Definitely Something…
Before I start the story, I would like to give a brief about the Isha Yoga Centre located at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. I had first heard about it when my best friend had shown pictures of the infamous Adiyogi statue on Instagram. It was marvelous and huge, that the urge to visit the place could hardly be curbed down.
Basically, the Yoga Centre is run by the Isha Foundation which was founded in 1992 by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. It aims to offer yoga programs to the people of the nation and abroad; and is run by volunteers, which is a count of over 9 million.
I had the luck of visiting this beautiful site a few days back, around the midweek of June, this year. Along with four other friends, namely, Pranjal, Vidya, Satya, and Abhishek and I, Shalya, were on a break of a vacation to the Nilgiri hills. The trip to Coimbatore was on the last day of the schedule after we left from a stay of glorious two days in Coonoor. The hostel was awesome!! Please go check it out! We left around 8:30 from the hostel we were lodging at, with a determination to reach our destination by 12:30 in the noon.
Any faith doesn’t turn into devotion until it is tested numerous times. That did not fall short for us too. As we were about to enter the main town of Coimbatore, the luggage carrier on Pranjal’s bike randomly broke off. Dragging and tugging his luggage onto the other bikes, we resumed our journey. But the struggle wasn’t over yet. Satya had hurt his left toe in the lodge the previous night, which now had turned semi-septic. If not treated soon, he would lose his consciousness as well as the toe. Roaming the city unknown to us for about half an hour, we finally came across a hospital that treated him with all the right measures, so that he could continue his journey (due to the pressure of reaching the destination on time, we forgot the name of the hospital, but we are forever grateful for their quick yet efficient hospitality).
That day was what I would call a ‘perfect storm’. Everything that could go wrong in a day befell us. The same happened with us from the very beginning.
It was around 3 in the afternoon when we finally reached the Isha foundation. Tired and famished, we hurriedly rushed towards the Kunds, the holy reservoirs for the purified cleansing of our own selves. There were two Kunds, namely, Suryakund, for the male followers, and Chandrakund, for the female devotees. If you haven’t been to Isha, let me tell you, the pure joy and peace felt during a dip in the scented holy waters of the kund, is unmatched to any other.
After a good bath, we left for the Dhyanlingam, a big domb-structured hall that gave space to one of the tallest Shivlinga I have seen. Not only that, but it was also a site for Dhyan, or chant to the Ultimate Destroyer, in silence. A bliss that deep is once in a lifetime feeling.
After visiting the Dhyanlingam, we left towards the Adiyogi statue. This statue is the nation’s second-largest one, after the honorable Statue of Unity. It is a 112.4 ft tall, 147 ft long and 24.99 ft wide sculpture of Lord Shiva, which resembles his upper thorax up to his bust. It has been recorded as the ‘Largest Bust Sculpture’ in the Guinness World Records. And to be standing right next to it, and gazing so high up to absorb all the greatness, was breathtaking. The array of hills on the backdrop of his statue added to the unseen aura in a definitive way.
Taking pictures inside the Dhyanlingam and the Kunds was forbidden, and hence I couldn’t get a gallery of the memories if thought I wanted to.
The complete sightseeing of this beautiful location got wrapped up by 6:30 pm in the evening. The sun had set behind the hills, and the environment was in between a trance of day and night with the moon slightly peeking from behind the flakes of white clouds.
It was time to leave for home. As we neared towards our vehicles, safely parked at the stands, Abhishek asked me to check the map for directions. It was then when we faced a tremendous shock. The distance from Coimbatore to Bangalore, which was earlier depicted as 305 km, now turned to 395 km. It was almost 7 pm on the dial, and the night had crept in. Riding through such long hours, that too in the dark, was a huge risk. But there was no other option. We were already so broke that the only thing we could afford right now was the oil fare and some food to eat through. Uttering the Mighty Mahadev’s name, all six of us hopped on the vehicles and started our journey home-bound.
We rode continuously for around one and a half hours so that even if we take a break, it doesn’t affect much. After having a slight washroom and tea break, we resumed our journey again till 10:30 pm, with our body below the waist giving up hope of activity and our bums expressing how numb they have become. Satya’s vehicle was in a very pathetic condition by then, because it was already overused before our trip was planned. Even then, Satya’s spirit could not be tamed. There was one point where our vehicles had to literally race ahead of him and halt him because he couldn’t hear our screams to take a break, as he was busy accelerating his way through buses and heavyweight trucks.
After a lavish and appetizing dinner at Akbar Biriyani, we stretched ourselves to the utmost extent we could, as there was no chance we could halt again so soon, as the night had loomed over and we had still miles to go.
I am terrified of spirits. Even their stories shake me to the roots. But alas! My luck had just turned away into a flight mode. As kismet wants it, our route ahead in the maps took us away from the busy and safe National Highway, into a state highway that barely had any people on the streets or any streetlights glaring. The only bright spots on the road ahead were coming from the headlights of our vehicles. The road ahead was so gloomy, that you could literally see stretches of empty land on the left, with dark hills towering on the back, that it almost fell like any wild thing could leap out of the shadows any second. While on the right, there was a continuous boundary of an industrial site, the steel giants standing tall and strong looking down on us. If this was not enough, it was a half-moon night that day. Therefore, the slight beam of moonlight that fell over the hills made the night even murkier. I still remember Pranjal’s question when we entered that hideous road, “Do you guys have a swiss knife?” with a frown of anxiety on his face.
Vidya, the other girl in our gang, who apparently had not been on any such long trips before, was getting tired out of her wits and was drooling from the back of the vehicle. It was risky, as she could fall off anytime soon. It was time we called in another break. Searching for a safe area, we stopped near a police station on the way. It was around 1:30 at night, and there were just two police officers on the post. Awaiting none’s permission, Vidya leaped off the vehicle and sat on a deserted bench nearby, drooling to a quick nap. To kill time, both Abhishek and Satya went ahead to chat with the officers, while I and Pranjal guarded Vidya against pests and mosquitoes.
Now what happened next was something none of us would ever forget. Departing from that station at 1:45 am, we drove on and on until we reached a broader highway, where we stopped at 2:30 for some tea. Stalls near such highways remain open all night, for the trucks and morning buses. We too, sensing no harm, went in and ordered for six coffees when suddenly, I notice a familiar face staring at me from the end of the sweet aisle. Remembering in a swift, I saw that he was the other policeman we saw at the post we stopped at. The look with which he was eyeing us was, well, chilling to the bones. Whispering into Vidya’s ear and signing to the rest, we hastily paid the bill, got on our bikes and drove off with a speed as fast as we could.
To this day, I couldn’t quite place why he was there. Did he follow us, and if yes, why? Why was he staring at me and Vidya, and not at the boys? Or was I paranoid, due to all the stress from the ride and the creepy surroundings?
Anyway, the next stop we had was a petrol bunk, where everyone freshened up. It was exactly 3 am then. I have a thing of anxiety regarding this time. As people say, this is the hour when spirits move about unbound in the open air and could harm anyone they come across. Everyone had nag-rings (serpent-shaped finger rings) on them from the temple, except me. This petrified me even more. With nothing else but faith to lean on, we resumed the journey. The map had shown there were still three and a half hours to enter Bangalore. But that one hour between 3 to 4 am was the most dangerous of all. All of us began hallucinating figures and objects on the sideways, and branches of the trees. At one point, Pranjal was hugged so deep by sleep that he almost ran his bike into an old, forlorn man walking on the far right end of the road. Surprisingly, the man didn’t twitch, nor he spit any cussful words at Pranjal. There were two-three other people too who were there, but they didn’t react, as if nothing happened.
Another question pops up here is, was there actually any man, or was the 3 to 4 am ghostly timing actually showed its existential proof? I don’t know, nor I want to.
The ride was simple from then onwards. Taking occasional breaks (in one, the guys actually slept for half an hour on the pavement of a petrol bunk which was yet to be open), everyone tried to be as active and awake as possible. They almost did, which I say with irony, because Pranjal again had run his bike into a Luna with three guys riding before him, and would have crashed that day if not for the ear-splitting screams from Vidya seated behind him, which woke him up on the nick of time. Those guys saw Death approaching, I tell you.
Further again, Abhishek too thought of a stationary truck as a moving one and was about to slam into it. The only person active till the last with 100% enthusiasm for god-knows-what, was Satya. Vidya and I were pinching ourselves occasionally so that we won’t doze off while these guys rode clumsily.
After a long 15 hour journey, we reached safely without any scratch to our homes at 10 am in the morning. It was Abhishek’s bday that day, but no one had any energy left to celebrate it until 8 pm at night.
The trip was one memorable one because 15 hours on a bike without any rest is well, go once, and you’ll know what I mean. And that road, DAMN!
-Sumana
