The River Rapids

Long before I begun my battle with the snow clad mountains, I had gone on a white-water rafting ride with a bunch of adventure seekers from my University. The destination was the ravaging Indian River located in the midst of the Adirondacks, a pristine isolated mountainous region in the far north of upstate New York. The plan was simple, camp out the night at the top of the mountain and once refreshed, take on the might of the Indian River. At that point of time I was still a student in Binghamton and had absolutely no prior experience of either camping nor white water rafting. As I found out much later, neither did anyone else.

Now, our trip was planned for the Memorial Day weekend, which occurs at the end of May, not yet the start of summer and hence not completely warm. Binghamton itself had warmed up the the extent that I didn't need a jacket to go outdoors. But while packing for the overnight camping trip, I didn't realize that 1. Adirondacks is way North, higher up and way way more colder & 2. staying out all night in a tent exposed to the elements is a completely different experience weather wise as compared to staying indoors in an apartment. So armed with just a flimsy thin fleece jacket, I set out with the others on this journey.

As soon as we entered the Adirondacks after sunset, it felt as if we were entering a world yet undiscovered by civilization. Cell phone coverage was non existent and it remained so for the rest of our stay. It soon seemed like we were the only one traversing the secluded pitch black road, my friends in the other cars had passed us long back and were unreachable by phone. Not aware that the rest of the journey would be through a region completely isolated, we hadn't stopped for dinner earlier. As the road rumbled on through the dense jungle, our stomachs started to make noises that would have scared away wilder beasts. Just as we had given up hope, we passed a bar with a bright red neon sign that said "open". Salvation in the form of a watering hole, in the middle of the jungle. The only eatable item on the menu was "buffalo wings"; they were unbelievably delicious and absolutely out of this world; the best I have ever had.

Moving on, we finally encountered the rest of our gang waiting for us near a field where we planned to camp out the night. Setting up the tent in the dark turned out to be easier than I thought. Lack of camping experience and preparedness meant, there were 4 humans for every blanket. As the night wore on, the cold started to set in and I soon found myself shivering. The only solution that I could think of was to sleep in the car. Thank god for car heating. We would crank up the heater, wait for the car to warm up, turn it off and go sleep till the car got cold again; at which time we would repeat the entire process. Somehow I made it through to the morning without transforming into an ice sculpture. A large steaming cup of hot chocolate and a delicious garden omelette at a nearby Diner helped me thaw myself back to normal.

Soon it was time for the adventure. The Indian River possesses among the best natural rapids in these parts, and spring is the best time to battle these rapids because the snow melts in the mountains and adds to the ferocity of the river taking it to a gut wrenching Level 4; which works great for a bunch of people rafting for the first time in their lives. Unlike the mountains of doom in my ski-trip, the rapids were fun, more fun than any roller coaster ride I have ever been on. At some point during the ride, when we hit a rock in a treacherous part of the river; and I was thrown off into the gushing cold rapids, the entire experience was that of sheer exhilaration. That was my high point of the entire journey. I fell right beside the raft and was picked up in less than a minute. One of the other memorable experiences was climbing atop a rock in the middle of a calm stretch of the river and plunging Tarzan style into the pristine water below. However the experience wasn't so pleasant for a friend of mine, a dude called "He-man" who apparently forgot to mention that he couldn't swim before he jumped. We pulled him back into the boat when he started flapping around his hands in desperation. After tirelessly rafting for almost 6 hours, the journey finally came to the end at the bottom of the Indian River.

As we took the bus back to our camp at the top of the river, I felt tired and cold but sad that the adventure was over. It was such a wonderful experience that I hope to take on the might of the Indian River again someday.

IPL 2 - Rise of the Sponsors

Recently the second edition of IPL took off in South Africa and I have been religiously following the travails of the Mumbai Indians who have moved on from being the early title favorites to being second to the worst. Although I have followed most of their matches on cricinfo, I did get to watch a few matches live. The fierce on-field battles were accompanied by a bunch of mediocre ex-cricketer now turned commentators going way way over the top to praise their IPL bosses and to find more and more imaginative ways to mention the tournament sponsors.

The genius who thought that a Six should be called a "DLF Maximum" should be forced to face a ferocious Lasith Malinga without a bat, helmet, shoes or other kind of protection. This along with the ironically named "Citi - Moment of Success" (coming from a Bank that is desperately surviving on Government Bail-out money) and the strategic Time-out (strategic only for the sponsors) got me thinking about how things could get worse from next year onwards.

Imagine a cricket tournament with a sponsored name for every conceivable delivery, shot or run scored. Sample this commentary. Shane Warne takes a couple of steps and bowls a mesmerizing "Google googly". Sachin counters this by fetching the delivery from outside off, "Flickr flicks" down to "Hanes LongLeg" fielder and scampers thru for a "Shaadi.Com Single".

The Umpire who's dressed up in a dazzling white coat sponsored by "Surf Excel" signals the end of a "Kingfisher 6 Pack Over" by breaking into a Calypso dance with the West Indian players. Adam Gilchrist gets on strike and is clean bowled first ball. As he walks back in gloom, a Mirinda commerical starts playing, "Mirinda Bowled - Jor Ka Jhatka Dheere se Lage". Dravid who walks in next, is unfortunate to get out LBW to the next ball and is promptly followed by a commercial of "Lux - Fair n Lovely Legs" featuring the King Khan himself. Not to be outdone the next batsman plays a couple of defensive strokes before hitting straight into the hands of the bowler. This time the commercial that plays features a man and his unshakeable shadow with the tagline, "Caught - Yeh Fevicol Ka Majbut Jod Hai".

The match itself goes down to the wire and Sachin wins it for Mumbai. Sachin is unanimously declared the "Complan Boy" and is presented with a mug full of refreshing chocolate milk by Kapil Dev himself. Just before the camera zooms out, Kapil and Sachin smile into the camera and say "I am a Complan Boy".

With all these "sponsored" changes, the cash registers will tingle all the way for Mr. Modi and co. And soon they will be swimming in a pool of money like Uncle Scrooge. :)

Man versus Mountain

This winter has been one of the harshest winters in the last 3-4 years and this weekend I will undertake a journey to the cold mountains of the North to renew my old battle with the elements of a frigid winter. The last time I was there 3 winters ago, was the first time I had faced these white slopes of terror armed with nothing but a pair of skis. I was accompanied on that mission by Dee, a hardened veteran of these slopes; Miss LJ, a terrified neophyte; Mister AK, an overconfident garrulous not-so-experienced dude & the invincible AJo, a fellow novice willing to take on the toughest of challenges.

I could feel a chill up my spine as we approached the mountain of doom and my knees started knocking against each other. I realized later that the shivering was caused by Mister AK turning off the heater by mistake. Dee led us to a sled where we were given the equipment we would need to take on this enormous challenge. As we dragged ourselves out to the slopes wearing unwalkable boots and carrying heavy skis, I realized that the slopes were filled with people of all ages, even waist high kids who zoomed by me as if they were born with skis on their feet.

Humbled, I put on my skis and pushed myself across the snow hoping that people would not notice that I was a beginner. Maybe I could be one of those wonder stories, of people who were natural at skiing the first time they tried. So far so good. Horizontal skiing seemed easy enough to learn. Dee kind of assumed that I had done this before and beckoned me to follow him up the slope. All you had to do was to hold on to your rope and get dragged up the slope. Seemed easy enough. As I held the rope, my skis somehow managed to get entangled in each other and before I knew it, I was flat on my back with my feet pointing up to the sky. I fell right beside the rope, so there was a huge line of people waiting for me to get out of the way. It was then that I realized its not so easy getting back on your feet when you have skis on. I felt like an over-turned turtle trying to turn over on a slippery block of melting ice. I also realized that on a relatively warm day, the snow is not really as soft as you think it is and hence the landing not so much fun.

It was finally when I got up and moved elsewhere that I noticed what my friends were up to. AJo the invincible was sitting alone at the extreme right of the slope beside a line of trees and a ditch trying to drag himself inch by inch to the bottom, took him close to an hour. It is a mystery to me how he got there in the first place. Miss LJ kept falling down in spite of not even trying to move. She must have fallen down at least 15 times while covering a total distance of 10 feet the entire duration that we were at the resort. Half the fun was watching her predict that she would fall and then topple over with progressively increasing levels of hilarity. Although I don't believe she found it as funny as we did. Mister AK in turn had the unique ability to fall down at the exact same spot at the top of the slope every time that he went up there. It seemed to us like he had met his Snowloo(read Waterloo).

Dee finally managed to teach me how to ski and took me to the top of the slope. The moment I pushed off from the top, I remembered that he had not taught me how to brake at the end of the slope. Ahh. If I had more friends like him, I wouldn't need any enemies. I went crashing into the net below, designed solely for crazy untrained beginners like me who did not know how to stop. Took me a couple of increasingly decelerated crashes into the net before I finally managed to brake to a halt successfully.

I should have known not to take training from a dude like Dee who had decided to tackle a Diamond slope the first day that he learned skiing. All he managed to do on that slope was to crash into a snow bump and get tonked on his head with his own ski. I wish someone had captured this you-tube moment.

That brought to an end my first skiing experience on the slopes of New England. The mountains had bellowed and shook but although bruised and rattled, we had survived the test. This time around 3 out of 5 will not be around, but the great AK is still there and I hope he entertains us with his unique falling skills yet again. Dee is far away in a land more famous for its shape shifting sand than snow. However his sister might be around and I will make sure that I don't ask her for any skiing tips whatsoever. Miss LJ suffered such terrible emotional trauma from her last skiing experience that there is nothing in this world that could get her near a snow mountain, not even the threat of Dee singing "Kuch toh Log Kahenge" non stop for 3 days into her ears. This time around the mountains shall tremble with the sheer speed and force of our ski blades.

Jai Ho.