One summer (I believe it was the summer after my tenth standard exam), I was to embark on a trek that would leave a memory that would haunt me forever. I had just completed a fabulous trek DurgaYatrawhich covered all the major fortresses of the great Maratha Emperor Shivaji. Trekking had become a passion and I desperately wanted to go for another hiking trip soon.

Along came the opportunity to go for a five-day trek to Vasota a forest deep in the Koyna reservation in Maharashtra. A very famous trekking organization in Mumbai (starts with a name withheld) was to conduct the trek. The commencement of the trek was good. We had the introductions and were given some information about the trek. We were to go to Mahabaleshwar (a hill-station near Pune) and then continue to Bamnoli and from there, take a ferry boat to the Vasota jungle. Once we reached Vasota, we would be put up in tents and enjoy three days of hiking in the dense jungle, go for bird-watching tours with a few knowledgeable experts and participate in other fun activities in general. All this sounded like a great plan. My Aunt, along with her two kids and I were going as a group.

Even to my youthful mind of 14 years, there seemed something strange regarding our team and the leaders. Everyone seemed so aloof and snooty; it was a stark contrast from my earlier DurgaYatra trek, where people had mixed in with the rest of the group so quickly. The people in this group seemed to be highly accomplished in something or the other ABC liked to sketch in the wilderness, XYZ liked to compose songs in the presence of the birds and the bees and so on. None of them made any effort whatsoever, to ask about the other members, be friendly or helpful. As a result, from Day 1 itself, the team was divided and that was one big mistake that the leader did not care to correct. Teamwork is essential for a group trek!

The journey up to Bamnoli was uneventful and the ferry ride was exciting. We had departed from Bamnoli at dawn and reached Vasota in an hour or so. The leader asked us to spend the rest of the morning and the afternoon as we wished, stating that there would be a campfire that night and the following day would be bird-watching day. Our campsite was amidst a clearing at the periphery of the lake and the thick jungle stretched out behind our campsite. We went for a small hike by ourselves
(i.e. my Aunt and us three kids). We looked around to check if any other fellow trekker wanted to join us, but everyone was enjoying by themselves. Our walk lasted for two hours. We had been warned about snakes and leeches and were extra- careful in treading amidst the woods. The foliage was so dense in those areas that not a ray of sun reached in the heart of the forest. All in all, a heavenly morning.


We returned to the campsite for lunch. Lunch was a lonely affair as well. People were too busy to mingle with each other and despite several attempts of our own to initiate a conversation; we ended up having lunch in solitude. After lunch, some of the grownups retired for a nap and the kids upto mischief. Some of the boys decided that they wanted to go for a swim in the lake. They checked with the leader and obtained his permission. My Aunt, cousins and I were lazing about on a green meadow surrounded by trees, singing songs, telling jokes (settings like these remind me of the illustrations in the Amar Chitra Katha comics where a sadhu is shown meditating under a tree in tranquil surroundings). From our slightly elevated location, we could see the boys swimming in the lake. It was so calm and quiet that I feel (now) that it was portentous of an imminent mishap.

We saw the camp leader coming over to summon us all for some announcements he had regarding plans for the night. The boys frolicking in the lake were also asked to return. The co-lead started taking the head count and after counting twice, came to the conclusion that one person was missing. Who could that be? Soon, some of us were sent into the woods to search for that missing person, without knowing it was! Amidst all the confusion, no one thought about looking in the lake premises for the missing person. After about half an hour of a futile search, one of the boys that had been swimming in the lake, proached the leader and informed him that it was a boy (Dhananjay) he had befriended just a day ago, who was the person missing and Dhananjay had been in the group that had gone swimming! The entire team panicked after hearing this horrible news. If the boy had not returned until now, it was highly probable that he had drowned.

All of us huddled together, near the campsite, united all of a sudden and extremely fearful about the outcome. Some of the hikers, who had seemed aloof and snobbish, started wailing and sobbing loudly. Please, let the boy be found! Let us hope he has waded out of the lake and gone for a short walk or something, we were praying. Some families were scolding their kids, saying that it had been a bad idea to go for a swim. No one had warned the kids that the lake was very deep and that swimming in a fresh water lake can be extremely dangerous, especially for kids who have been swimming in city pools!
After an hour or so, we saw some men return to the lake area with long poles. That did not seem to be a good sign. Perhaps they were trying to search for a body, stuck at the bottom of the lake. There was a lot of whimpering going on in our group. I had goose pimples all
over and my heart was beating so loudly, as if bracing myself for some bad events.

It was final the body had been found and the boy had died of drowning. All this was so horrible that all of us were numb and shocked. And someone in the group was asking,So does this mean the remainder of the trek is going to be cancelled? Do we get our money back? It was unbelievable and so incongruous with the situation at hand! By the time the body was found, it was almost dusk and we could not return to Bamnoli then. That meant spending a night in the woods. All of a sudden, things had taken a turn to the abnormal
and the very same woods that we had thought to be a heaven for nature-lovers, seemed to be like a predator. Very few of us ate anything for dinner. I had this lump in my throat that was impossible to get rid of, atleast for that night. I had not even met the boy (thanks to the aloofness of our group and no efforts from team-leader). Without any phone service nearby, his parents had not even been informed yet! The tents were all set up and there was to be no campfire that fateful night. The stupid leader asked us to retire to our tents. To worsen matters, he had allotted a small tent to my Aunt and us cousins, by ourselves! My Aunt requested to share a tent with another family so that we would have some more company (instead of her being left alone with three kids) but no one offered to share a tent and the leader did not use his word of authority either. Furious and fearful, my Aunt returned to our tent. That night has been one of the spookiest nights I have ever spent outdoors. It was very windy, at times the wind howling in the trees and all sorts of strange noises, rustling heard
all around us. It also rained that night, with thunderstorms, but the tent was all-weather resistant. More than once, the wind threatened to sweep away our tent and we had to go out to get large stones to keep it down. The team leader was nowhere in sight! Our group of four stayed awake that night. We had just caught a short nap when we heard noises outside apparently some animals or our imagination. After being rudely awakened by the noises, one of the younger kids wanted to go to the toilet. So my Aunt and I took him outside. It was very cold outside the tent and after returning back, all of us cried. This trek was not fun, any more. The trek leaders were wimps, who had messed up a fun trek by their mismanagement and disinterest in the group.

The next morning, my Aunt related all the trouble we faced during the night and almost hysterically rebuked the leader. We were all to return to Bamnoli by the ferry and accompanying us would be the dead body of Dhananjay. It was all so horrible. Some of the trekkers threatened to destroy the good name of the organization. It was hopelessly
insane people were quarrelling about returns of funds, defaming the organization, while just a few feet away in the boat, there was a dead body.After that fateful trek, I did not
go for a jungle trek again, for a very long time. At times, I would get nightmares about the last few seconds of the boys life, before he drowned. At the back of it all, all of us had that feeling of complacency that we were not the victim. I have no idea as to what happened after we reached Pune. How did the boys parents react, was the organization taken to task? I have hoped that the boy faced a quick death, but it was so remorseful that such a young kid
should die this way.I have never been to Vasota for a trek, ever since. Few points I want to write about here, which could have made a difference :

1. Lack of team spirit amongst the trekkers.
2. Team leader seemed to be an introvert. Team leaders should be bold and fearless in general and should be able to make an event exciting, by initiating conversation.
3. inefficiency on the leader's part to get things in order. Bad planning.
4. Team leader had not warned us in details of the dangerous surroundings we were in - the dense woods, lake depth, etc. He missed some points, which turned out to be the cause of the mishap. Nothing should be left to be 'assumed'! Everything should be explained! Obviously, it is common sense that swimming in the lake is dangerous, and so on, but the kid who drowned was about 11 years old, childish and immature! Heck, even some of the adults in this trek were acting like immature, squeamish kids!
5. The boy who drowned had come alone - without family. In such a case, the leader should have been with the boy, atleast allotted a care-taker or not allow him to go for a swim.

Dunno..perhaps this trek was doomed from the beginning!