Chronicles of Anthargange…

We finally took off on our much awaited trek to Anthargange on March 04, ’06. Much awaited coz, the USP of this trek was the rappelling and we were scheduled to go for this trek some time in the second week of Feb. We should thank our stars indeed that the trek didn’t kick off in Feb; the mercury levels were soaring 30 -32C. Fortunately for the short spell of rains the previous evening, the weather had cooled down and was perfect climate to set off on a trek…

We were a group of 13 (Oops….. the unlucky number!!), which was a welcome change indeed from the small perfect square numbers I had seen on my earlier treks (well, only 2 so far … ) We decided to hire a tempo traveler this time , lest the band of 13 of us should cause havoc and chaos on the BMTC buses.

The first pick up point was at Family Mart. Mohit, Prats, Siva and I were there promptly at 6:30am, fearing Anand’s ‘statutory’ warnings. Siva put us on the job of - “Spot the cab 9858”. All of us would glare at the number plates of all tempo travelers crossing the family mart junction. Siva already began to feel peckish, doing this exercise and started whacking away the oranges. The cab finally turned up at 7:00am. The next halt was at Jewel de Paragon. Piyush was getting impatient out there and wouldn’t stop calling Mohit. Mohit gave him a pretty interesting game – asked him to start counting 50 backwards and promised him that the cab will be there before he counts the magic number “0”. The cab reached jus’ in time; else Mohit would have had to face the music. Anisha, Kani and Sudeep (our man from Woody adventures) were the others to join us at this stop. The rest of the tribe boarded the cab at the respective pick up points and we were on the out skirts of the city by half –past eight. The drive till breakfast was a quiet one. The FM Radio was the only noise factor. The energy and enthusiasm level after breakfast was on a different plane. After a lot of coaxing from Kani, Ravi honored us with a tamil song (Unfortunately, most of us couldn’t appreciate the meaning, barring the Tamil stalwart – Siva). Piyush – The ‘Gramophone player’ followed. ‘Gramophone player’ because, he entertained us with old Hindi melodies from Bollywood. For Kishore and Alok it was a trip down memory lane - they were reminded of ‘Cibaca Geet Mala’ and the shows on AIR ;-). Must, say they were a real good chorus group.

We reached Anthargange around 10:00am. We had to trek till point Ayesha. Ayesha was jus’ the name of the boulder (as in, some bloke managed to scale that boulder to do some rock art / etch the name of his beloved?) to which the rappelling ropes were fastened. For lack of a better reference of the rappelling spot, shall refer to it as Point Ayesha. En route to Point Ayesha, The band of ‘adventurous’ seven (Alok, Kamlesh, Kishore, Mohit, Piyush, Ram and Siva) decided to scale one of the off shoots of the Anthargange hill to reach Point Ayesha. The rest of us chose to circumambulate the hill and save our energies for the rappelling exercise.


The tribe of seven reached point Ayesha later than we did. Sorry! Tribe of six, as Kamlesh took a different route while descending the hill and was there (Pt Ayesha) earlier than the others. In terms of the little adventures the band of ‘Adventurous’ seven had, I wouldn’t know. But I guess the video clippings would reveal some and I do hope one of them from the group will fill us on all of that. Do figure from Kamalesh’s account of his experience that, the trek was through thick scrub growth and Mohit would have had quite an ordeal, thanks to his fascination for his Reebok shorts.

We decided to finish with the rappelling exercise till the others (‘Adventurous’ seven) got to Point Ayesha. It was interesting to see Sudeep fasten those ropes with the Italian hitch and sheaf knots. Anand tried his hand with all those knots and more importantly dinned into Sudeep’s head that he wasn’t playing any of his corporate games, and would instead prefer rappelling half-a dozen times. !!

Kamalesh was the first to try his hand at rappelling. Kamalesh’s rappelling skills and trekking gear does indeed need a special mention here. His trekking gear was that of a seasoned trekker/ traveler – wild craft back pack, SLR Camera, funky looking goggles and gloves. With regard to rappelling- well, two giant leaps and he was down the 20ft boulder.

The rest of us had our turns of rappelling thereafter. Anisha and Prats experimented rappelling without using the gloves….didn’t pay any heed to warnings from Anand and Kamalesh [Bad girls! :( ]They managed it pretty comfortably though. (Well, Anand’s logic here is that, the safety ropes which Sudeep was controlling bore all their weight, and that’s why they didn’t bruise their hands like he did)
Kani’s rappelling ordeal was a classic one indeed. You could hear Kani even before you could see her rappel down. Kani’s trekking gear needs special mention as well. The highlight of her trekking gear was her appendage – The Black Bag. The Black bag was a sling bag, with gold stencils on it, that would glitter and dazzle under the sun. Kani had a sentimental attachment to this bag, as her colleagues at GE gifted it during her farewell. What were more interesting were the contents of the bag – Box of meetae meetae angoor and her pink bottle. Each time Kani dished out her pink bottle, she would go “Mera wala pink” ;-)

It was time for lunch by the time all of us finished our two rounds of rappelling and the ‘adventurous’ six were back as well. Lunch was a pretty sumptuous one - sandwiches, cake, idlis, fruits, namkeen. … We tried catching a nap after lunch, but we would have hardly made ourselves comfortable on the rocky surface and Mr. Time table (oh! That’s Anand btw) woke us up … it was half past two by his watch and time for activity 2.


Activity 2 was; the ‘adventurous’ six do the rappelling and the rest of us go on a stroll / trek. We decided to trek till the little cave; the earlier group had stumbled upon. The terrain was a partially rocky one, steep at certain reaches and there wasn’t any great flora and fauna, only the thorny scrubs. These scrubs were a menace though – they would get through our socks and make any sort of movement difficult, at times impossible.

Kani was finding it a little difficult as the climb got steep, we would have hardly trekked and she would ask, “When’s the first break?” Her bag was an added hindrance as well. She had to do quite a bit of a balancing act, to prevent the contents from popping out. To save her some trouble, Kamalesh, bundled the bag and shoved it into his huge wild craft back pack.
If the Savan Durga trek was a test of Anisha’s knowledge of tamil, this trek was a test of Ravi’s comprehension and speaking skills of Hindi. Anand was zapped at Ravi’s learning curve. Inspired by his stellar performance Anand is now determined to improve his speaking skills of Tamil. His plan of action for the next couple of months – Watch Tamil movies of yester years ;-)

The trek till the cave took us about an hour. As the other group was still engaged in the rappelling exercise, we decided to jus’ chill-out on the plateau. The view from the plateau was amazing -you could see the entire Kolar city and the fields below. The azure sky, the vast open space and the pleasant wind was mind blowing. It was a welcome change from the cluttered concrete jungle, smog and grey skies. Ravi wanted to capture all of it on his delicate digital camera, but the low battery levels wouldn’t permit that. He however managed to capture all of that in his grey cells. (Wonder what defines low battery levels – Ravi managed to capture a 3 min video, and some 53 odd shots!) The vast open space, proved to be an ideal testing ground for one’s vocal cords as well. Kamlesh did a Tarzan act 2, by straining his vocal cords to the maximum….don’t know if it was a stress buster though …

Anand was getting impatient and he wanted to try his hand at rappelling a couple of more times. If it was not for Ravi, who held him back, Anand was all set for a quick sprint within minutes after reaching the plateau. It was half-past four and we couldn’t afford to test Anand’s patience any further. Anand was more than glad that we finally decided to make a move. He didn’t bother to see who or what was behind him, he made a super quick dash to Point Ayesha. It was now, Piyush’s turn of test of patience levels. He jus, hoped Anand, Alok and Ram would stop with two more attempts of rappelling down and not make it one more, each time their ‘experiments’ failed. The trio finally finished with their rappelling experiments at around 5:30pm. Piyush heaved a sigh of relief ….

The drive back to the city was a quiet one, unlike our morning drive as most of us tried catching a short nap and recouping our energy levels after whole day of activity. Perhaps the only thing that we missed on this trek, were the BMTC bus rides. They have a charm of their own. It’s a different sort of excitement figuring out which bus to board, getting packed like a tin of sardines and trying to catch a nap amidst all the clutter, noise and dust. On the flip side, had it not been for the tempo drive, we wouldn’t have got to hear to our live entertainment channels :)

P.S - Thanks Kongkona for suggesting this place. .... it would have been great if u joined us : )