It had been over an hour since I reached Lonavala. Our transport to Duke’s Nose was late, not something I hadn’t expected. The people joining us around looked strangely familiar. I was only there because I genuinely had nothing to do. That, and because my cousin asked me to come. I sat on a pipe there, decaffeinated and bored, faking talks with groups around. Some moral rule of courtesy. The organizers were not more than an year older than me. My cousin sister had bagged a huge internship. Her friends had hit phenomenal scores in their tests. Clobbered as I felt, I turned to my phone. The contacts went up and I saw more names that notched a place in the second round of college council interviews. Yet another reason to grow weary. It suddenly felt like I was about to be crushed under the feet of these people around me. And, my contact list hadn’t bought me joy either. Isn’t that good for starting a trek?
The tempo dropped us outside Khandala station. It was well pass 9:30PM now. The darkness was setting over the outskirts too. People were turning to their beds. There wasn’t a moon in the sky either, or perhaps its light got shielded by the clouds. The night had no effect on the temperature either. The introductions went well and our trek began. The walk to the foot-hill was a calm one. The night now had it’s breezes and they brushed my face as I walked down the streets of Khandala. Huge, majestic bungalows stood tall, lightened and musical. Some of them were bigger than what I had ever seen. Soon we left the city, and were now in the territory of complete darkness. The torches lit, and the night trek truly began.
The first part of the trek was pretty casual. It wasn’t much tiring at first but soon the road found it’s way to sweat us. It’d be stupid to call that a road. It was barely walk tracks of previous trekkers that were now visible distinctly enough. But the night made the experience worthwhile. The people too were pretty enthusiastic. It only takes someone to say Game of Thrones for a conversation to start. I talked, some joked, some sang and rest smiled. In time, there was barely anyone that wasn’t enjoying themselves. The rush of adrenaline as the sweat took all laziness out of our muscles, was something everyone cherished. The organizers looked the least tired out of all of us. I was breathing heavily, as were most of the people around. We took halts after a period of thirty to forty minutes approximately. I galloped big sips of water from my bottle. I wish I could punch myself in the face to stop me from taking those careless sips, for the horrors were about to come.
As the night grew upon us, the road grew exhilarating and dangerous. It went suddenly narrow and pretty steep. Weariness grew as we moved along. The entire body soon began to ache, and the pleasant exercise soon turned into a body-wide pain. The path that never ends, the pain that never stops; that is all what I could feel. A mesmerizing fear came to dwell in my heart. The darkness catalyzed it to infinity, and the age old saying took its shape – Fear lead to anger, anger lead to hatred, hatred led to suffering. A million emotions began to whirlpool in my mind as I climbed up. It wasn’t just exhilarating for my body, my mind numbed too. Thoughts came and passed by, each taking a toll of its own. Soon, we stopped at a place where one of the organizers said to another, ‘We take halt at the Penguin.’ Penguin, what the hell is the penguin? I questioned that for a moment, but at the next, it didn’t matter. All I had to do was get there for the halt. But the road wasn’t getting any easier.
It took an hour more for us to get there, the Penguin. It was a plain land in the middle of the mountain, large enough for all seventy plus people to lie around and catch their breaths. The organizers were still standing and having a laugh. Were these people even human? I lay down, gazing at the sky. I didn’t even care to ask why it was called the Penguin. I still don’t. Now that I give it a thought, I guess I heard it wrong. But what it may be, I kept gazing high. The clouds were low. I flashed my light at them and I could see clear spotlights on those clouds. It was soon a couple others around me decided to do that too. It was some weird fun in doing that. But it looked good, no matter what. Then something spectacular happened. The organizers told us all to point our torches at the sky. The humble sky had distinct spots of our small torches on it. Soon, there were seventy spots that illuminated the sky around us. A beauty I shall remember to my grave. There was nothing more beautiful, nothing more splendid, nothing more hopeful and nothing more jovial. The image of that still pumps a mysterious energy inside me. It is something hard to explain and absurd to sound, but that view energized me immensely. Not just that, it gave me an immeasurable sense of hope, one that I had seemed to loose in the past few months. Time had stopped, and it felt like an eternal gaze at elegance. An infinite dream of eighty spotlights in the sky. It was at that time someone pointed out, “We should probably stop this now. Some idiot might think these are UFOs.” The laughter filled the air in absolutely no time. Then the whistle blew, and I got up with my strangely found energy.
We could see the lighthouse at the top of the Duke’s Nose in five minutes. A destiny in sight. The last part of the trek began in no time. It was fairly easy, though the tired muscles made it seem a bit difficult than it might have been. The walk continued for about an hour more. We collected firewood on our way up to lit a bonfire. All eighty of us had a few sticks in hand, good enough to light a fire that would last for a couple of hours. I pulled out two large and strong twigs of firewood. It was stupid of me to carry firewood taller than me. The strides then grew longer and the fatigue returned. The breathing turned heavy as the lighthouse neared us. The fatigue wasn’t as bad as earlier. The long firewood was proving to be a major pain. It kept entangling in the bushes around, slowing me down. I wasn’t fast earlier anyway, yet, I was ahead of most.
The moment then came, when I saw the lighthouse, as big as it should’ve been. We were finally there, atop Duke’s Nose. The name gave me a chuckle. I kept my hands over my knees and bent down to take large breaths. I don’t remember when was the last time I was this tired. It was a ten day cardio all at once. For the next hour, all I can remember is me back-rested on the walls of the lighthouse, just smiling. The things I dream of now were happy memories of my life. The night didn’t feel so dark anymore, well, of-course because I was sitting under a lighthouse, but there was some explainable happiness there. I could sense that on everyone’s face. The organizers however, were still as laughing and cheerful as they were at the start of the trek. I was pretty sure these guys weren’t human now. My cousin passed me the blanket as she and her friends prepared to sleep. I laid next to her, gazing in the sky as I had before. Someone told us that we could see fireflies at the trees around us. I got up and found a view as beautiful as the spotlights in the sky. Hundreds of lightening bugs glew to create a magnificent spectacle. We had seen a few of them before on our way up, but this, was magical. I glared at them for a few more minutes before pulling my blanket up. My eyes grew heavy and sleep was about to find its way. “Thank you for getting me here,” I slowly whispered to my cousin. My eyes then shut and I waited for the sun to rise as the bonfire kept us warm.