A Fishy Affair - Part Two

Disclaimer: The 7th of the AIA Series, this post also comes as a sequel to the previous post - A Fishy Affair

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For those who haven't read that one, let us give you a little background of what’s been happening till now. The author and his friend have sauntered off to a small village near Nainital, and have been doing nothing much other than sitting on hill tops, flicking stones and telling each other tall tales about how women find them irresistible.  If only they ever cared for fact, over imagination.

The previous day, they did go for a dip in a stream that was quite icy.

Flashback over. Present day.

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“So we are back at our stream. Again to feel alive, I suppose?” he asked, but I am not sure if he was supposing too much.

“Your mother will thank me later.  For getting you to bathe the only two times that you did this month.”

“Remember those movies with waterfalls?”

So we both took a deep breath, and remembered those movies with waterfalls.  Those nice movies where the hero, seemingly innocently, wanders to a waterfall, only to find a pretty girl right under it.  Why these women start dancing as soon as they are under a waterfall beats me, and why they should get all seductive about it is an even bigger puzzle, but a good detective is one who finds his own answers.  After cracking a few jokes, though.

So, once we were done remembering, we wandered, a bit here, a tad there, hoping against hope to find our own Mandakini, our own Twinkle Khanna, our very own Zeenat Aman under a waterfall.  We ended up bumping into each other at the next bush.

“Must you have such a big ass? Even the birds are sitting high up in their nests, lest they bump into it and ricochet to the next village.”

So I pushed my nice little bottom a little in, and strutted off importantly towards the waterfall, careful not to sway it too much. The nice little bottom, I mean. It’s a difficult thing, to control, when you are thinking about it.  Quite unhealthy too, to be thinking about your own posterior.

“Feel like dancing yet?” he screamed as I stepped into the stream, and journeyed towards the waterfall. If I could, I would dance on his grave, jes, but I am not sure if this flowing creation of nature was inspiring me enough to go all Mandakini under it.

The sight was quite beautiful though - the waterfall gushing down with all the force that it could muster. A few plants stretched from a nearby rock, straining to feel the water on their leaves, and behind them, the rocks glistened a nice blend of black brown and silver. I was running to it now, taking off my shirt and tossing it to a group of rocks sitting stoutly in the stream. The spray had drenched me even while I was metres away. The water was deeper here, flowing above my waist, and I settled into a swimming position.

“Wait up, I am coming” he yelled, and jumped into the water.

“So that’s …glug glug… what they glug meant when they were saying Ram teri Ganga maili ho gayi.”

“Abey paapi, half the Ganga has gone down your lungs. Stop keeping your silly mouth open. Brr.. its quite cold.”

In seconds, we had reached the base of the waterfalls. When we went under it, with such force did the water fall on our backs, and so cold was it that we could not help but yell at the top of our voices. Swimming in a river is one thing, in it you go with the flow, it is relaxing; but a waterfall – all it wants to do is hit you with everything that it has. My whole body was shaking with excitement. I was shivering but it felt electric. In some way, it felt as if we were being purged, of every layer that the city had plastered on us.

“If only you had brought your camera we could have made our own  aesthetic Alive is Awesome ad”, he opined.

“With your potbelly, it would be anything but aesthetic.”

“Sigh. Remember those movies with waterfalls?”  

Sigh, Twinkle Khanna.

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More from the Series,

6) A Fishy Affair
5) Vaikom Diaries : And that's how the Narayanans roll
4) The Heart of a Goof

A fishy affair

“So this is when I am going to feel awesome”?

“And alive, too.” I updated. "Alive is awesome", he mimicked. We were standing at the banks of a river, watching the water rush past us. It looked quite alive, the water.  A bit too much, if I am to be candid.

“I still don’t know how you managed to convince me to come for this trip.” he said ruefully. Quite right to feel rueful, for it was cold and windy and stepping into the river, at this moment, was not exactly what I was dying to do.

“You know I have to write about adventure bathing experiences. And the other bloggers are writing about how they kissed dolphins in Singapore, dived in the Maldives, slept with a blue whale in Iceland. What was I supposed to do?” I argued.

“So you made me drive you all the way from Delhi to Uttaranchal, so that we could skinny dip in this stream and you could blog about it!! If ever a man felt violated, it would be right about now. That reminds me, you haven’t paid me anything for the fuel.”

“Now now, what’s a little fuel between two friends.”

“Don’t fuel my temper.” He was going a little red in the cheeks but it could have easily been from the nip in the air.

“A good story is one, only when the author has breathed it in his heart. Just think, how vividly I’ll be able to capture this entire experience now. A river that is out to hurt, bristling and roaring, frothing and hurtling. A sagely mountain in the background, looking down upon this beast of a river, and shaking its head sadly, wishing it had brought up the river well. You, descending into the river, and being purged by it. And I, generous that I am, I stay back on shore and let you enjoy the water all by yourself. And then I ..err..”

” I had to cut short my prose, for he was looking at me in a manner not very docile.

“Let’s enter the water before I kill you.” Righto!

And what was the big deal? We had always been the tough sort, the kind that could go into the wild, the kind who’s hearts shone bloody red, the kind that could battle a lion and whack the bejesus out of it, the kind who could take a spear in the stomach, and pull it out and toss it away and walk into the sunset.  Water, what could this mere, bristling, roaring, frothing river do to us.

So being those alpha males, we entered the water as gingerly as possible, and then sprang out, screaming because the water was too cold.

So maybe we were two alpha males who had just discovered that if they went into the wild chances are they would get lost, that their hearts were not actually red but a nice bright pink with a ribbon around it, and if as much as a thorn pricked our thumbs, we’d go howling to our mothers. But you know what. We looked at the water, we grumbled a bit, and then we stepped into it again.

“Are you feeling alive?” I asked hopefully.

“Cold yes.  Wet too. Maybe it takes time coming, this alive business.”

“Evidently, sarcasm doesn’t take too much time to come to you, land or river. The water’s lovely. Want to race to that rock?”

“Wait, I think I dropped one of my nipples. Yoo hoo nipple, oii nipple, where did you fall!”

“Good that you lost it. The water has already turned both mine blue. Hey, I see a fish, is that a fish.. hey Nemo, come here, little one”

“Quite fishy,  how you just behaved. Anyway, lets race to the rock.” And we set off, kicking and pushing, straining every bone to win the race, and the fish around just rolled their eyes. "Men", said one.

Half an hour later, we were sitting with our coffees, on two wooden chairs, in a small café. A small yellow bulb was all the light that the shop had, but it gave all the warmth that the place needed. A couple of pictures of Che Guevera stared back at us.

"I would have won if you hadn't pulled my shorts" he growled. 

"I almost lost my sight when that happened. The world has never seen a more grotesque posterior. My eyes will never be the same again." 

"Women have told me that its shapely. One of God's better works of art. A model of good geometry. 

"I think I even saw a fish throw up right then."

" It was good man, that river. Been quite long since I did something like that."

"You can thank me by paying for this coffee."

"That reminds me, you still have to pay for the fuel."

Now now, what's a little fuel between two friends.

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You must be used to the drill by now. This is the 6th post in a series for the AIA Campaign. Here are the rest,

5) Vaikom Diaries: And that's how the Narayanans roll! 

4) The Heart of a Goof

3) A Night Adventure with a Croatian Backpacker

2) The Merry Adventures of Hector Narayanan

1) An Andamanese Affair