Moments

Travel and Talks...

"I am not going into this ball," Sneha shouted, after she saw the slope.

We were at Solang Valley. Actually we were heading to Rohtang, but on our way there, we were told that Solang Valley offers great sporting experiences. So we stopped in between and went there. Normally it's a ski resort, but for our bad luck snow already started melting so there was not skiing available at that time. But they had Zorbing. We didn't waste our time and went straight for it. What Zorbing actually is- a huge ball with 2 people inside it; which is rolled down the top of a hill. We decided to get in it as a boy and girl pair. First went Piyush and Shivani. It was the first time for me to see such a thing. It was rolling and rolling and went on rolling... I was easily able to hear their shouts from inside. Next went Nikita and Shashank, then Abhi and Sweta and then Sarthak and Soumya. My excitation level raised not only because next turn was mine but also because Sneha would be with me inside it. And it was then when she broke all my excitation into pieces, denying to get in.

"Why? What happened?" I asked.

"I can't handle those tilts and turns. I feel like puking whenever I do such things."

Then I understood and thought, it's good to avoid getting in with her rather than inviting her morning churned food on my face.

"It's no fun doing it alone. Can anyone join me? Whoever's interested," I asked to the rest of us.

It seemed everyone got a headache after so many rotations. Their faces told that no one was interested in taking another ride of it. So I decided to do it by myself and went in to that ball. As the volunteers were fixing me on the seat, just then Soumya entered.

"Should I come with you?" she asked with a smile.

I smiled and welcomed her.

"Sure. I wanted someone to join me," I said.

The volunteer experts started the countdown and gave a gentle push to our ball. And there started our screams. We were screaming, screaming, screaming and screaming. Everything was rotating around my eyes. It was little uneasy. I had to fix my eyes to something to get rid of that. I fixed my eyes on Soumya's. She too did the same. Maybe she too felt sick by that time. It was approximately 15 sec of wobbling undulation. After that we were out of that. I yelled in joy and she too joined me. It was one of the 'must try' ride...

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Later we were joined by rest of our group and then carried on with our original plan. We went to Rohtang Pass. Then drove on NH 21; one of the busiest highways during summer. We U-turned our car after a drive of 1 hour on that highway and then went to Hidimbi Devi Temple, a temple related to Mahabharata. Hidimbi was a demon girl who married Bhima, one of the Pandavas. Inside that temple were, a giant rock and a 7 cm of goddess Hidimbi's idol. A rope hangs down in front of the rock, and according to a legend, in bygone days religious zealots would tie the hands of "sinners" by the rope and then swing them against the rock.

"Let's tie you with that rope? What you say?" I asked looking at Sneha.

She gave me a frown look, followed by a more frowned look.

"It's for crooks like you, not me. And by the way you are religiously sceptic, so you have no rights to do so," she said with pride, as if she was the only unadulterated creation of God.

"To kill you, I can even turn into a believer of religions and Gods," I said scornfully and laughed like a real crook. She came and stood next to me the next second and stomped my feet, as hard as possible. No sooner she did this; I was hopping all around the place. Other tourists laughed and made fun of my action. Our friends were used to it, so they were unaffected. Next two days went on the same way- visiting places, trying different varieties of food and so on. First day we went to Pir Valley National Park and Manali Sanctuary, the other day.