juustaritra

'Trekking', the moment this word is heard, one gets infused with a feeling of thrill. I am no different. However never did I get a chance to experience the same, until 23rd January, 2017. It all started on one fine evening, when my colleague Saswata asked me to join him for a trekking trip to Sandakphu. Probably it took me some microseconds to say yes, which was followed by me getting added to a what's app group called 'Sandakphu Trek'. To my delight I found that Subhadeep, Niraj and Subhadra, guys whom I knew from our evening chai breaks (what our managers term as one of the myriad ways of wasting few minutes of the allotted working hours) would be accompanying us.

As days passed by, everyone was getting excited. At this point I need to mention that our ‘pyare Chotuji’, officially known as Subhadeep Kuila was unanimously selected as the team leader (TL), attributed to his prior trekking experience in Sandakphu. As our TL was making all the arrangements, the rest of us happily carried the burden of spreading the excitement, Subhadro being the only exception, as he joined Chotuji for all the hotel bookings. All the rest of us did were sharing photos and temperature screenshots (we were all so excited about experiencing the subzero temperatures, little did we know how troublesome it can be) from google.

At this point I need to mention that when it comes to packing bags, I have a tradition of doing things at the very last moment. Well maybe I am enamored to the ‘last minute rush’ feeling. Blame it on whatever, as usual I needed to buy some essentials and I had saved that activity for the very last day. It was 21st of January 7 a.m. in the morning. I woke up to an unpacked bag and a long list of items yet to be bought. So at around 10:30 A.M. I set out for New Market along with TL, Saswata and Niraj. After half an hour of shopping we felt very thirsty, given the proximity of the New Empire bar and as doctors say quenching your thirst is of utmost importance, we did not waste any time in securing a table at the bar. Everyone had a bottle of beer and then it was again time for some shopping. Finally when we were done, we all were very hungry. After consuming some delicious Bengali dishes at Kasturi, our ravenous appetite was satisfied. When I reached back home I had exactly half an hour of time to pack my bags and get ready. Well though it was challenging, I was able to manage it and reached Sealdah on time. I don’t know what got into us (may be the long hours of shopping you know… It can be really tiresome) our throats again felt dry. This time Tower Bar came to our rescue with four bottles of beer. Finally it was time for the train to depart. As the engine whistled and the wheels started rolling we all were elated. It is needless to mention how excited we were.