A Trek to Duke’s Nose

This is not the way Anand wanted to cheer Neha up. He thought sitting with Neha in the wooden bench below the photo of Gandhiji wearing big rimmed round glasses and smiling towards them. Samir, Pooja and Rajat sat beside him. They had no clues why they were in the police station in this wee hour of the day. Neha looked tired; her beautiful eyes were red and seemed to bulge out with dark circles around them. Anand placed her head to his shoulder so that she can sleep. He looked outside the window. He could see dawn setting in slowly, his mind wandering over the incidents earlier that day.

“Hey guys, do you know Neha is in town now?” Anand came sulking inside the gloomy rented house.

Samir and Rajat sat in their shorts and vests trying to cool themselves in the hot Saturday morning in mid of May. The lack of fresh air and outside heat made the room stuffier than it actually was.

“So that is why you are running around since morning.” Rajat teased Anand but Anand was in no mood for fun now. He was serious and that made Rajat think twice before proceeding further.

“She is supposed to be in Hyderabad for her new job.  Is something wrong with her? “Samir asked Anand.

“Actually there is a bad news.” Anand started slowly, sinking his fat butt in the bean bag. “She got pink slip due to this bloody recession”.  He sulked as if he had got the pink slip. Everyone fell quiet. There was total silence in the room with screeching noise of the fan breaking it in constant interval. Nobody knew what to say.

Rajat tried to break the silence “She joined just one month back and she has been such a high performer. How could they do this?”

Rajat’s sympathetic tone made Anand break down. He banged his fist against the wall and shouted.

“I tell you. These IT companies are bastards. They just have no human emotion. They need cheap workers not employees.”

Anand’s eyes full of rage.  “She left such a nice paying job to join this supposedly big fortune 500 firm thinking she will have a nice future there. Those fuckers have thrown her out citing that they do not need her any more. Just a month back they pestered her everyday to join the company. Bloody pimps!!”   Thinking about Neha made him sad and angry at the same time.

Samir patted Anand’s back. “Don’t worry. I know how you feel for Neha. She will surely get some new job soon.”

Rajat tried to lighten up the environment “What say buddies. Let’s go out somewhere. You will feel better Anand”

Anand tried to hide his emotion “Let’s plan something for Neha. Something crazy which will make her feels good”

“Yep. Sure. We are always game. But hundred fucking American dollar question. WHAT?” Rajat spoke in his half Gujrati half faking American accent that brought smile in Anand’s face.

“Let’s go to Duke’s nose for a night trek. That would be fun and different. The thrill would make Neha forget everything. Ask Pooja if she can come? That would make Neha comfortable with us as well.”  Anand said.

“If I am not mistaken this is a peak on the Sahyadri hills range which resembles like a ‘nose’. There is a temple on top of it as well called as Chinnamastika temple. It is a temple of an avatar of Kali with no head and two streams of blood gushing from the throat which two other demon one on each side drinking it. The trek itself will be quite hard through the dense jungle.” Samir said.

“Ooops. That’s a killer idea. Anand and Neha and Samir and Pooja. Jungle mein Mangal. To add to the thril we have a Chinnamastika Tample. “Rajat winked.

“You are such a fucker, Raji” Samir kicked Rajat’s butt. “Anand has not yet proposed Neha. So technically they are not a couple.”

It was 8:00 clock in night when they started in Samir’s old Maruti 800 car and within minutes they touched the highway oblivion of the destiny that awaits them. They had stacked the car boot with beer bottles. Samir was driving with Pooja beside him. Neha, Anand and Rajat were sitting in the back seat. Anand saw Neha from corner of his eyes. She looked beautiful at any point of the day; just today her eyes were unusually red. She sat silently looking outside the window. The wind was blowing her hair and couple of streaks were touching Anand’s face. She wore a dark jeans and a tight sleeveless kurta accentuating her slim figure.

“Hey Neha, what happened exactly. Did they give any reason for this?” Rajat started the conversation. Anand wanted to hit Rajat for asking this question but he kept quite.

“No Rajat. They just said the project I was allocated got scrapped and that is why they do not need me any more. I asked them to put me in some other project but manager replied saying no other project is available at this moment and they are not in a position to maintain any bench strength.” She got a lump in her throat while finishing the last line and instinctively held Anand’s palm.

Anand wanted to kiss Rajat for asking this question but he felt bad for Neha. He shouted at top of his voice trying to create the party atmosphere.

“Guys!!! No more questioning on this topic. Today is the night to live life to the fullest.” Then turning back to Neha he said slowly. “And I do not want you to cry tonight. You have done enough of that before. Now it is the time to enjoy and rest we will think later.”

Neha smiled “Thanks Anand. You are always there for me.”

They reached the base of the hill within 2 hours and parked the vehicle in a Dhaba outside the jungle. They started trekking through the jungle to reach the Duke’s nose. The jungle was getting denser as they ventured into it. The noise from the highway slowly faded away and all they could hear was different kind of insects sound. While they trek upwards, Neha pointed to something on the other side of the hill. It was a beautiful lake gleaming in the full moon light. The water droplets glittered like precious stones of hidden treasure of some forgotten Raja.

“Shall we go down to that lake” Neha asked slowly.

“Woooow” Pooja said. “Let’s go”. They started descending in the direction of the lake when Rajat saw an old mud laden board. It said. “Trespassers will be prosecuted”                                                              

“What the Fuck!” Rajat laughed. “Now who the hell has put this up here!!!”

“Hey wait, Should we go there? This does not seem right” Samir said hesitantly.

“Hey don’t be a spoilsport. Nothing will happen and by the way whose property this jungle could be? Lets go” Anand said enthusiastically.

Neha had asked something for the first time in the entire trip and there was no way Anand could not let that happen. They ignored the warning and went ahead.

They reached the lake and started playing with the water. Suddenly they were alarmed by sounds of boot rushing towards them. Before they could realise, they were surrounded by highly armed police force.

“Freeze!!! Stop where ever you are or we will shoot!!!”

They froze. Not because they followed the instruction but more because they could not comprehend what was going on. One Police Officer, with lots of stars in his shirt came and searched everyone. He did not even leave the ladies and that made Anand shout at the policeman. Next thing he realized, he was lying in the mud screaming in pain holding his stomach. The police had punched him so hard that he felt he would never be able to breathe again. Fear groped their eyes.  The Police Officer shouted again.

“Take them to the Police station”. They stuffed each of them in the police vehicle and took them in a shady police station in the village. The only out of order thing in the two room police station was the ironically smiling photo of Gandhiji hanging on the wall, everything else including the furniture bore the grumpy look.

“Sir, we are innocent sir. We have not done anything. We came just for trekking sir” Anand thought saying sir in each line might please them but nothing like that happened.

“Trekking?? You are all terrorists.” One hefty policeman, who constantly chewed something in his mouth shouted. It was difficult to tell whether it was just Pan or something else. He had kept three of his shirt button open to show off his hairy chest and a locket hanging in his neck.

“No sir. Please believe us. We are not terrorists. We work in decent companies” Anand tried to take out his company badge which by mistake was still in his pant pocket. The hefty police snatched the badge from his hand and looked intently. He alternatively looked towards Anand and the badge to make sure, he is the same person. His face softened a little and for the first time Anand thanked his forgetfulness.

“Where are these people’s badges?”

“Sir we all are from decent family and work in good companies. We just came here for night trekking to Duke’s nose. We wanted to visit the temple. The chinnamastika temple.” Samir said trying to cover up for their inability to show the badges.

They were not sure whether it was Chinnamastika temple or the badge but it surely had an effect on the policeman. He asked all five of them to sit down in the bench available in the room and left the room along with other accomplices. They waited and waited and waited some more, but no one came.

Anand saw his watch. It was 5:30 am and he could see the glimpse of sun from the window. They were tired and hungry. Anand thought of all the beers he had stacked in the car boot, all the fun he had planned for the evening. He got a lump in his throat thinking about the incident. He felt extreme guilt for coming up with the idea of trekking. He looked at Neha’s face. She was sleeping like a child with her head on his shoulder.  Sun rays were falling on her face and he felt she looked like an angel. He wanted to caress her face but he did not do it lest it wake her up. Suddenly there were lot of chaos in the police station. They brought in set of people who wore torn jeans and khakhi shirt with red scarf tied to their heads. The Police Officer, who had hit Anand, came towards them. He wore a broad grin in his face which made him look quite different and pleasant than how he looked few hours ago.

“Sorry guys. You people became victim of the situation. We were doing combing operation of the area for naxalites and mistaken you for them. Later we realized that you people are not the one we are looking for. Even then we could not release you as these are dangerous peoples. They were fully armed and had we released you, we could have run into a situation where they capture you make you as a human guard. It has happened before. So you understand we had to be strict and cautious. You people are free to go now”

They looked each other in relief. They came out of the police station thanking the officer.

“What do we do now? Back to home?” Samir asked everyone.

“No. We have come so far for our duke’s nose trek and we will finish it and go. What say guys?” Anand looked expectantly towards everyone.

“I have already lost my job and I do not want to be a loser again. We have come for the trek and we will finish and go” Neha said smiling towards Anand. “Just before that I need a cup of tea”

Everyone laughed and carried on with the trek.