Whims published... It's not an expert's opinion, It's not an online diary, It's not a web journal... It is just my whims published

Renting a 'farmhouse'
Walking down for few hundreds of meters with the help of marks that we made on the tree trunks, this time we saw the door of that house open. I went there and spotted a lady there. She said the falls is not that far away from there but she also said from her house we had gone in an opposite direction to the falls! It was disheartening to hear that. I wish some one was here in that house when I had come there while trekking up, we would have reached the falls by then. The sky opened up and big drops of water started falling on the dry leaves on the ground with a thud. With that our last option of trekking down also withered. By then the lady gave us a ray of hope that in the supposed to be direction of falls, there is an empty outhouse owned by a family living close by. That news was sunshine for us in that heavy rain. The lady asked us to follow her, as she herself had to go to that house. On crossing the bamboo fence of that house, she pointed her fingers towards the outhouse saying that was the one she was referring to. We all looked at each other thinking, there could not have been a better ending to our trekking for the day and to celebrate New Year if we get that house for a night's stay. We crossed a small stream of water and entered the house of our potential tenant for the night. There lived an old farmer's family. The lady who had brought us there, explained our situation and requested the outhouse on our behalf in Tulu to the old lady of the house. Though our heavy bags and drenched bodies had almost convinced her how badly we wanted a roof to spend the night, I started requesting again in Kannada to that old lady. The lady who had come with us cut me short saying the old lady does not understand any language except Tulu (Do not be surprised; There is a huge populace in Daskhina Kannada and Udupi who speak only Tulu and does not understand a bit of Kannada. I had seen so many such people near my aunt's house in Udupi). Hearing that I turned to the old lady and uttered, "Tulu barpujji (don't know Tulu)". Listening to that, the old lady grinned showing her stained teeth and replied, "yenka Kannada barpujji (I do not know Kannada)". That was the verbal rental agreement the four of us made with the old lady and her family. The old chap who knew Kannada unlike his wife, inquired if we had carried food for the dinner. I replied in content saying we have enough food. Byre smacked his lips looking at the brood of hens running around in the yard.



The old lady gave us a broom to clean the outhouse before entering in. Jumping in joy for getting a 'farm house' to spend the night, we thanked the farmer's family as well as the other lady and headed to the outhouse. Opening the latched door, we found a spacious hall with a door to the left leading to kitchen. The entire floor of the house was covered with some bird shit. We spotted few bats clinging upside down to the roof. Byre threw an empty plastic bottle to scare them away. The bats gave away hitherto their residence without any resilience to the unexpected guests. We cleaned the bat shitted dirty floor with the broom, spread the tarpaulin we had carried and threw our bodies on the floor. It was still raining heavily outside, after changing our wet clothes we belted Jowar rotis, Sharath had packed for all of us. Tired bodies caught sleep soon after the late lunch we had. After an hour or so we all woke up and saw the rain had stopped, Sun had set. We all went to the nearby stream to freshen up. Returning to the outhouse, we lit a candle. Sitting around the candle we chattered till we started feeling hungry..

Needless to say, the trek to Bandaje falls was a flop. But who cares! Four friends sitting around a candle in a cozy room in the cold night of the Western Ghats munching delicious food to greet a New Year.. I don’t think it could have been better.