The Big Bang Trip – September 2015

A Nanusense version of some of the highlights. Keeping it short (if you call this short) as it would take me months and a few hundred pages to document my personal experience with 20 strangers.

Thanks to some last minute work for some clients I had not even bothered to check who these Trippers were going to be. Just before my flight to Delhi is when I did pause to think what will be in store for the next 10 days. Told myself, have gone tracking king cobras in the wild, what will 25 odd strangers do? After a big hug to Dips and a huge moral support to Vids to hold fort for the next 10 days, left early morning on the 5^th to Delhi.

My entry at Zostel was subdued (it’s just my style, the calm before the storm types) while I recognized some of the faces. Polite hellos were exchanged. After a quick book gifting/signing session with Parul Tyagi, the two instigator sessions followed with Suganda and Charnita. Was good to learn their alternate career paths.

Decided to stop for chai at 8 PM and ended up having dinner instead much to the amusement of Sarpanch saab aka Saurab.

I had the pleasure…eeeks. I was fortunate to have shared my room with Saurab at Rishikesh. Poor chap, wouldn’t have walked so much as he had in one day going from Lakshman jhoola to Ram jhoola to Nirvana café to Buddha bar multiple times. Forcing him to yell “Arrey tuk tuk lethe kya apan?”

Anyway, we decided to leave Delhi on the 5^th night to Rishikesh. I thought I will be just like in school trips, sit at the back and scream at every one else randomly. That didn’t last too long when the Bollywood numbers started. Didn’t know one song in that set. Just head banged for a while and took a vicks action 500 after that.

We reached Rishikesh early on Sunday morning. Stayed at Kriya Yoga Ashram. It’s a nice and peaceful ashram with the regular ashram type restrictions. Like no shorts, no sleevless, no smoking, no drinking, no talking loudly…I think they are high on oxygen. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh! (Trippers will understand this style of laughter).

Walked around a lot here. I had set out for a morning walk as the oldies, I mean the youngsters wanted to take rest. Met one yogi of sorts who tried to con me to cough up more money after I gave Rs. 20. Speaking of cough, bless you Karthika. The yogi used some sleight of hands to impress me. If only I had my card deck with me.

Spent the two days walking around and exploring the place. We also witnessed the famous Arti on the Ganges. And the trek to Neergarh waterfall was stunning. This is where I ended up being the D.O.P for The Chica Way. Was hoping at the end of the video she would say “with camera person Sandeepaani Nanalu in Rishikesh for the Chica way.” This is also where I ended up bonding with 3 of my favorite people in this trip – Sneha, Ashish and Francesca. We were a riot from this point onwards.

The funniest incident at Rishikesh was during a meditation session. We were asked to do shavasana for like some 40 minutes which felt like 2 years. The resurrection positions of Nikhil, Jay, Niraj and Ashish were… well, like ROF and the rest of us were L.

Trailer of Delhi and Rishikesh.

Next up. Kasauli. Done. Then we moved to Kasol. Oh wait, we did some walking around in the evening shopping and visiting a church at Kasauli. This was more like an overnight stay before we headed to Kasol.

Kasauli trailer.

Kasol is breathtakingly beautiful. And that good shit people smoke, seems to grow everywhere. Ashish and I went for a long walk in the morning. Post which some of us decided to trek to Chalal.  Sat beside the water stream that’s close to our resort and clicked away selfie after selfie.

The ‘Lifeline’ session where we had to plot our high and low points in life to share our stories got us closer to each other.

Kasol trailer.

We finally reached Mcleodganj on Friday the 11^th. The place where you will fall in love with the hills. After meeting our final instigator, Abhinav, also realized I may end up moving or atleast spending more time outside Bangalore soon enough. All of us cooked for each other that night, which was another highlight of this trip. Abhinav took us trekking to the secret waterfalls the following day and I think this was possibly the best part of the trip for me personally. No pictures can do justice to the beauty all around.

Tralier from Mcleodganj.

Back to Delhi and it was time to say our goodbyes to some as they were leaving the same day. Dropping Sneh and Joshi to the railway station had a DDLJ feeling. Actually, don’t know what that means as I haven’t seen that movie.

We partied at the American Garage in Delhi that night with a crazy karaoke session. Chetan with his “It’s my life” and yours truly with “Ice Ice baby” ensured the TBBT table made more noise than anyone else.

Can’t thank Chandraban and Chetan enough for making this happen and possibly making a dent in our lives through the Big Bang trip.

Chetan, even if you have done a fabulous job I’d still say you are in the wrong profession. You should give Suganda a run for her money with your stand-up.

CB, keep the spirits high brother. You have been an inspiration too.

Reghu, had to bump into a fellow mallu right?

Vinnie, thanks for sharing your story. You are a star in every right.

Smith, hope you become the best street photographer we know of.

Charu, ooooh that tattoo :).

Karthika, good luck with your designing career. Am sure you will ace it as it’s your passion.

Yushluv, my man. It was good meeting you. Love your composed look and your way of speaking to people.

Alisha, “we still need to talk” :). Hopefully our paths will cross again thanks to our profession.

Ozaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bhaaaaaaaaaaai. Who you are and what you do is very inspiring. Don’t know of too many teachers who are as crazy as you are. Keep it going brother.

Nikhil aka X. You are too young, loosen up a bit. Look at life from different perspectives. When you are my age (2X), you will see how beautiful life is and is not a waste of energy talking to people. Good luck with you career little fella.

Himanshi, your smile is contagious. Never let anyone steal that from you.

Rajesh, pity you had to leave half-way. Hope you are well. It was good meeting you.

Sneha and Ashish, you guys make such a perfect couple and am glad we connected the way we did. Looking forward to more good times shortly.

Chica, can’t wait to repeat the madness with you again.

Saurab, you have been a sport dude. Hope you get your iPhone soon 🙂

Niraj the sailor. Uske the jo sapne, wohi uske the apne, waisa tha…thu mere bhai. GGMU for life bugger. Like I said, you were the most energetic in the below 35 age group.

Back to work with memories and friends to last a life time. Cheers to CB, CS n team and the Trippers for the last 10 days. Until the next time, Captain signing off.

Update:

And here’s a recap through my lens. Cheers.

Some pics that I took in case you are not already bored of all the videos. – https://goo.gl/photos/WNMVPZpqQMJ6TP2F6