Chapter 18
If I Can Make It Up This Mountain with an Unhooked Bra and Butchered Confidence, What Makes You Think You Can’t?
Prabalmachi, Saturday
It’s so dark outside I can barely see my hand in front of my face. Flashlights are flicked on, and I have to squint to let
my eyes adjust to the light.
“All right, everyone, gather around,” Jalaj says. He points to a flickering dot of light in the distance, nestled among the
dark mountains. “That’s the base camp we’re trekking to. We’ll head there, eat our food, and get some sleep before the trek
to the Prabalmachi peak point.”
Digha gasps. “That’s the base camp? But it’s so far away.”
“It seems far away, but it’s just a one-and-a-half-hour trek.”
“And you think that’s short?” Digha says, her eyes wide. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Varun says, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “If it gets tough, I’ll carry you.”
And who’s going to carry me if I collapse? I think, obviously not voicing it out loud but concerned nevertheless.
I’ve never been a fitness freak or even someone who exercises regularly. I spent most of my free time caught between studying
and extracurriculars, and I was on zero sports teams. I did try track for a while but failed miserably at it. And by “failed
miserably,” I mean stumbled, rolled, skidded, and fell flat on my face during a relay race, nearly impaling myself on my baton,
in front of what seemed like the entire school (actually it was just a bunch of freshmen, but that doesn’t make it better).
If I had any hidden talent for exercise, I’d know by now.
Priti gyms regularly; she’s got those washboard Disha Patani abs, and she’s flaunting them right now in her black tank top
and spandex yoga pants, her jacket sleeves knotted around her waist. I’m sure she’s going to have no problem trekking.
I don’t know the college guys well enough, but they did mention earlier that they’d been trekking all summer, so I’m assuming
they have some experience. Varun said he’d carry Digha if he had to, so I’m guessing he does as well. Charu said she’s done this same trek
before, and she looks pumped. Rudra’s lean, but that’s no indication of stamina.
That leaves Digha and me. We exchange an uneasy smile as the group shuffles forward, and I’m reassured because there’s at
least someone who’s feeling the same way as me.
We follow the dark, tree-bordered path zigzagging up the mountain at a steady incline. At first, the route is easy to follow.
The trees aren’t thickly interknit around us, so the path is weakly lit by the creamy moon.
But it starts to get rocky about ten minutes in, and that’s when I hear myself panting out loud.
My T-shirt is already damp with sweat, cloth sticking to my spine and stomach, because places near Lonavala, while cold, are still humid.
Perspiration forms droplets on my face, and I wipe at it hastily with the back of my hand, feeling icky.
See, this is one of the main reasons why I despise exercising and working out. I sweat a lot, and anything that gets me moving for more than five minutes has the tendency to make me look like a soaked rat. Now, I’m
not sure if it’s my tight sports bra that’s making it harder to breathe, but I’m wheezing so loud that Rudra, who is walking
a few feet ahead of me, pauses to look back.
“Hey,” he says. “You need some help?”
“N-no,” I say, but my voice comes out as shrill and airy as a half-assed whistle. I manage to trek for a minute more, the
path getting trickier with each passing second, before my lungs feel like they’ve caught fire, and I can’t walk another step,
close to blacking out.
Luckily, Digha times out before me. She raises both her hands, palms perpendicular to each other, and barely manages a croak.
I slump against the nearest rock, breathing deeply, in and out, in and out, until some of my lost consciousness pours back
into me.
Once I feel reassured that nothing I swallow will go down the wrong pipe, I take long gulps of the water mixed with ORS from
my bottle clipped to my fanny pack. I empty half the bottle down my throat.
Much better.
This is barely the start of the trek, not even the highlight, which is the journey to the Prabalmachi peak and watching the
fireflies. Jalaj said the base camp is an hour and a half from the starting point; it’s been, like, thirty minutes, and I’m
done. Screw my enthusiasm from earlier; I should’ve known I wasn’t built for this.
Around me, the wind lightly rustles the leaves and branches of trees, darting between gaps in the wilderness and wrapping me in cool comfort.
We’re paused at a slanting, rocky climb, gravel and loose stones sliding and crunching under our feet.
Although it’s dark, my eyes have adjusted better to the little light the moon provides, and I can make out the others’ silhouettes.
Because of my embarrassing slowness, I’ve somehow drifted to the very back of the group.
Great, now I’ll be the first to get eaten by a bear if it decides to target our group from the back.
I tilt my head up and look at the sky, gaze flicking from one star to another, then another, then another, my vision swimming,
until it’s time to resume walking.
“Single file, everybody,” Jalaj says as Varun begins scaling the rocky incline, one hand holding Digha’s and the other stretched
out to balance his frame. “If you’re sure-footed, you can climb with just your feet; think of it as ascending steep, tall
stairs. If not, don’t hesitate to go down on all fours. The more limbs you have steadying you on the rocks, the more your
body will feel grounded.”
The others follow. Three of the college boys, then Priti, who doesn’t need to use her hands at all. She uses her long legs
to propel herself up from one rock to another. The remaining college boys follow, then Charu, who gingerly goes down on all
fours, using her hands to help with the climbing.
Rudra looks back at me, at the (possibly) empty space behind me (unless there’s a bear waiting in the shadows of bushes for
the right moment to pounce), and motions me forward, saying, “After you.”
I hesitantly survey the climb. It looks easy enough. Now, if I crouch right, like Charu did, I might just be able to do it.
I grab a rock sticking out about a tenth of the way up the incline, using the support to pull myself up. I repeat the motion
a few more times and, with a steady hold on the rocks, scale diagonally upward. There’s a crunch of gravelly mud behind me
as Rudra starts climbing.
At the very top, I clutch a rock and hoist myself up . . . but it comes loose and tumbles out of the way, narrowly missing hitting Rudra in the face. The sudden loss of grip makes me lose my footing, and my foot scrapes the slope, sliding into empty air.
I let out a squeak, knowing, in those disastrous few moments, that I’m going to fall hard and injure myself and bleed out
and possibly die—
A hand snakes around my waist from my left, holding me in place. I wince as my bare knee scrapes against the sharp ridges
of a stone. Heat blooms, blood trickling out in ugly dots.
My foot flails for a second or two before finding a hold again.
“Just reach for that rock there,” Rudra says beside me, taking my left hand, which lost its grip on that dratted two-faced
bitch of a rock. He guides it up, releasing it only when I’ve gripped one much more stable than the last.
The pain in my knee is sharp and piercing. But Rudra’s hand is on my waist again, diverting my attention, his fingers touching
my bare skin where my T-shirt has ridden up underneath the strap of my fanny pack.
His hand is warm and steady, holding me with the assurance of a guitarist holding his instrument. I turn to look at him, and
our eyes lock in the semidarkness.
“You steady?” Rudra asks, his voice soft. “You lost your balance there.”
“Yes,” I squeak, the near-death experience making me ramble. “Yep. Super. All cool. Never been better.” Stop talking. For the love of god, please stop.
“I’m going to need you to get to the top,” he says, motioning to the break in the rocky wall on his left, which reveals nothing
but dark-green blades of grass and damp, monsoon-soaked mud. “I can’t climb until you do.”
I nod, trying my best to ignore the feeling of his hand cupping my bare hip and failing miserably.
He grips my calf as I shimmy up the last bit, giving me a boost. The pads of his fingers elicit a tingly, tickly feeling as they touch the soft, thin skin right behind my knees, and it’s all I can do to not let it faze me.
I get to my feet, dusting dirt and tiny stones from my body, watching as Rudra edges himself to the middle, climbs, and joins
me. He’s covered in dust and grime, and there are dark patches of sweat where his T-shirt sticks to his body, his hair coming
undone from his bun, and yet, he smells so good it’s unfair.
We both sit in the dirt for a few seconds, staring at each other in the flashlight of my phone. My mind goes back to the moment
on the bus, his hands roving through my hair, his breath skittering over my neck and ear. I break eye contact first, getting
to my feet, ignoring the sharp pain in my knee.
“Will you be able to walk?” Rudra asks, standing and pointing to the scrape on my knee.
“Yeah, it’s just a scratch,” I say. “I’ll clean and bandage it at the camp.”
“Guys, what the hell.” Priti materializes from the darkness between the trees, her hair wildly framing her face, flashlight
bouncing around. Jalaj and Charu are right behind her. “Could you be any slower?” Priti glances down at my knee, noticing
the scrape. “Wait, what happened? Are you okay?”
At first, I’m so startled that those words came from Priti’s mouth, I have no clue how to respond. But Rudra speaks up, saving
me from the embarrassment of not being able to say a simple Thanks, I’m fine.
“She slipped. Didn’t fall, though.” He doesn’t say anything about how his hand grabbed me at the right moment, how it felt
on my bare waist, how close we stood on those rocks together . . .
“We have first aid at the camp,” Jalaj says. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay,” Priti says, looking between Rudra and me. “So can we go now?”
“Yes,” I say, ignoring the twist in my chest, fighting the temptation to attempt to gauge Rudra’s expression.
The rest of the trek to the camp goes much better. I narrow the problem of my breathlessness down to my bra and swiftly unhook
it when no one’s looking. I can breathe much better after that, so I’m not panting like a dog as much.
The night air gets cooler, and the sweat ices on my body, making me shiver as we ascend. There are multiple stops along the
way, small hutlike constructions that Jalaj says are juice stands and chaat stalls run by the locals during the day. A wave
of shame deluges me. The locals make this ascent every day to tend these stands. And they do it while carrying heavy stuff, like water cans, fruit and vegetable baskets, and jars of sugar and salt.
And here I am, struggling to make it up with an unhooked bra and a fanny pack.
“Ohmygod, look!” Digha calls out suddenly, making us stop in our tracks. My heart stutters, and I think that the bear has
finally caught up to us and is going to rip me open on the forest floor—
Fireflies.
Above us, glowing against the dark shadows of interlocking branches, are hundreds of fireflies, flashing in perfect synchrony.
“Switch off your torches,” Charu says. “Bright lights interrupt their mating process.”
All the lights go off, one after the other, and we’re veiled in darkness again. I gape at the fireflies in awe. They’re like
tiny drops of lemon-yellow light, bobbing and twinkling all around us. I’m so mesmerized by the sight that I don’t even get
my phone out to capture the view, but the others do.
“Fuck Android, man,” Varun says, groaning. “Can’t see shit.”
“Perks of having an iPhone,” Priti says, grinning as her shutter goes on and off, capturing pictures.
Varun grumbles, muttering something about how he would buy an iPhone if he weren’t broke, then shoves his Android back into his pocket.
“You’ll see more up ahead, especially during the second leg of the trek,” Jalaj says.
Priti accidentally turns on the flash on her phone as she takes another picture, and all of us protest in unison, horrified
yelps cutting through the silence of the forest.
“Jeez, I’m sorry,” Priti says, nearly flinging her phone to the ground in shock as we all attack her. “What’s the problem, though?”
“The fireflies take it as a threat,” Charu says. “They’re all competing for the females’ attention, and any light that bright is an alpha to them. It discourages them.”
The funny image of a dejected firefly packing its things into a potli and giving up on mating pops into my head, and I giggle.
The others glance at me, and I cover my mouth with my fist, the humor only furthered by their expressions.
“What?” Priti asks, lips pursed.
“Nothing.”
“Hey, look, there’s one!” Digha says, pointing to a spot about a foot above our heads. The firefly floats above us, secluded
from the swarm. “Why’s it not with the others?”
“You demoralized it, Priti,” I say, snorting.
“Ha ha, very funny,” Priti says, rolling her eyes so hard, I’m convinced she can see inside her head.
“Fireflies have cliques,” Charu says, grinning. “If you’re not cool enough to flash like them, you’re kicked out of the group.”
“Look what you did, Priti,” I say, my lips turned downward but mirth making my shoulders shake. “You’ve bullied the poor thing
out of getting laid.”
Priti smacks my arm, annoyance written all over her features, but I don’t miss the slight twitch of her lips before she turns
away from me and hides her smile.