see him through the thick covers of the jungle and I could barely see Aparna and Shivam behind me. I couldn’t panicked so easily at that point. It is situations like these, that having someone to look up to, will come to help. Sadhguru was that someone for me. What kept me going and not lose hope was the strong belief in my mind that I choose KP specifically after listening to Sadhguru’s story and if it is by his willing that I choose to do a KP trek, then I should be fine. I’m not saying it is Sadhguru’s powers or anything that kept me safe, but it is the shear strength of my belief that kept me from panicking. Sadhguru is just the medium through which the belief finds expression for me. After an hour of our turmoil through the bushes and climbers, Ben heard the sound from the larger group and yelled out for them to wait for us. Not only did Avinash give out half-baked, incomplete instruction before we split, he also appeared nonchalant and unconcerned that 5 members of his group under his supervision were lost for more than an hour. Maybe the forest wasn’t that harmful and maybe it was quite common for people to get lost in the trail like we did, but this was my first time trekking experience and I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for my guide to take the case so lightly. Ben on the other hand was a seasoned trekker and had many such trekking experience in the past and when I saw that Ben was very much annoyed too, by the reckless attitude at display by our guide, I realized that me getting pissed at the guide was rightly justified.  

After our little mishap, the rest of the trek from the common meeting point to the peak of Shesha Parvat seemed like an easy-peasy task for us. We reached the peak of SP by around 4PM. The view from the SP peak was even more breath-taking than that from KP. We could see the blue coloured ‘Nilgiri’ mountains. The light breeze of air at the peak was heavenly! As much as we wanted to spend some more time and savour the beauty it was already past 4PM and we had to climb back the 10 KMs to reach the starting point. So, that’s another pointer for the guide. We should have started the trek a little earlier, around 8AM in the morning, so that we have enough time to sit and enjoy at the peak. 

Chapter 5: The downhill journey

A little past 4 PM we started climbing down and this single stretch of 10 kms downhill was the toughest. We were running short of water and running out of time as well, since it would get dark post 6 PM and we didn’t want to get lost in the dark again. That would have been a total disaster and to avoid the disaster, we started rushing. We took just seconds of break every now and then. Through the entire trek, there was only 1 spot where we found a small stream of water to fill our bottles. If we had better options or any other alternative option, I don’t think we would have taken even a sip from this water “stream”. 

To save our energy, I didn’t indulge much in talking and was just focusing on covering the distance. Maybe that’s a bad technique. It makes us very conscious of every single step we take and makes the journey feel longer and never ending. Ben and Aparna were continuously talking and simultaneously walking as well. I was like ‘Huh! Amateurs!!’, but after covering few kms they didn’t seem to notice that we actually covered quite a distance and I was dying from within thinking that this is going to be a endless path!! While climbing up, the distance didn’t seem that long and there were multiple reasons for this - we had just started and were energetic, we had water, we were in engaging ourselves in interesting topics of discussion, we were too much in awe with the natural beauty around us! While coming back, everything was opposite - no water, toes were hurting, we didn’t have energy to talk too much and we had seen enough of nature’s beauty to get further awed. After what seemed like a day long of non-stop walking, we finally reached the forest department checkpoint at 6:30 and breathed a sigh of relief. It was another half a kilometer walk from the checkpoint to the spot where our bus was parked. We were so tired by then that it took us whole 30 minutes to cover the last 500 meters. Our troubles didn’t just end there yet. We were last to board the bus and we had to settle for the last seat. We were definitely not ready for the 90 minutes ride to the homestay in that “dakota express”, but there was no alternative. We just had to bear with it, no other option. 

Chapter 6: Conclusion

Thus ended our day long trek journey! We had pain all through our body, had got lost in the jungle for an hour, had few small cuts and bruises, had drunk water from what could barely be called a “water stream”, but the experience was worth every little hurdle that we faced. The view from the peak was beyond amazing, fresh air in the jungle was refreshing and the company of newly made friends is always exciting. But the weekend was not over just with the trek. The night was young and we also had the whole of Sunday yet to enjoy. Upon reaching the homestay at around 9 in the night, we were welcomed by the wonderful spread of authentic Coorg style dinner. Short shower break and we were all ready to relish and savour the yummy food prepared by Habeeb’s mom. This time i’m not exaggerating when I called the food “yummy”. Combination of Kori rotti, chicken chilly, chicken masala, “jigujje” gravy (a local dish) was the best thing we could ask for, after a day long of strenuous trekking. There was also Kheer for desert and later Habeeb also cooked few barbeque chicken out of the left over chicken pieces. The best part was the bonfire that was setup in the middle. We forgot all the pain and enjoyed the food and the bonfire. We stayed by the warmth of the bonfire till 12:30 in the night and then slowly people dispersed to their rooms to rest for the night. Sleeping bags were provided for guys and girls had separate rooms with beds to sleep. Soon as I hit the bed, I was fast asleep and that was the end of our long day!!