H2Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!

Serving my notice period in Lowe.
Relax! Don’t have that feature film script yet. Not even one that stars Himesh!
Come to think of it, haven’t yet cracked the 30 second format. 3 hours is a long way off.
It only means I’m joining another advertising agency. Am moving to Grey Worldwide. (The latter half of the name ensures that it sounds international.)

Have 2 films to see through before I take a break and then join.
First film: Titled ‘Little Monk’
Client: Havell’s (of the electrical fittings fame)
Location: Ladakh (Wow!)

Second film: Titled ‘Verdict’
Client: Greenply (of the sardar bachcha speaking in Tamil fame)
Location: Bombay

So here I was on the late-evening flight to Delhi. Sitting in the Jet lounge with Priti sharing a Coke, bump into Vinnie. He’s all excited about meeting up with A. R. Rahman, missing his flight and being able to use his coupons to upgrade to Business Class.

Landed in Delhi. Picked up and driven past sleazy hotels. Stopped outside Hotel Grand. Didn’t expect much. But like most unexpected things in life, it turned out to be fabulous. Never see a bathroom so ‘tasty’

Early morning flight to Leh. 6 o’clock if I’m not mistaken. And like always I wake up late. Priti is angry. She leaves to check out. I run behind apologizing profusely.

Board the plane. Meet Shivi and his gang. Showed some solidarity. We had to. There were about 9 Indians on that flight. There were skiers. There were trekkers. There were snow jumpers. They were foreigners.

Landed in Leh. Awesome airport. George and his team came to pick us up.
Awesome drive. Was told about ‘ACCLAMATIZATION’ by Shivi. Read about ‘ACCLAMATIZATION’ in the airport. Tried to pronounce ‘ACCLAMATIZATION’ couple of times. Landed in hotel. Hit the bed. Woke up chirpy.
ACCLAMATIZED finally!

George told us that we should try the River Rafting. I said Yesss! Yess! YES! Priti wasn’t so sure. Apart from the fact that I did not know who to swim. We have a shoot that we should complete, death by drowning notwithstanding. And Uddhav’s said that I could die by water. Anyways we decided to go. Gopi and Shruti wanted to come along. But their respective Bosses proved to be Level 9 rapids they couldn’t negotiate.

Cut to a day later. 6: 55 am. I’m out in the lawn. All ready to go.
Rajesh had told me a million times, ‘Brij, bus will come sharp at 7: 30. If you’re not there they will go’

Priti peeps down from her room to see me already there. She rubs her eyes and looks again, I’m still there.
She too comes down. It’s 7:25 am
Tick. Tock,
7:30 am.
Tick. Tock.
7:35 am.
Tick. Tock.
I went down to the dining room, joined Shivi for breakfast.
Some toast, omelets and coffee later its 7:45 am.

The bus has shrunk to an Omni. And is still late. I squeeze in, the driver calls me fat once we reach the town corner and shove us inside a bus.

Then we begin to wait… waiting for it to be 12 people strong.
Finally, 2 guys come in.
We’re 12. And we’re off.

A long winding road and about 2 hours later we reach Chilling. Other buses, Omnis etc await us. Get off the bus, try to find a place to pee and fail. So decide to ‘go’ when we hit the rapids.

Grab a life jacket. Put it on. Wrong size. It looked like a bra. Certainly didn’t feel like one.

The group is summoned. Instructions hurled. I listened intently. Probably, the only time in my life. And boy am I glad?

So we were divided into teams of 9 and shoved into the rafts. The guide, called Babu shifted a few seats. ‘Good fo balanse’ he said.

A few dry-runs (no way! cold freezing ones) and off we were. All set to take on a Level 3 rapid. It was the most we had to negotiate on this expedition. We huffed and we puffed and up came the rapid. We huffed and we puffed and before we knew, it knocked out our stuff.

The raft capsized, and like crumbs of bread chucked by little boys, we popped into the river.

I fell off and started to go down.
First thought: Shit! Am too fat for the life jacket to support.
Second thought: Should have listened to Uddhav and Priti and not come
Third Thought: The film won’t be completed.

And suddenly as if these thoughts had not only left my mind but body, thus making me light, I started to rise up.

As I started rising, I was getting ready to see the sky and remember the Nepali guide’s command, 'If you paul, don’t look at pish. Look up at sky’
I kept going up. I kept going up. Only to come face to face with some dark object over me.
It was the raft.
It was upturned.
I was underneath it.
I was going to die.

Started reaching out. Hand went to the side of the raft. Felt the life-line rope on the sides. Grabbed it and slowly slid from beneath the raft to the side. Kept looking up at the sky and not the pish. From the corner of the eye I saw babu standing on top of the upturned raft. He saw me. There’s still chance.

He came across. Thought he was going to pull me up, but instead attached something onto the side of the raft. He asked me to let go. I refused. He gave the strap held in his hand a mighty yank. I lost my grip. The raft turned over upright. I was looking at the sky. Hands beating about for the life-line.
Finally managed to grab hold of it.

This time, no letting go come what may. Babu came over and tried to pull me into the boat. A small puny Nepali boy trying to hoist in a fat, wet mallu (not Shakeela)
It took him 15 deep huffs and 3 tries to finally get me back on board.

So the non-swimmer in the group was the 1st one in.
Slowly the oars came back in.
Followed by shaken and stirred people.

Finally we were all back. And we had more than an hour to row.

This is a Level 3 rapid. We had a couple of Level 2’s.

Everyone was excited. Everyone had been scared. Even those in other rafts. Priti had been swept away. She was one of the last people back.

There was a lot of chatter. And not all emitting from our teeth. A brief while later, Babu tells us proudly, 'I purposely capsize the raft. If no capsize, no fun. No story to tell friends.'

One word for him, Fool!

(That's me trying to squeeze the life out of him)