Note: I had written this blog almost four years ago, but I want to share this with you on your28th birthday
As I lay on my bed tormenting about my life failures worried about what I am doing in my life. For putting my train of thoughts in a better direction, I started thinking about what makes me happy, and the purpose of life. I started reminiscing of my best memories, and I remembered the most successful trip of my life.
For mind you success is relative, what would be a success for one might not be a success for another. It's very much like chaos theory what might be chaos for a bug stuck in spider's nest might be dinner for the spider. Another more relatable example is, it is not an example, but rather a question, whom would you call more successful? From a third person's perspective, of course, a person who is about 24 living with his parent or a person of 24 working for one of the biggest multinational companies in the world? Like Google or Facebook. From a neutral third-person perspective, even I would call the second person to be more successful because I am going by the book. The text tells us the person who is in control of his life, who is financially independent and working in a big multinational should be more successful. But I urge you to look closer. We never factored in the happiness of that person, and sure if you consider money as the evaluation criteria, the second person is successful. Still, if you feel any other factor like self-satisfaction or happiness level is more important, the result may surprise you.
Many people will say that meditation & Reiki is nothing but a hoax, as the power of these things is only depended on the individual's self-belief about these systems. Still, many researchers have proved the scientific benefits of mindfulness.
I am a rational individual, don't believe in things which cannot be explained scientifically, the idea would be absurd. But sometimes you need to believe in the supernatural, the unexplainable, the unknown, faith. I mean did Jesus knew where he was going ? or Did Noah realises he could save all those people? Was he sure that he could save lives by his actions, no, certainly not, but Noah believed in a cause, and he credits his success to that almighty? This is the curse of the world we will always have limited knowledge, the best you can do is speak the truth—your truth and nothing else that will build confidence and character.
Well, in no sense, I am comparing myself to Noah or any other incredible legendary people whom I have quoted. Still, I am merely taking their likes as an example to justify my actions.
This blog is about the most successful event of my life. No, it's not about any materialistic thing where I would have achieved the most money or most fame, it's an event where I was the happiest.
This is an event where my friend and I skipped a school picnic and went exploring of our own and found something of everlasting wonder and beauty. Something more valuable than anything we have ever had before in our lives. We were alive at the moment.
The story starts something like this, once a year, the school organises a picnic, as there is only one outing a year this is one of the most exciting events in a kid's life. He/she prepares for it more diligently than they would have ever for any other typical day for school.
It was in our 12th class which is the last school year. So, the whole batch went for this picnic together, the destination was to be completely honest, a boring place for a picnic. However, it was marketed to us as being quite an exciting spot for a picnic. However, it had small shacks for different activities (which were empty). It had an arcane gaming parlour (in which most of the games didn't work, which did were expensive, and we didn't have much money). Thus most of the kids were busy doing their own thing, like playing tag or sitting around and talking.
Present (Which is four years ago)
We are quite unsure of ourselves. When we look at others doing well in life, it makes us feel uncertain about our self. We always look at people better than us. We wonder if we could ever be as good as them if only we had their fitness level, their sense of humour, their musical talents, or their brains. Yet the truth is everyone is fighting their battles, everyone is insecure about themselves. Strangely enough, the most beautiful living creatures among us have their weakness. They are scared of that weakness, they are also afraid, we never look at the internal struggle they are going through. We only get to see the bright side.
Back to the story
An adventurous and popular individual approached me to put forth an exciting proposition of skipping this picnic and to go around exploring in the unknown. That was my call to adventure, & being an adventurer, and I jumped on the offer. However, I would usually never go on any of these ventures if I am not sure about the person I am going with. In this case, the person who made me this offer is none other than one of my closest friend. Not to mention he has fantastic physic, smart, sensible, caring, a strong sense of adventure and has the same absurd desires of doing crazy things as me.
I would lovingly partake in any of the activities he suggests because I trust him. I know he would never willingly put us in danger, from which he could not get out, or even if we get into a dangerous situation. I know he is a fighter and will fight if it comes to that. Like in many instances he has done before, he would instead put himself in danger for saving me, and with this trust. I believed and would more than eager to join in his adventure. Another great thing about him is if I would have said no, he would not have gone. Thus, I was honoured to be asked in for this adventure. There were other friends of ours were better built and more muscular than me, but he decided to share this adventure with me, for which I was much obliged.
As insurance, my friend informed few of our other friends so they can stall the school bus for some time in cases we aren't back on time (this is the careful side of him I am talking about). Sneakingly we passed and avoiding all teachers, we jumped off the metallic back gate of the compound, two girls saw us, but luckily there were our friends. Hopefully, they won't bail on us by telling teachers of our act of indiscipline or worse they would rat us out to our mothers who were teachers in the same school. Ironically, I was the discipline captain of the school, and that day very proudly was wearing my batch of honour. My friend was a house captain again, another prestigious position in the school. So here we are two of the most prestigious batch holders breaking the rules of the school. We would have been indeed stripped of our designations if this incidence was to be found out. I could imagine nothing less than a dishonourable court-martial for such a reckless campaign. Still, these thoughts were not powerful enough to overcome our even greater desire for adventure. Oh no sir, we jumped off and found us on the other side of the boundary. The base of my foot hurt from the impact, I guess the school shoes were not designed for trekking or burglary.
The place we landed had two roads diverging ahead of us. There was a signboard in front of us with names of the areas the trail leads to. one read like a name of a village, other was not quite comprehensible what it meant. So obviously we decided to take the latter, I mean what fun is there in taking the known road? Also, if we told our friends that we went to a village, it would not be cool. Happily we started walking on the unconstructed highway, it was a kucha road without cement or tar on it, but preferably one which is made by people or cars often taking the path, after some walking there were vineyards on our right side, and some trees on our left, as we continued walking, the road became more dark and humid as is was now shaded by trees from both side, a little ahead we saw a sign board which looked like belonging to military forces, now any sane person wouldn't dare to march into forbidden army territory but we both were army brats, evaluating our chances of survival, that we could get out if we got into trouble using our father's names, which has saved us multiple times before also, (it's quite a powerful tool, your father's name, ever wondered how many times has it kept you from so many things, or allowed access to many places or helped in resolving many problems, so ya we had that shit), we kept walking and talking, talking about our crushes at that time, scenes from scary movies to scare each other about this journey, little motivational talks, talks about mystery of the universe (this was another good thing about him, as he was as curious as I was about the secrets of universe, our talks ranged from science to meta science, from meditation to superpowers and the manifestation of those superpowers in real life and cartoons and how great would it be to have those super powers), we talked about our girl troubles, we both didn't have girlfriends and that was the trouble, but we had crushes, and hence devising our approach of making them our girlfriends and our progress on that mission, any small (often presumed) sign of interest from the girl side was discussed at lengths.
Walking a little further, we came across a small pool of water which had dried up and becomes a marsh. Some straight, tall, beautiful plants grew on the periphery, those plants which gave white cotton-like buds on top of them. On which we can blow those cotton to dispense the seeds and them would fly off. We went in for closer inspection, that place was filled with dragonflies, I always considered dragonflies to be the most awesome named insect. I broke off a stick and blew the top and watched as the wind slowly lifted cotton type fluffy staple fibre and flew that into the air towards the zenith. I always liked this thing which few upward and is so beautiful.
Well, this fun faded quickly, and we started walking on the road again. Soon we saw a motorbike coming toward us from the front, the man driving the bike looked like a local. He must also be wondering what these kids in school uniform are doing in a place like this. We were aware of the danger of being kidnap, at least I was, don't know about my friend. But we continued walking, the road grew darker and colder with dense leaves covering over our head. The coldness from water transpired from all the leaves surrounding us, and I guess the proximity of the marshy lands we just crossed. It must have been about 20 - 30 minutes from the time we left the confounds of the picnic spot and ventured into this quest. Still, it felt like an hour. Thankfully my friend was carrying a packet of kurkure. I opened and started eating it, this road began to feel endless with no certainty of when it will end, but soon enough we saw in front of us a wired fence. There was a small opening through which I could go through, my friend could also cross it with a little help, but there was this one problem just in front of this wired fence was sticky wet mud. It would be quite a challenge crossing it, while these thoughts were coming to my mind, my friend said let's go back, seeing this as an apparent end of our journey. Still, I argued that we might be able to cross it, now this was the sensible part of my friend, he would break the rules, but just enough, he also mentioned it was getting late. There are chances that the picnic would be over, and we might miss the bus back to school. Still, then as if talking to himself he said, "Our other friends would tell the teachers to wait for us, sure that would get us in trouble, but it would be better than getting stranded alone at this unknown place". So supporting his self-counter argument. I urged him to go just a little further after the wired fence. I said it is 11 am we will turn back at 11:15 at any cost.
Soon ahead on the right side, we hear a loud cry of a bird, quite intrigued by what the source of the sound was we started to focus our gaze what now seemed like a jungle, it was a beautiful peacock.
Ahead through the cover of the trees from both sides, we could see a hill and end of the road. Finally, we had found the end of the track. We had completed the mission we started out for. We ran towards the hill, but soon the hill seemed to be stretching out in both directions, we figured it was not the hill but a raised plateau, but we decided it climb it nevertheless. The strange thing was it was completely flat from the top. I wondered why the shape was like that, my first guess was it might be a raised railway track. As the railway tracks need to be smooth and level. This was a confusing moment for us, but my friend was more interested in racing me to the top of the hill. I was keen for the first two minutes of the race but realising that I have no chances of winning this, I changed tacts and asked him if he will like to click some pictures. Now being a hot-blooded teenager, he obviously said yes, as this place is a perfect spot to show his coolness. I clicked the most stylish pictures of my friend that he will ever have. Ensuring he would get a girlfriend after this photoshoot. We slowly climbed the top of the hill, all the while thinking that we will see a railway track on the top, I already was thinking of some cool pics we can take on the railway tracks.
But when we reached the top, both of our jaws were dropped in astonishment. We have found a magnificent dam. With a spectacular view, this was a massive reservoir on top of the plateau, we can see the jungle on one side, the humongous water body on the other side. Discovering this place gave us massive bragging rights amongst our peers and finding something this great certainly raised our street credits. We got some more pictures clicked to claim our bragging rights if others ever wanted evidence of our bolstering tales.
That moment was one of the peak moments of my life. Just for the fact that I listened to my intuition and found something great also to the fact that I was sharing this moment with a close friend and that made it even more special. There are very few moments in life which are so unique and so profound. I still call it my most successful trip because I got something invaluable and everlasting from this trip. I got an incredible life experience.
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