For some reason, I always thought that the trek and rain can’t go together. This trip smacked me hard in the head to make me realise that isn’t true. We always worry about the rain being the spoiler for any trip. Ironically or let’s just say true to its nature, rain made this trip really special.

I have already been to Kodachadri several years back in the month of December. But, I read a quote somewhere that made me decide to go for this trip. That goes something like this.

“If you want to completely enjoy a place, don’t just go there in its best season but also in every other season. Just like how we get to see joy, anger, amusement, awkwardness, boredom in a person before we get close to them.”

I already did the hard part by visiting Kodachadri in the dry winter season. Monsoon is the best season to experience its joy. How can I miss it? The icing on the cake is that I planned my trip with Coimbatore adventure club whom I have heard a lot about but never got a chance to travel with. The biggest challenge in planning any offbeat trip is that you don’t find them with any travel groups as most of them are commercialised and if you travel by yourself, you have to take care of a lot of things. Believe me, I have not been there in a good way. CAC solved that problem for me. They kept us away from crowds and close to nature for most parts of the trip.

It all started with a train journey, my most comfortable mode of transportation. Maybe I got too comfortable or it was because of my tightly packed friday, I slept throughout the to journey missing out the rant session from my fellow travellers. It was of course a costly miss. Because listening to people’s stories is always my favourite part of any trip. Since I got to hear them for the next two days, it kind of consoled me.

The stay was in a farm that was surrounded by trees and trees only. It felt like we were in a green cocoon with a super pleasant host who even made a special dish for us when we were about to leave.

Our first visit was to Nagara fort which was such a scenic location and made me reminisce about a lot of movies. Oh, I forgot to say this. It was raining on and off right from the time we got off the train. I naively wondered how we were going to visit any place in that weather. Coming back to Nagara fort, I got out with my awkward poncho which made me look like I came straight out of the Harry Potter universe as mentioned by some of the friends. That was when my liking for green showed its true colour(pun intended!). It was green everywhere. But the rain made it much more beautiful.

Everyone was enjoying in the present and got lost in their own world. Both at the sametime. I always remember places by mapping people with it. He did this here and she did that there was easy for my mind to capture. There were so many moments like that in Nagara fort. But, there was one aberration. My curiosity led me towards a cave where I accidentally intruded on a couple's intimate moment who wasn’t even travelling with us. They would have cursed me for sure. Maybe I am going to die alone.

Our next destination, the trek, was the heart of the trip. Before we started trekking, we had to go through what they rightly call a washing machine drive. The jeeps and the drivers did show their 360 degree skills until the point where the axle in one of the jeeps broke down. As we ascended towards the trek start point, the mist started to make love with the greeneries like the milk gets into black tea to complement each other.

After we started trekking, it was all magic. As we went through lush greens of the forests, I felt like a car going into a car wash coming out cleansed and feeling fresh. I was no longer interested in wearing the Harry Potter poncho. I started embracing the raindrops true to their worth. Once you get drenched in rain, there is no going back to raincoats or umbrellas. The trek path was filled with streams that talked, trees that breathed, rocks that listened and the mist that saw us experiencing the beauty. Oh yeah, there were leeches that crawled into the bodies. I know I am getting a little cheesy here but the blame is on nature as I fall short of words to describe what I went through.

As for the trip, I am always fortunate to travel with cool trek leaders. He was a jovial naturalist who balanced the coordination and the fun part beautifully. If not for the people like him, I would have ended up hating trekking. The whole bunch was super energetic. When I look back now, I would have come across as the person who was weirdly silent for them. Thanks to my ambivert nature.

Two things that were constant throughout the trip other than greenery was music and photoshoots. It is always nice to see people who listen to the same kind of music as you are. I was fortunate in that aspect. Even a morning walk was filled with such soulful music and the tired return journey was filled with beats of dance. People never minded the rain to get their photoshoots done everywhere. That was refreshing to see for a boy who loves photographs. I even met a guy who was crazy enough to go topless(!) to get a photo in the rainy Kodachadri peak.The things that people do for photos!

During our return journey, we ended up on an unexpected ferry ride. That is when I thought to myself even unfinished bridges do greater things than finished ones. If you are around Mangalore/Udupi, don’t miss out on tasting the sea food.

This was my monsoon trek but definitely not going to be the last one. The warmth that I got in the rain is something that I am not going to forget. To cherish this, I am going to go ahead with another cheesy narration. Usually whenever I want to get drenched in rain, my mom will say “சளி புடிக்கும் (You will get cold)”. Hereafter I have a reply for her,

“சளி புடிக்கும், ஆனா மழ அதவிட எனக்கு புடிக்கும்”

Loosely translated as ‘probably I will get cold, more than that I want to get the rain’. Maybe this is what I am going to take away from this trip

“What is it with him? He won’t reply to messages. He won’t attend calls regularly and won’t even bother calling us back. But, he wants to send postcards as if he is a social animal.”

This is what so many people who know me well would have thought  when I said I wanted to send postcards to people I know. Even I would have thought the same if I were in their place. Thanks to the social quadrant of my mind. It always works weirdly. It was just a little trigger that made me write those postcards. I am hoping to write more, let that be. We should travel a little while back to 2019 to understand a bit more about the trigger.

2019 was kind of a revelation for me. Two major things happened in my life. One, I joined my current organisation and the other, as I already gloated enough, I did my first himalayan trek. Apart from the economical, physical and all other million aspects of those two things, meeting the people that I know today would have to be the collection of moments that tilted my world to a better direction. Both things had an equal impact in the birth of these postcards.

The people I met in my organisation taught me the importance of empathy and consent. If not for them, I would have sent the same postcards to the people without asking them if they even wanted to receive one. My intention could have been to surprise them. But, may be that could not have been received well. All surprises are not good surprises. Well, for the empathy part, I was thinking about how the postcard could brighten up them even if it is for a few minutes when I was writing them. Imagine yourself being in a random place either a foreign land, a relative’s home or wherever and surrounded by too many random people whom you couldn’t get along with. Suddenly you meet a person who calls you by your name and talks with you for a few seconds even if it’s some customary exchange. He/She may be an acquaintance, a friend or a ‘I met you somewhere’ person. But, it will ease you up for a while right? At least I will feel so. I wanted to bring the same feeling to the people to whom I send those postcards. Again, this was only a chain reaction of the trigger that I was talking about.

Now coming to the main trigger, I have talked and wrote a lot about my himalayan trek. So, I am not going to bore you with those details again. But that was when I met Pranav. He was our trek leader. His motivation was one major factor that made me and even some of my fellow trekkers to complete the trek. He was jovial, inspiring and a lot more for one to look up to. At the end of our trek, he gave each of us two postcards and told us to write it to him or friends as per our wish. He was a lover of personalised notes as he quoted that he would even print some of the text messages and paste it in a notebook if it meant to him. I did send a personalised note to him but on whatsapp. I completely forgot about the postcards and I was not even in touch with him frequently.

Fast forwarding to October 2021, I received the news of his death while trekking somewhere in Maharastra. I couldn’t digest it and hoped it to be a rumour and would be some other Pranav. It wasn’t. I felt bad for a couple of days and moved on. This is what I don’t like with all deaths - we all become helpless and would not be able to do anything else to change the situation. But again, that’s what a life is. Even then I never remembered anything about the postcards.

December 2021, when I was packing for my recent trip, I wanted to reuse some of the items that I bought in 2019. That’s when I found those postcards. And that was the trigger. I had a little breakdown of sorts. I really don’t know what was that about whether it was Pranav’s death, the inevitable uncertainty or whatever. That’s when I decided I should send some postcards to people who would want it. People, who are close to me, know that I am a sucker for handwritten notes and I used to send letters sometime back. So, in a way, it was my homecoming.

After my trip, the same idea turned out to be printing the postcards with the photos that I have taken to give some more personalised touch. Still there might be questions about this whether it is a remembrance of Pranav, it is an initiative to encourage writing, it is to show my kindness or something else. Honestly, I don’t know. It is yours to interpret. But I can say that I am selfish enough to brag about the smiles that I brought to a few people through the postcards (from the responses that I got). In a world full of uncertainties, I wanted to be that one happy uncertainty even if it lasts for a few seconds. That’s what I think.