The Easter Trip

One fine day, we receive an email from Charlyn Ding (popularly known as Dingster) to book our dates for the Easter weekend. The trip was christened as “wakeboarding” trip for reference purposes. Amanda, Dingster, Juan, Mike, Pam, Pete, Rob, Tatiana and I confirmed to be the part of it. However, it so turned out that we won’t get any ‘humane’ accommodation due to busy Easter period and we would have to camp! Jeffrey was wise enough to pull out saying his idea of camping was a 3-star accommodation (never seen a guy adjusting so much!!! After all, we won’t have the similar camping experience in a 5-star hotel). I am not a camping guy, either. Whenever I go camping, I feel I have been challenged against the Charles Darwin theory. Some people think it’s kind of cool to go for camping. It’s lot of fun. But, I don’t think so. They say, it feels like the settlers, the explorers, the pioneers…but I don’t think so. The early people just did what they could best do. I think they laid the foundation for us, for us to stay in a civilized manner. If they had these proper ‘humane’ houses built, they would have never been doing camping. It gives me a funny feeling to replicate the acts of primitive Indians by taking the water bottle in the jungle to empty the bowels! It would never give me a feeling of explorers or pioneers. Rather it’s the most mundane act done in the most awful manner. I want camping-freaks to understand that those people were still evolving.

So here we go for wakeboarding-cum-camping trip (rechristened), in the automated vehicles to experience the un-automated lifestyle. We had not forgotten our original purpose, though, of putting ourselves on the wakeboards. It was difficult to get access to that ‘free’ wakeboarding being organized by some aussies (in fact, a lot) but never-say-die attitude of Dingster got us the boats to ride the water, supposedly for me too. Little did I know. Mike was the first one to start. The fact that he was not at his comfortable best, already put some doubts on my mind. I caught a random guy, Chris, sitting on the boat, who was actually instructing, and started my series of questions. He tried his best to assure me that I won’t have any problems. After Mike, Rob went in and then it was my turn. The ill-fated start had to be like this…I couldn’t tie the sneakers on the board properly as it had some problem. Chris says, it doesn’t matter. Then why do they have the sneakers at the first place, I wondered! I jump into the water. Wrong direction. I am facing down instead of the sky. Took me lot of effort even to get the right position. But, Chris was confident.

Now picture this: I am ready, holding the rope tightly, give a go-ahead, the boat starts, everyone smiles, Mike raises his thumb, all good and off goes the boat. Without me!!! I couldn’t hold on to the rope. I knew from then that this is not meant for me. Chris and Rob were still enthusiastic and shrugged off saying it’s the first time. Rob yet again explained me the technique of wakeboarding, optimistically, and Mike re-assured me that it’s not difficult. Even though he admitted later that his arms were aching and it is not as easy as it seems. Now, my second try. Everyone smiles, Mike raises his thumb, all good and off goes the boat. The result is same. The funny thing was that Rob, Mike and Chris hadn’t lost the faith yet. There was no frown on their face, and they throw back the rope again towards me. My arms were aching, and I tried to even gesture that I don’t see it happening and in no mood of giving further trials. But their expression is same. Rob re-explained me the same things again by re-phrasing his words. Chris and Mike still have the same confidence. We give a third try. Everyone smiles, Mike raises his thumb, all good and off goes the boat. I produce the same result. At this point, I was very sure that I am coming up back to the boat. But they threw the rope back to me. I wondered if I am testing their patience or they are testing mine! Either way, I was ‘forced’ to go for another try. My gestures were not helping the cause. The confidence they had in me was amazing. Even if I managed to open book during my exams in high school, I was never confident that I would score 100 out of 100. Rob plays his part again and manages to find another set of words to give me the same technique. Chris still maintains that it happens for the first-timers. Everyone smiles again (except me this time), Mike raises his thumb, all good and off goes the boat. I am sure by now, everybody on the boat knew what the outcome will be; the only interest is in the scene!! I was happy to lose a sneaker this time, which wasn’t tied properly at the start, and somehow found an excuse to come back on the boat. I sigh…what a relief!

Indians are not meant for physical work. This is the reason; we guys never perform so well in Olympics. Our body is not meant for working hard. Give us your accounts and tax; we can make that in minutes. That’s what we are good at. But not in physical things. It was funny when British came to India and took some people as slaves on Islands for farming and other physical work. Picture this scenario:
British: Hey, you go there in the farms and produce cotton.
Indian: My back is already aching!!!! (This excuse comes naturally to us).
British: WHAT??????
Indian: Okay, I have an idea. (!!!!!!!!!) Why don’t ‘you’ go and produce cotton. I stay here. You come back. I make clothes. And then we both sell it to make huge profits!!!! (There is no excuse for laziness, but this guy seems to have a solution for that too!!!)
Well…the point here is that Indians would never perform good in physical activities. Their brain is always working to somehow avoid that!

Anyways, after the hard evening (for me, at least), we go back to our tents to sleep (after various other things, but that’s not the scope of my topic today). It was dark. We didn’t have any protected accommodation. Despite my nude sleeping habits, when sleeping outside in cold weather, I too, wear clothes, and attempted to sleep. I was having a hard time getting comfortable and I was trying to ignore my bladder. While I wasn’t exactly warm under the blankets, I knew I would be colder out and I did not want to go to the bathroom in the dark. The bath house was in the center of the loop of campsites. There were no lights. There was no mattress. I woke up every hour or so, which is pretty normal for the first night of a camping trip, at least for me, and each time, I tried to find some way to keep myself warm without having to put the covers over my head but alas, it was the only answer. I HATE having my head under the covers. The air gets hot and stuffy and moist. It’s horrible. I wrapped the covers up over my head with just my mouth and nose sticking out. I would fall asleep, the covers would move and I would wake up freezing the next hour. To add on to it, my bladder finally won out and I ventured out into the cold. I woke up at 3 in the morning. It was cold and I was starving, as well. I was scared to eat anything. And nervous. In the horror movies, it’s only my kind of guys who get died earliest at these kinda places. I love food. And I am visualizing that I would be coming out in the open eating watermelon in the middle of the night, and asking if someone wants some slices and suddenly this scary figure appears and I am knocked out forever!! I was afraid to eat anything there in the darkness, coz the horror movie scenes would suddenly flash before my eyes! One thing I don’t like about this camping is that people pretend its fun. They can’t be real. I don’t know who enjoys camping. I think it must be people who after spending lots of money on this activity, must be thinking, that…okay… now we have spent so much money on this…lets tell everyone that it was great.

I called back home and my folks asked me, “How was the weekend?”Here I go, “Oh, we went out of Melbourne for camping and it was fantastic!!”