Friday, February 17, 2006

WRONG TURN.......

Wrong turn...as the name suggests, i am not gonna write about the movie in which the hero takes a wrong turn only to find out that they have to fight with mutated life forms in some remote place of USA.....this wrong turn, is my own personal experience and let me tell you i am happy that i took it...:)

it's been three years since i have come here to Pilani, to study and never in these three years have i gone to a world which is just outside the walls of BITS.....but on 13th feb, 2006.....something happened....something that would give me an oppurtunity what lies on the other side of our life. the Centre for women studies (CWS) in BITS, Pilani in association with One World South Asia, was organising the inaugaration of a project to "empower women through implementation of technology" in a nearby village.....and the village was, Jherli...just outside pilani. it was roughly 4kms aways from the campus and i had no clue how to go there...i mean i have never even set a foot outside the BITS gate. but i was determined and decided to go there no matter what.....so..at 2:30p.m on 13th feb,2006...i was gonna do something that i never had.....and set out to explore the world which was so close, yet it seemed so far all these days.
after few enquiries, i came to know that to reach there, i should not leave the CEERI wall....i mean the road by it's side will lead straight to jherli......i reached there at 3:00p.m....and lemme tell you...this one wasn't so bad...but i was quite surprised to see a village which was so long!...i just went on...on and on....finally i reached the gram panchayat office, only to find that it was locked....after few enuiries i came to know that there was someone from BITS who had come on 12th...but nobody came on 13th but they advised me to go to this guy names...jai singh who was a photographer....and also said that whenever students from BITS come to the village.....they go to his house which was on the other end of the village...when i reached there....i couldn't find any cycles....and then i met some guy who was coming from the oppiste direction of mine.....he told me that he saw a jeep passby...and that it was going to a nearby village..."Garinda" which was another 3 kms away from there.....i would say i was on a wild goose chase! i had no clue of what i was doing....i have no clue how i could to all these places all alone and that too on a sunny day....and i didn't even have water to drink! but something....something unknown kept me going...i could feel the gentle swaying of the " mustard fields"....and the mystic silence of the dried up jungle.....one of the nice things that i found in these villages was their curiousity to see a stranger going around their villages.....probably a guy wearing a red bag, specs and clothes with different shades of brown...wasn't such a common site!...:)
then i went to garinda, where a computer centre was opened in a private school only to find out that i wasn't anywhere close to my destination.....it didn't serve the whole purpose....the reason to start this journey....but what it has given me is the experience that i am not gonna forget for a long time....that cycling in the kacha road and i was wondering the whole time whether my cycle could withstand it....i mean....hello! it's not a tar road where you can just cruise at any speed....what if it got punctured! i would have walked all the way....:)......
to be ccontinued......

1 comment:

Endlessjourneys said...

Cycling on a kaccha road...hmm That can be quite scary. ONce on my way to Pahadi one of my friends' cycle got a tyre punctured and then u can imagine our irrtation when u picture this:
50 degrees, Pilani dry weather, 10.30 AM, no cap, doubles on a cycle , dust from the kucchha road...vooo!!!..
Experience of a life time for me too:)