On The Wings Of An Alligator

With the enthusiasm for the coming day, I closed my eyes...

Suddenly, a loud sharp cry of some lady, pierced my ears. With a shocking shiver, I opened my eyes, and stood up in bed,to see what had happened. It was early morning and my friend had switched on the stupid box. I had the anger of boxing those advertisement agencies, when I found that, the scream was indeed made by a silly lady, for losing her hair during her bath. Another stupid one suggesting her to use Livon Hair Oil to prevent losing hair.

After that I lost my courage to sleep again and thought of getting ready for the picnic, which our company had planned for the day. With the usual sluggishness of early morning, I had an adventurous bath and within an hour, became refreshed for the journey to come.

The sun had already risen well to see me and we felt we were getting
delayed for the planned event. To cope up with the time I spent in the bathroom, I had to struggle hard to keep my hair in position, while sitting on the bike, which was streaming through the sprouting traffic of Bangalore highways.

Finally we reached the spot. I can't remember the number of buses
scheduled for the trip. But I luckily got into one of them. I found that none of my friends were in it and that made me a little nervous. The occupants were all sitting dumb and open mouthed. I was a little bewildered, on whether the bus was going for some funeral and I got into the wrong one. I looked around scratching my head and found some of my colleagues, calling me from some other bus. I realized that I had got into a bus meant for married people and there was another one for dazzling bachelors.

I took my breath back and ran towards my day. I don't exactly remember why, but I prefered to switch to my friend's bike, which was following us althrough. The journey by bike was far more flexible, with the two wheeled automobile, climbing all the terrains of the region and pushing across the slippery stones, making its way through. Passing across, a sign board captured our attention. It was on some waterfall, whose name attracted us. We decided to see the Chunchi falls and took a diversion...

Even though the name of the cataract was a little amusing, it turned out to
be a scenic one. Not so high, and deep, which made us to try some adventurous poses. It was a moment, to see the cascade splash on to rocks, spraying droplets, giving rise to a fine art of iridescence. We had a big photo session over various spots to capture as much of the fall as possible. It was a little piteous to watch a small boy, occasionally jumping into the waterfall, after climbing the whole set of steep rocks, to make his day got along. We paid him a nice amount,which I cant exactly remember, for something which we wanted to do, but he did it for us.
The journey back, from the fall was one of the rarest adventures, I ever
had. Luckily we discovered a short cut from the waterfall, to Magadhattu, our
intended picnic target. The road was totally empty and was well set forth for a bike race. I felt literally flying, when the two wheeler "pulsed" across, the narrow crooked road, in full speed, testing its engine capacity. In between, we had to pass through a sub rural village, the one of its kind, which I saw for the first time. They were looking at us helplessly, with strange faces, as if we were some aliens, with a flying shuttle crawling on the muddy roads, splashing the dust all across.

I don't remember, how much time I spent on the bike, but we ultimately
landed on target spot. I found some of my friends playing in water as if they were trying to get back to their childhood. It was really interesting to watch one of them practicing mosquito catching with frizbees, and then passing it to others, with some new found methodology, analogous to throwing a rotten egg. I did indeed catch some frizbees passing by, and later switched to capturing the beauty of the sangama to my kodak collections. I even tried to pose myself for a photo, standing on a lonely sharp wood, in the middle of water. It took so much for my friend to take that snap, which landed me in wounding my feet, from beneath, which added a bit more challenge to the picnic.

The local bus trip was an unforgettable event. Since it was more of an
antique than a bus, the driver got a little worried, when he saw our number and offered us to sit on the roof at our own risk. I managed to climb to the roof with my wounded leg, since I knew that its going to be an experience of a lifetime. We sat over the bus, hoping the beetle would move soon. Atlast, after a serious try by the driver, cleaners and wrestlers from our side, the bug slowly started moving. It was a true adventure, and an experience, when the branches of trees were coming against us, and we all sitting in lines, were waving across, to escape, like a flag flapping in the wind. The bus was moving through all the ups and downs and me sitting in the front, felt like I were in some roller-coaster ride, to miss a heart throb.

We reached the spot called Megadhattu, a rocky cascade, witnessing the
artistic talent of nature over time. It was truly a masterpiece, and was hard to
imagine such fine carvings are not by any human, but a true endeavor of nature. Even though the name of the place suggested that, the cascade used to be jumped across by capricorns, it was a little incredible, viewing the width of the flow. I don't remember, how long I spent in there, but we started back on the roof itself. This time, it was pretty crowded, since many more had switched to the roof from the ground floor, because of our adventurous delineation. Hence I had to compress myself as much as I can to find my space on the lap of somebody else. This time the waving of our heads against branches were too rregular that I could occasionally here some strange screams, followed by a curse to the neighbor.

This seemed the end of the adventure and we all got into our leased buses.
Since I was a new entry to the bus, I had to compromise the back seat. The bus was moving ruthlessly over humps and we being in the back seat, were experiencing like we were in some hurdle race. An anthakshari was going on in the background, and in my nap I could occassionally hear something like "kyonki saas bi kabhi bahoo thi" from one of our naughties. The bus was jumping too hard, for me to forget the idea of having a nap and joined the anthakshari team. Very soon the team got too spirited and many more silent colleagues joined. The light system of the bus, imitated a disco room, and we all started dancing for some unknown music. The environment soon got very hot, when all got into a dancing spree. The spree was too high that the dancers were blind at they were jumping on my wounded feet. I had to move towards the
footstep. The door was closed, but I had to make sure that it was properly locked. I made a bent, when one of the dancers fell against me, the door got opened and we were thrown out ...

Suddenly, a loud sharp cry of some lady, pierced my ears. With a shocking
shiver, I opened my eyes, and stood up in bed,to see what had happened. It was early morning and my friend had switched on the stupid box. The story On the wings of a "butterfly" was about to begin...