The Night at Spooksville

In 2005, I went for a trip to Yamunotri with an IITK friend and his brother. Below is an edited version of the email I wrote when I got back to mainstream civilization.

I thought I should tell you about my trip. I did see Yamunotri, but that wasn't the most interesting part. Now that I am safely back, I can tell this to you.

Yamunotri finished earlier than we thought. Back at Barkot, we had some time left. The other two wanted to see Dehra Doon, but I wanted to see this beautiful stretch of road between Barkot and Dharasu, which we had chanced to pass. Having seen it only from a crowded bus, I was looking forward to a more leisurely look. They weren't interested. Rather than coercing a decision, we decided to part ways and meet at Dehra Doon.

Now, I knew where the place was, but it was a 10-15km walk from Barkot. I inquired about the nearest place on the route and was told that there was a place, Brahmkhal 43km away. That was beyond the stretch I was looking at. I decided to ask this GMVN guest house in-charge. He didn't have any ideas. Firstly, I found it very difficult to convey that I wanted to see the place only and nothing else. I decided to look at the map at the guest house, when a name caught me. Ginoti was 20 km from Barkot. And it had a GMVN bungalow to stay in. Brilliant! Off I was to Ginoti.

As the bus went, the scenery got very beautiful. I thought I should simply get down and walk. Asking people about Ginoti being walkable, I could see an expression of "Why the heck would you want to get down here! Relax and wait." Simple things are sometimes hard to communicate. Then, we passed a temple. Voila! I said that I wanted to see the temple and got down. Ginoti was 5 km from there, I found out. After looking into the temple, I decided that I must rearrange my money before proceeding. I went to a lonely spot off the road and put money in my socks and in my bag. They could take everything from me, but I would still have the money in my socks to return. I reminded myself not to offer any resistance if robbed. It was 4 PM when I began my walk.

It was a great walk. The road was at an elevation I could see far on all sides. I observed the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and how it changed when the wind got faster. I leisurely took photos lapping up the scenery that lay in front of me. Birds tweeted. I noticed the different shades of green on the trees. At one curve on the road, the wind made a small thunder like clapping as it blew on the rocks. The weather was just perfect for a walk. Passing vehicles gave me puzzled looks. Why in the world would someone, especially a well dressed tourist be walking like this.

Finally, I reached Ginoti at 5:30 PM. I looked for the so called bungalow, but couldn't see it. On asking, I was told that it was further up. I went and finally found the "bungalow". It looked like a doll house actually. It was open, but no one responded when I called. I asked some villagers and they said that the guy must be inside. I searched inside to find a sleeping man. On waking him up, he gave me keys to my room and told me to go to the room upstairs. I went to the room. Pretty decent, no problems for one night.

Having unloaded, I went to see the village. People there were puzzled. Kids stared at me and then talked amongst each other "Angrez hai". I was more preoccupied with the place. It was breathtaking, one of the most beautiful places I had seen. There were valleys on 3 sides. There were pine trees on one side, thick dark greened trees on another and other varieties on different faces of mountains. The sun was perfectly placed too.

I went back to my room at 6:30 PM. It dawned upon me that I would have to spend the night here. I had nothing to entertain myself; no books, no music, no writing pad, only myself. I thought I'd go and have tea at 7 PM, come back by 8, have dinner and sleep. As I sat, a lot of thoughts came to my head. I was the only outsider here, and very conspicuous. Everyone in the village knew about me. What if there were thugs amongst them? I looked at the bolt on the door. It could keep thugs out for a minute, perhaps. Where could I run? I could go to the bathroom and let them take anything they wanted. I would have the money in my socks. What if they decided to kill me anyway? Who would know that I was here? My friends would know something was wrong, but they wouldn't be able to trace it here. Stories of disappeared travellers came back to me. Should I call up someone and tell them so that they know where to look for me if I didn't return? There were no bloodstains on the room. I guess such a thing never happened here before. But who knows? It takes only one delinquent in an otherwise sane village, to do it.

Also, what if the in-charge of the guest house was a Norman Bates of the movie, "Psycho"? After all, this was a kind of a motel in the middle of nowhere. And it would only be a crazy freak like me who would end up here, all alone. The in-charge guy came and asked about the room. He seemed sane. I went down with him and he gave me the torch that I would require for the night. We chatted as he made dinner. He told me about how boring his job was. No one came there. The last visitor had come the previous year. What!? This could indeed be Norman Bates! He then told me about his family at Tehri and all. I asked him about dacoities in the region. He said there was no such thing there. Also, he would be downstairs in case I needed anything in the middle of the night. What a relief! I might wake up alive the next day.

After dinner, I went to my room. Daylight faded and it got spooky. I was nervous. I lit the kerosene lamp and felt better. I did some jobs like washing my feet and all and for the time being forgot where I was. When I was done, at thought occurred. The stars would be beautiful, here in the mountains up at 2000+ metres. There were dogs barking outside. They seemed far enough and so I went out. I then realised that the lamp in the room, the only light in the area, was visible from far. All the dogs could see me. Should I close my door? But then, where would I run if a dog came after me? As I star-gazed, the barking became more incessant and directed at me. I couldn't even see the dogs. I remembered "The hound of the Baskervilles" and pictured a dog with gleaming eyes rushing at me. Heart pounding, I ran back in and bolted the door. Too bad about the stars. Let me sleep.

I was still scared. In the pause between dog barks, I sometimes heard sounds from close quarters. It was sometimes the wind hitting against a patched window or some weird creaking noise. The quieter it was, the more noises I heard. My imagination took over. "What if I hear this noise just outside my room?" The thought sent a shiver down my spine and I hastily distracted myself. I began remembering some ghost stories, a coughing man.. Damn! Why did I know so much! There was no soul around except for Norman Bates downstairs. Should I go to him? I pictured my sister in this situation. I thought, I'm much braver than her in this kind of situation. I must spend the night here. I, of 23 years, who took this crazy path, can do it. I tried to distract myself. Physics problem didn't help. Planning my next few days and about leaving IITK didn't work either. The only thing left was to think of girls, picture me going around with this amazing girl who also enjoyed adventures like the one I had taken. Imaginary company has to do when one can't get real company. Finally I slept.

I got up. Yes! It's morning and I am alive. I had survived. I looked at the time. Should be 4 AM. Sun would rise at 5 and then no more Spooksville. Even the most conservative estimate from me would've been wrong. It was 12 AM. I still had a long way to go. The dogs were still barking, now from all sides. This was reassuring now. I wasn't alone. I managed to sleep again. I woke up at 2 AM, sneezing and coughing. The pillow and rajai were indeed dusty. I flipped my pillows, took a blanket instead of the rajai and was ready to sleep, when I realized that I wasn't scared. Now, why not go outside and see the milky way. The dogs were silent too. I went out and looked at the sky. There was the Milky Way! Beautiful. Can I take snap? The sky had a nice glow to it contrasting it from the land. Suddenly, barking began and it seemed like the dog was coming towards me. I ran in and shut the door. Good-bye Milky Way.

I slept and was woken by the breaking of day. It was 4:40 AM. Great! Now, I am through with the night. I went back to sleep. I was suddenly startled by a loud scratching noise in the room. This was as close as it could get! What was that?? As I lowered my blanket and looked, no one was there. It was the birds who nested in the roof. Apparently, their morning began quite early.

As the sun rose, the place looked very calm. Why was I scared at all? I went around the village again and took pictures again. Now, I was only focused on getting out of there. No more adventure. I talked to Bates, watched school children of a nearby school play, ate biscuits and tea and then finally left.

If you are curious to know what place could so attract my attention, and what Norman Bates looked like, here are the photos I took.

Spooksville

Air tour of DC

It happened one day. My Chitti was visiting Washington DC and then asking about her upcoming flight to St. Louis. I saw her seat number 12F and casually said, “You’re on the right side of the plane to see the DC monuments, if the aircraft takes up the right way. Wait… it is close to winter and there should be the winds from the Northwest. The aircraft is very likely to take off the right way. You should get a good view of DC.” It was only when I saw surprised faces that I realized that what I said sounded strange to all, and that they couldn’t quite get how I could make such a statement. At that time, I thought that a little explanation would suffice to explain the obvious. It took much more than that. Looking back, I guess this thing was a coming together of many interests of mine and of course, my numerous trips to St. Louis from DC Airport (DCA).

When flying in an airplane, I love to look out of the window particularly during landing and taking off to see if there is anything I can recognize. I get a thrill in recognizing I-95 or the interchange between I-95 and the Baltimore beltway, or perhaps the Chesapeake bay. Most people are content getting an aisle seat and taking a nap or reading during the flight, whereas I look forward to the take-off and landing along with whatever else I get to see, clouds and daylight permitting. Then again, things are boring if I’m landing in a place I don’t know, or if we’re taking off over countryside. There is nothing I know about Denver, and all farms look alike from the air.

I never flew out of the DC Airport (DCA, although actually in Arlington, Virginia) until my sister moved to St. Louis. While the other airports in the area, Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) and Washington Dulles (IAD) take off far in the suburbs, DCA is in the heart of the city with all the famous monuments. Initially, I would wait for the plane to take off and try to see what I could. With each trip to St. Louis, I began to learn more about the airport and the surroundings. There was only one runway used. If you were lucky, it took off or landed the right way and you could either see the monuments of DC, or the tall buildings of Rosslyn in Virginia. Doing it long enough, I began to trace the plane route all the way until the outskirts of DC metropolitan area. If I do it long enough, I'll probably trace the route until St. Louis!

Having biked to UMD campus for a year, I learnt about the ways in which the winds blow in the area. Encountering a particularly difficult windy day on my bike, I would check weather.com to see what direction the wind was in. Winds were strong in winter, and usually came from the North-West, blowing steadily at a whopping 30-40 km/h. Biking against the wind feels like someone holding your bike from behind preventing it from moving. Biking with the wind allowed me to hit 62 km/h (as measured by my bike speedometer), the only time I violated the speed limit! You could measure the speed of the wind if you were lucky to be moving in the exact same direction. When you hit the wind speed, the air around you is suddenly absolutely still, giving a surreal kind of feeling when you're moving that fast. After the necessary calibration, I became so good that I could do a bike ride and then reel out the temperature, wind direction and wind speed.

Reading up about the weather, I found out that the cold winds came from the Great Lakes in the North west. A north west wind was a precursor to cold weather, while the rare south east wind made things warm, cloudy and a maybe a bit of rain. I came to appreciate what the Himalayas saved the Northern plains of India from.

If there was one thing I learnt from my father being in aeronautics, it was that planes always take off and land against the wind. Wind flow on the wing of the plane provides the necessary lift. If the plane flies with the wind, it gets no lift and will simply fall like a rock. So, if the wind was from the NW at 50 km/h and you needed a wind flow of 300 km/h to take off, taking off against the wind requires you to go from 0 to 250 km/h, while taking off with the wind needs you to go from 0 to 350 km/h. The first flight used a 43 km/h head wind. Other constraints apart, runways are built so that aircraft will most likely take off against the wind. If the wind direction is reversed one day, planes will reverse their direction on the runway for that day. As you might expect, the DCA runway is expectedly built NW - SE parallel to the river. Taking off or landing from the NW gave you a view of the monuments.

When people talk about taking a tour of DC, they usually mean either walking the mall or perhaps driving Pennsylvania Avenue, where you see all the monuments. However, I had the fascination of seeing all the monuments at once from an aerial viewpoint. They look prettier from outside and sometimes even from a distance. Most visitors I’ve taken to DC have been content seeing the monuments from outside. With my fascination for views from the plane, I wanted to have the complete air tour of DC. While that happened early enough, I wanted an encore, but this time with my camera ready. It turned out to be one of those elusive things where I couldn't get everything right. I was on the wrong side of the plane. The plane took off the wrong way. It was night time. It was misty. Some things were easy to fix. I always had my camera with me. I made sure that I was on "row F" while taking off and "row A" while landing, so that if the aircraft did take off or land the right way, I would have the good view. Of course, other things weren't in my control and so I just had to hope that if I did it often enough, I should eventually get everything right.

Finally, it happened. After nearly a year and 6 flights to St. Louis, I was on the right side of the aircraft with the good view. Being October, the winds from the NW had begun, the plane took off in the NW as I would expect, and I was on row F ready with a camera. There was still some mist, but I got things nevertheless. Mission accomplished! When returning from St. Louis that time, I was on the afternoon flight. As with habit, I had chosen Row A. I expected the plane to land from the South East (so that it would be against the NW winds). But as it came near, the flight didn't take the usual path and suddenly it struck me, it was going to land from the NW, it was sunny and clear outside and I was on Row A ready with my camera. It was an absolute treat and rather than describing it, here are the pictures

DC Air Pictures

All that done, we come back to the present, and I hope I've been able to explain myself. As to whether Chitti got the air tour, it turned out that I was right and she got the tour. However, a minute into it, the plane went into the clouds! There are some things you can't predict.