One more road trip. This time with family friends – the Singh family, their son and I (Read my other post – Of friends and tadpoles) were tight buddies. Circa 1975 or 1976 – summer, a one week official and pleasure trip through Karnataka in South India.
Shravanabelabola is a mouthful , it is also famous for a 57 feet statue of Lord Bahubali. (Bahubali). The magnificent statue stands atop a stone mountain. You have to climb about 700 steps to get to the top. That brings me to my story – what Sarvanabelagola is not famous for. A natural large 700 ft (steps) slide (Photos) that can put Disney, Six Flags and Essel World – all to shame for the thrill. It was discovered by me 35 years back and has not yet been commercially leveraged – India should allow FDI in tourism too!
So – we climb the 700 steps to the top and somewhat emabarrisingly admire the naked monolithic stone statue that is more than 1000 years old. About half way down, my buddy and I decide to be a little adventurous and instead of walking down the steps, we decide to walk down the bare rock face of the mountain. All goes well for a few seconds, till all goes crazy for a few seconds – I slip on a patch of sand and in a flash I am on the great natural slide, about 375 ft to go to the bottom of the mountain. Newtonian physics quickly take control and easily overcome the willpower and physical struggles of an overweight teenager! 360 ft to go, my touché is also getting skewered on the hot rock – talk about feeling the heat of the moment.
Picture Credits: Tripadvisor
Certain death awaits me in a few more seconds, Mr.Singh is racing down the steps and despite being a fantastic athlete , gravity and Newton are winning this hands down – till I subconsciously stick my hands out. Miracle! My hands hit a railing post of the steps, I grab it for dear life – creating a pivot and I slide to a stop on to the steps exactly at the half way mark, right in front of the water shelter created for tired visitors – my wife would agree, I do have a way with timing. I come to – when some water is splashed on my face, my heartbeat is millions to a second ( the singh families too). My legs are jelly, my confidence too. The Great Escape 2. ( Read my earlier post on The Great Escape 1: Where is Jhumri Tilaiya? ).
There are a few more close calls in my life and hopefully I will write about them some day. They say fortune favors the brave, I am just happy on that day fortune favored the stupid.
You had an uncanny knack of attracting accidents.....as a nail to magnet in our childhood brother dear...but came out with least injuries if not unscathed.
ReplyDeleteThough I was the one with bandages & torn dresses all the time 😊