A Trip to Jonha !!!

Just to mention, it was not a trip, a small outing instead, with one of my friends and her 6 other friends on 30th March. When they were chalking out the plan, I was contacted and without thinking even for a sec, I agreed. At that time, I never thought I could get bored, but lets face it I was going out with a bunch of people out of which I knew just 1 and two of them I just knew their names, and others I was acquainted on a 'hello,hi' basis . And yeah, I was getting bored and infact, panicking about thinking about the rest of the trip going the same way when it was just 15-20 minutes after we started and it was  40-45 minutes one-way journey.

Ohh, I forgot to tell it was a trip to a waterfall named Jonha at a place named Jonha in the outskirts of Ranchi, almost 30-35 km from my college. 

Here, the waterfalls are not very safe. There have been incidents of drowning, sinisterly motivated bad incidents plus quite aloof places in Jharkhand are themselves not very safe. So, if you respect your parents' opinion even a bit, you won't be allowed to go there. So, many had already backed out. But this was not a problem with me. Not that my parents' opinion doesn't matter to me its just that I can easily persuade them in my favour. I myself am very responsible in cases like these. I think they understand that because I won't do anything to jeopardize something valuable or so I think. Papa Mummy though were freaking out, and when Papa was trying to persuade me otherwise quoting some incidents at some different falls in Ranchi (as those had received huge media attention in their times), Mummy almost started panicking and started to implore so that I wouldn't. I agreed if I felt bad about it I won't. And, suddenly, I started panicking about going there but i couldn't just let this chance slide under my nose. How would it feel telling people I studied in a place full of waterfalls for 4 years and never went to anyone of those. And, plus I'm a taurian with special affinity to water. I just love water-bodies. 

So, I gave in and we started at around 8 1 hour late than what we had originally thought of. We took the auto, an already booked-one. On the way, we talked rather others talked I just sometime jumped in to kill my boredom and most of the time I was unheard may be because I was having trouble mixing up. Others were CSE people and I was the only IT- person. Anyways, we sang first turn-by-turn and then as a "choir" much to the anguish of the auto-driver. The seating was very uncomfortable. Looked like I was the tallest amongst all and I got a seat at the last in the auto which is preferably meant for the shorter ones for whom there is no tension of their head bashing against the roof. I shot up against the roof so badly in the initial 5 minutes only that I decided to sit down on the floor or else someone else switched places with me. Lucky for me Nisha offered and we switched then and there. Bad for me, she too was facing some problem while sitting in the back but she managed, I guess. 

Finally, we reached. Only Matthew had been there before may be some time in 3rd or 4th Semester, otherwise it was a first for everyone else. We were all conjecturing if we first needed to climb up or down because its a common knowledge to everyone here that number of stairs at that place is huge. 5-10 minutes before we reached, it all got mountain-y, surrounded by nice greeen mountains, forests and eveyrthing. It started giving me the feel of some mountain hike. Even though Ranchi is a hill station but human habitation has taken over it. Anyways,  after we reached, we dropped out off Auto and started on our feet. We had our own bags with change of clothes, bottle of water and cameras of course. And yeah, it was a climb up and then a climb down. The climb up is merely of 10-20 stairs and then the climb down was almost 400 stairs. Yeahhh, I know. Looked pretty rejuvenating while going down but at the same time we were envisaging the toil we were to perform when we would be coming back. But anyways, its too sunny these days. By noon, Sun becomes almost unbearable. So, that's why we had planned an early out and early getaway from there around 12 so that we don't have to be there in scratching heat. It was already around 9, Sun was up. But then, we could see down the falls after almost 50 stairs. The stairs were carved out on a hill in a spiral fashion. 
The fall was all dried up. We just couldn't see any water falling down anywhere. We were all stumped. We had forgotten it was summers and it dries up and I had all the pictures of my friends who had come to the place in winters, capering around having fun, flashing through my mind. I was very disappointed I must admit. I thought the trip was doomed. I felt there was nothing to do there. I even felt how lucky those people were who backed out from the plan. Also, Matthew started bragging about how he had already told about what would this place be this time of the year but nobody apparently had lent ears to what he had to say. But, we could hear the sound of water falling down from a high surface, even though it seemed like a very narrow stream but then it was a drop of water in the desert. At first I wasn't able to see that owing to how thin the stream was until we got down.
We took some photographs while getting down trying to capture every beautiful scene on our way. Anuradha, an extra delight for anyone who loves to take photographs and a super-enthusiast for a hike like that.  

We were down. We climbed, jumped and crawled over from stones to stones, dove in water and got to a high-spot. We posed, laughed, photographed. While getting back, Swetha cut herself on a twig which pricked her while she was trying to pick it up and threw it out to so no-one gets hurt. Anisha helped her put band-aids which luckily she had with her. Anisha was genuinely panicking over everybody running and jumping over from one to stone especially over Matthew, and Anuradha. Both were very reckless. Anisha would start yelling at them suddenly in very high-pitched voice whenever she used to see anyone doing anything even a bit riskier. I have to admit, she made us a bit scared. The place where water was falling down was all green because of algae. In fact, the water falling was green after falling through some of the later layers. We decided not to go near that place, I mean place where water was falling which would have been the best place to get soaked-up in time fall was not dried up. But, I went a bit nearer avoiding the green, monsterous algal area but Anuradha then jumped even nearer. It got me enthused even more and everyone else followed. Boys even sat on the stalagmitic structure of the hill which was formed by the water running across it all the year round. We had so much fun already while we were wallowing through the body of water which thanks to God hadn't evaporated yet. It was not very deep, only knee-deep. Splashing water across others' face is an obvious fun activity. Since, it was not freely-flowing water but more of a stagnant water-body, it didn't smell good and had algae at its base. But, we didn't care and soaked ourselves up as much as we could. Yea in the small water-body with slime at bottom nature had managed to salvage for us at this point. 

The only thing missing was we still couldn't soak ourselves head-to-toe. So, after that we jumped inside just so we could float over the water. We sat down and now we were neck-deep. I never had experienced buoyancy like that ever before. I am no swimmer. I actually felt like floating. We all lied down together, again the usual water-pranks but altogether huge fun.

Then after sometime, around 12, we got up. We had just collected all our bags and stuffs, and worn our footwears that we recognized a smaller fall down-hill. Manish and Anuradha went towards it. I joined them. Everybody else followed even though they were not ready at first because we didn't get back for the next 15 minutes. So,it was another 45-60 minutes  to wrap everything up from there and get back. We intentionally disturbed a couple who was busy enjoying the nature and scenery, if you know what I mean.

Then the task of climbing the 400 stairs was looking us into our eyes. No matter how, we had to get over with it. So, without any further ado, we started. We used to climb 40 stairs and take break. Our photographer Manish took our photos incessantly. Not only Manish, I and Rajani joined him in his spree so that he doesn't miss out. Finally we reached our 'destiny'. We were dried up in sun. So, even when we needed a change of cloth, we didn't change except Anisha because unless I took a bath nothing was going to make me feel better about the uneasiness I was in. Anyways, we had water and some chips there while Matthew taught people various locks and self- defense moves. He's a damn strong person. And then,we left for Junglee, the restaurant, one of the popular BIT, my college hangouts.

On way, we again sang, teased Matthew. He is the proclaimed master of annoying people as well. So, it felt nice when I annoyed him so bad that he took my cell and desperately put it on ground somewhere when he couldn't fight me back verbally, mind it otherwise he is indomitable. So, when he asked me what did I think of  myself to which I replied 'very smart'. This agitated him even more and I was enjoying his miseries and I never made our conversation heated up. He can be so childish.  We had our lunch, a session of arm-wrestling. Between Matthew and Anisha; between Matthew and Manish; between Anisha and Nisha. Matthew was the winner everytime, and in one case Anisha when Nisha is the skinniest in the whole college. We got back. I ran to take a bath. After that, took a long nap to comfort my legs which were paining a lot after such a long 'stride'.

A truly fun outing altogether !!!