Kayaking the Colorado!!

Was that a mistake? Those six hours and sixteen miles? Hmmm.. Lets see... my arms ached like hell for two days and I could not lift my heavy luggage in and out of vans. Ahmmm.. my knuckles were sour for a day and I could not simply open and close my fist without pain. Thennnnnaaammmm... yeah.. my arms got sunburnt and they increased my agony.

Namratha was scared stiff, because she got a dip in the river along with Steve. We mistook her shrieks of horror for screams of pleasure when her boat turned upside down. Dr. Upendra, Steve and Namratha got to spend their second half of the day on the "really vast" sandy beach of the Colorado. I guess, their beach was flooded and they were in the cold water for a couple of hours.

Umesh was wearning his knickers and hence got sunburned on the legs also, and has sworn an oath not to wear anymore knickers for this life and the afterlife. His deep hatred of the knicker race might start another political debate in the near future.

Sushma was bravehearted for the whole trip, kept on smiling. The songs her arms had sung were so audible to me, that I could not help composing a few masterpieces that might become legendary for generations to come.

Was that worth the while and the mile? Boy! I am getting poetic. Well! GSE has its effects after all. And interacting with an Artist has to have its effects, after all.

But with all that happened to us, that might have scared many people who listened to our story, it was the best experience that we have ever had. A lot of people find it surprising to believe that its our best experience as we are supposed to be scared of it. Far from that, we have loved the whole experience.

For me, I have never taken a boat on water!! Not even in a swimming pool!! I dont know how to swim, though I had my Life Jacket on. But, the kayaking was as simple as walking. You just got to figure it out. The first thing that I always get to my mind was how those ancient people lived in close contact with nature and the kayak was their best mode of transport. It was faster and it was easier to reach far of places than walking. You just have to know how to get onto your kayak and row away wherever you wanted to. And that would have been like our present day airplanes. And to imagine those people doing this stuff all the time, was like getting transformed into a different world altogether.

I sat there on the boat, when Namratha's boat had capsized waiting for them to catch up. Listening to the complaints of my arms and telling them, there's more to come, was a tough task. I realized how tough life was those days and at the same time how close to nature those people might have been. Our present day luxuries do make us a lot weaker than we ought to be. Of course, we can argue on and say we dont need to be that way, but that is a debatble topic.

The kayak itself is an amazing boat. Its tough to topple it. You have to really work hard to topple the boat. How did man find out to design such a balanced vehicle? He must have learnt to evolve the design and perfect it. He must have taken boat after boat after boat to the river and tried and tested it till he perfected it. He must have experimented with different types of wood, different surfaces, different ways and means of polishing and bending and joining and what not. What an amazing pursuit would it have been? What pride would he have taken in showing others what he was able to accomplish? What madness would he have experienced in his pursuit? Without this man, we would not have been inspired?

Three of us, Umesh, Sushma and Me finished it to the end, under Neil's guidance. When we made it there, it was a feeling of victory. Of having run down the colorado. Of making friends with the water. Of being in kinship with the waves. Of knowing how to navigate the boat on the waves created by the race boats of the desert storm. Of having known how to trust your body and how to instruct and control it to do what you want to do. Of connecting with the inner spirit of your body and bring it out to link it to the natural world outside. Of discovering your own abilities and limitations.

Of course, you dont need to go on a sixteen mile trip to experience all this. Maybe you could get all that in a three mile drive. But a day long experience with above reflections is a worth while thing. The cold river, the warm sun, the sun burn, the arm ache, the fear, the excitement, the sense of accomplishing something which others could not, the after math, the feeling of victory. Its amazing.