Agumbe Ghat

The month of August had just started and the college days were running away at their usual speed with loads of college fun. I still remember the day, August 6^th 2005. I was sleeping like a wooden log when my Dad woke me up. Taking a look at the wall clock hung right above my desktop, with one eye still closed, I found the time to be 4 PM. What the hell, I had just slept for 40 minutes and it seemed like years. “Ah! What a sleep it had been” I appreciated myself. But why did my Dad woke me? That was a question to which only Dad could answer.

“What happened Dad?” I asked rubbing my right eye and trying to sit up.

Just then I heard Sandy calling my name at the top of his voice. Getting my answer, I stepped down from bed. Opening the window, facing the gate of our home, I shouted back, “Will be there in a minute”

I quickly washed my face with cold water and walked, still in half sleep, towards the gate where Sandy was sitting quietly on his bike, with his hands folded, watching something far away with his small but sharp and dark eyes. I disturbed his silent mode when I walked over to him on the dried leaves, and the six foot tall stud unfolded his hands and held the handle of the bike turning towards me easing the stern look in his eyes to a smile.

“Shetty’s home?”

“Now?” I asked, yawning.

“Anytime. I was getting bored at home” he looked surprised to find to me sleeping at this odd hour.

“Let’s go. Even I was bored and finally slept off”

Within seconds we were riding towards Shetty’s home. We three had been friends since the time first dinosaur was still in an unhatched egg! We had done every stupid thing a gang of naughtiest friends could do together. Had been together in the class on the same bench and shared what not. The deepest of the deepest of our secrets had turned into the loudest laughs amongst us. Every place in my town was our hang out and every time of the day was right time for the three of us to meet. Even getting into different colleges had not stopped us from hanging out every other day.

I was thinking of the days we used to play cricket among ourselves after each of our exams when Sandy stopped his bike in front of Shetty’s home and shouted loudly. As though he had been waiting for us to arrive, Shetty ran out of the door of his home even before Sandy could complete his name.

“Dude, did you hear me call you or you had started running out of the home before I called you?” Sandy asked him.

“I heard your bike” said Shetty, sheepishly smiling like a child, pressing his already neatly groomed hair again with his right hand and holding the clutch of Sandy’s bike by his left eye.

He was still smiling without any break and looking at both of us with his eyes wide open, like a child who keeps on smiling till his presence is considered and his smile is taken as an application for his request of running out of the home for a game of cricket. His innocent peaceful face had never changed since the first day I saw him and even now he was looking as innocent as he had looked in the kindergarten. 

“What were you doing?” I asked him growing suspicious of his smile.

“Nothing” he said, still smiling.

“I smell something fishy” I said.

“Nothing. Believe me” He was still smiling.

“Then why the hell are you smiling like an idiot?” Sandy asked.

I tried getting down from the bike but Shetty stopped me saying, “Let’s go out somewhere”

Though we were more interested in why Shetty was behaving like that, we agreed to his proposal and Sandy turned his bike towards the market with Shetty following us on his bike.

“We should have taken three more Mirchi Bhajjis” I said, breaking the silence, after we finished eating the bhajjis we had got from the famous bhajji shop and sat peacefully in the park of our colony, munching them.

Over all the years we had grown up, two things had never died, our friendship and our love for Mirchi Bhajji!

After the bhajji’s, our round of talks, right from college till girlfriends started. We sat on the bench for hours talking about every possible thing in the world till the Sun set and the brightly shining silver clouds started floating in the dark moon lit sky. 

“Next Monday is the 15^th August” Shetty said

“Any function in your college?” Sandy asked.

“I am not sure of anything. I will be taking rest or else will be going to my aunt’s place.”

“What about you?” Sandy turned towards me.

“I will be at home. No plans for the Independence day” I said

“Let’s plan some trip” he said

We spent the next half hour in a gruesome battle on arguing with each other over the place and finally settled on vising Agumbe. Three reasons that supported us on selecting Agumbe, Sandy liked the place, Shetty too liked it and so me!

The next Saturday, we were sitting in the KSRTC bus headed towards Shimoga. The cool wind blowing through the window was spoiling the neatly groomed hair of Shetty, who had occupied the window sitting and was as happy as a child winning a chocolate from his mom after reciting a poem rightly the day before his test.

I turned to my left and was surprised to see Sandy in deep sleep. I wondered how he could sleep peacefully avoiding the rattling noise of the window pane, the sound of which was deadlier than the sound of a highly developed machine gun I recently watched on the Future Weapons series of the Discovery Channel. I presumed a heavy breakfast was helping him with his sound sleep.

Turning towards my right, I saw Shetty curiously watching the sight outside the window blinking his eyes every two seconds to avoid the furious wind blowing in. He groomed his hair every minute and right the next second, the wind would blow off his hair and would laugh at him and his annoyance.

Finding nothing interesting in the bus nor outside the window, more because the view being blocked by Shetty’s hand than by the scenery outside, I closed my eyes and started thinking of what awaited us in Agumbe. Just when I thought I had fallen asleep, something shook vigorously and I almost jumped out of the seat. I had to open my eyes when I almost rose in the air for few milliseconds and my ass thumped back onto the seat. Hearing a murmur in the bus, I looked everywhere and found every passenger in the bus equally disturbed and annoyed as I was. I even heard few abuse the driver who was happily driving the bus at the same speed giving a damn to what passengers said. With the top two buttons of his Khaki shirt open and a white towel rolled around his neck, he was driving happily, chewing his favorite tobacco, just like I play NFS on my desktop, except for the part of his Khaki dress, towel and tobacco! He had to be a die-hard NFS fan and thought the narrow road full of pot holes and speed breakers to be the frictionless roads of NFS. My anger turned into amusement when I noticed how much he was in love with his own style of reckless driving!

I couldn’t believe my eyes when the Sun turned complete red over the vast light blue sky which had now been lit orange and yellow by the Sun. The sky above us was light blue fighting hard to turn dark any moment while the sky in front of us was glowing with a mixture of hints of red, orange and yellow, changing every second. It seemed like the burning Sun changed his mind every second and kept on painting the sky with the colors of his choice. The view point on the Agumbe Ghat was filled with people, dying to catch a glimpse of the World Famous Agumbe Sunset. The road was now almost blocked by a number of cars randomly parked. Cameras clicked every second. Families and friends were discussing about their own opinions about that moment, but it turned complete silent when the Sun touched the horizon. He looked a red ball neatly balanced on a vast ground. He was burning red hot and the red and orange lines painted behind him agitated like the flame of a candle. A single cloud that had dared to enter the area where his rays reached, was glowing bright with a pure golden outline.

The more I avoided my eyes to blink, the more they blinked, cheating me of the mind blowing view. When my eyes opened after blinking for the hundredth time, I noticed the quarter part of Sun had vanished below the horizon. His brilliant shine seemed to go down with him, with more and more of the sky turning cooler and darker. Within seconds, half of the Sun was down. The remaining half looked like a golden dome of a building thousands of miles away. It was no more than few seconds before the Sun completely went down the horizon, taking all the bright colors from the sky with him, promising everyone to rise again the next day, just more brighter than he was yesterday.

The crowd turned back smiling and walked back towards their vehicles with a memory of lifetime captured in their hearts. The last hint of yellow died on the western part of the sky and the sky turned complete dark. The Sun had definitely made his presence, I thought. The cool sky was now peacefully looking at the three of us who were still standing on the view point looking at the sky. Time flew by and the stars started popping out as we still stood looking at the vast sky spread till every point our eyes could see. Life seemed peaceful, without a single string to disturb us. It seemed like the brain had slept without any work and the heart was humming a tune and the stars were twinkling to that tune!

A heavy dinner and a peaceful sleep under the dark silent sky helped us tackle all the exhaustion of the journey. We were fresh and full of energy when we sat in the mini bus enroute to Udupi. All three of us were equally eager to catch a glimpse of the very famous and one of the most pious idol of Lord Krishna.

After Lord Krishna’s darshan and heavy meal at the Krishna Mutt, we spent an hour at the Udupi beach and decided to head back to Agumbe. I was sitting at the window watching the greenery as the mini bus started climbing the famous Agumbe Ghat. The wind blowing on my face without any consideration was furious but was full of the freshness and was as unpolluted as the air can be. Shetty, who had taken the window right in front of me was also enjoying every moment of the ride. Sandy, sitting in front of Shetty, was also equally enjoying the ride.

The bus had just turned from a dangerous hair pin curve and was picking up speed when the driver changed the gear. Suddenly we heard a loud blast and the bus shook without any control. The driver tried his best reducing the speed of the bus and bringing it to halt, but by then each passenger in the bus was scared to death. Everyone started talking, chanting prayers, discussing things when the bus finally stopped, but I could notice each one of them had their hearts in their hands. To be true, even I was scared to hell. When the situation seemed in control and the hair on the back of my neck slept back, I turned to my right to take a look out of the window. The bus had stopped just on the edge, beside the two feet cement wall separating the road from a very steep fall. Raising my head a bit I tried to check the depth of the fall and just the thought of it sent shivers in my stomach. The driver and his navigator had got down to check what seemed to be a tire puncture.

After they declared it was a tire puncture, and they would fix it but would take some time, passengers started stepping out of the bus. Being equally naughty, we three were among the first of those passengers. We strayed hopelessly around the curve for a while, when Sandy said, “It’s just about three kilometers from here, let’s take a walk. What say guys?”

I was the first one to agree with him. Shetty was quiet and his silence showed his opposition but had to agree as we had the majority of votes. He went inside the bus, got his bag. We then started walking uphill on the narrow road towards Agumbe.

Sun had already set when we started walking and the sky was growing darker with every step we took. The more voices of birds and bees we heard from the surrounding forest, the more silent our hearts grew. It seemed as silent as it was not! We could hear queer voices at times and suddenly we could hear not even a faintest sound. Even moon was hiding behind a cloud and was enjoying our lonely walk. The stars shining now and then kept on questioning our choice of taking a walk. None of us had an idea of the time as even the bus we were sitting in, sometime back, overtook us.

We had covered around a kilometer but had remained silent all the way. Breaking the silence, Shetty said not risking to raise his voice above the buzz of the bees from the forest, “Is someone following us?”

We turned back suddenly and saw nothing. Both of us nodded a NO to him and kept walking, with an increased speed.

“Now?” Shetty asked again in a whisper, after we had crossed a curve.

We again turned suddenly and saw a middle aged man walking silently but not bothered to notice us. He was pretty close to us and we could even recognize his face.

“He was in bus with us” Sandy said.

“May be, even he decided to walk just like us” I said

“I saw him at the shop in Udupi” Sandy said.

“Yeah, and he got into the bus just after us” I continued.

“I bet he is following us” Shetty said, with a frightened look on his face.

“Yes, I bet he is following us. I am sure we will be robbed at next curve” I said.

“Or maybe he is one among the naxals?” Sandy said

“Shit man. We are gone” Shetty said.

“What if he kidnaps us?” Sandy asked turning at Shetty

The frightened look on Shetty’s face turned more serious. His stepped started picking pace as both Sandy and myself slowed down.

“Walk fast” Shetty whispered again.

“No use buddy. His group will be waiting for us at the next curve. The same thing happened few days back. A few people driving a van kidnapped a boy walking lonely on this same road.” Sandy said winking at me.

I could not control my laughter and started laughing loudly and Sandy joined in. Shetty turned at us with a surprised look. His face was blank as he saw us laughing at him. He scolded us for making fun of him and scolded Sandy for suggesting the crazy idea of taking a three kilometer walk in between the forest. He again scolded Sandy for telling him a fake kidnap news.

We had almost stopped walking and were laughing loudly without giving a damn to the situation. I turned back and was surprised. The man who had been walking behind us was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did he disappear?” I exclaimed.

Both Shetty and Sandy turned back and looked for him. We decided to wait for a minute to wait and check if he would come. Our faces turned serious and the laughter disappeared as we dint find him anywhere in our sight. Just few minutes back he was so close that he could hear us and we could see his face and now suddenly he disappeared, just like the flame in the wind.

The night never seemed more silent and the road never seemed lonelier than then. We stood looking at each other’s faces without any word.

It seemed we were equally hit by the sudden disappearance of the man and our hearts were now beating with equal speed, a speed which was not normal. The walk had suddenly turned more lonely and fearsome than we had ever thought.

Without speaking another word, we started walking faster towards Agumbe. The next curve, which was not the last one, was few 200 meters ahead of us. We walked briskly amid the deep forest and queer noises and took a turn at the curve.

As soon as we took the curve and came on the straight road, our eyes opened wider than a hippo’s jaw and our eyeballs popped out. We stood motionless and so did each of the hair on our body.

Together we said “Shit! Really?” as a heavily built shabby man with the broadest shoulders I had ever seen, holding a gun, walked towards us from a dark blue van with two more leaning on it, both holding a gun each and staring at us with all the hatred in the world…

To be continued…

To Sandy & Shetty & Our Agumbe Trip,

Vishal…

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