During Corona, I was bogged down sitting indoors and started looking for activities. I stumbled upon the Bangalore Trekking group led by Rtn. Abhay Kanjikar owner of Gulliver’s Travels. Abhay had posted on Facebook about a short half-day trek to Haddina Kallu about 97 km from main Bangalore city. The joy of being in the outdoors was exciting. Without a second thought, I registered for the trek. I had no clue what the trek would involve, had not met anyone in person, and with a blank slate I went ahead. 😊

A carpooling method was used to commute and I was picked up at 6 A.M. from Manipal Hospital, HAL Road.  We took the NH48 and NH75, via Kunigal Road, stopped to pack breakfast at Halli Mane restaurant, and headed straight to Haddina Kallu.

Once we parked, everyone started heading towards the top. We took the path of the steps to reach the Anjaneya temple at the top. I started enthusiastically only to realize that the steps were too high for me to climb my pace started lingering, my heart started beating fast and my cheeks were red.

The Haddina Kallu mountain from the base point.

Vijay helped by carrying my bag which had water, candies, and bites. Abhay, Archana, and her son little Shardul tried to help me, encouraging me to proceed. Beyond a point, I realized I couldn’t keep pace with them and there was no point in continuing, I needed a break. I asked them to move ahead and enjoy with the others. I was at a point where the scenic beauty was enamoring. Abhay gave me a small bottle of water, and asked me to sip it and most importantly to keep standing – don’t sit, else your leg will pain. The last words didn’t register. After my heartbeats normalized, I chose a nice corner of a step and sat down. For a freak moment, I thought of going down. I stood up and realized my thighs had become heavy and decided to wait for the group to return. I didn’t know when they would return.

I was looking around when two ladies and a school-going teenage girl Vidya came along.  Vidya was my angel for the day. Her mother and aunt accompanied her. All three were concerned about me. They spoke among themselves and Vidya managed to communicate with a few words of English as she proudly said she went to an English medium school. I can understand Kannada though I can’t speak it. She enquired about my waiting alone and encouraged me by saying that if her mother and aunt could climb so could I. Vidya and her aunt urged me to walk with them and assured me they would take breaks. I started with them, very slowly, Vidya’s hand couldn’t support me much so I was crawling on the steps, seeing that the aunt broke a branch and gave it to me as a walking stick. They encouraged me constantly. They kept telling me that I was almost at the top. I was exhausted, my legs were paining, and my heart was beating loudly, I stopped, thanked them clicked a pic with Vidya, and sat down again to rest. In a couple of minutes, Vidya came running saying that the temple was just a few steps away. I thought this was endless.  They had already encouraged me to climb so much for which I was grateful  I refused and took some deep breaths. I thought I’d go down when the group started walking down. What didn’t occur to me was that the return journey would be equally painful and time-consuming.

As soon as I saw the group members, I stood up armed with my walking stick all ready to start the return journey. Oh!! the pain, my thighs had become stiff. I could barely move my legs. Holding the stick in one hand I started walking down, only to realise I needed a hand. My second angel for the day was Shardul a little boy of 12 years who happily offered to help. The first thing he said was, you were almost there why didn’t you visit the temple? My legs were stiff, I couldn’t bend my knees easily, and walking down became painful. Shardul entertained me with the day’s adventures and patiently took me down, he waited in between giving me time to breathe, gave me candies, and encouraged me to keep walking as we had almost reached. By this time I was shaking, red in the face, ready to collapse, and was standing tall only so that I wouldn’t frighten the little boy.

Finally, I reached down, the group was waiting patiently for me. Everyone clapped and cheered me for completing the trek. I was also beaming with relief. I had two glasses of sugarcane juice which refreshed me. My thighs were paining for a week, despite painkillers. I decided never to trek again, but the next time Abhay announced a trek I was the first to enroll. LOL.  Thus began my trekking journey in my mid-50s.