Beyond the lens

Beyond the lens

While walking towards the cafeteria for lunch on one of those rough days when you just want the day to end, one office friend just shared about her intent to go for river rafting. Suddenly I had a flashback of my stint with this craziness called river rafting. It took me back by 3 years where suddenly in my previous organisation we had a river rafting season wherein everybody around had to share some pics of the river rafting they had been to, over the last weekend or were about their plans of going for it on the forthcoming weekend. Kolad, had become more like a must go destination and the most IN thing of the rains 3 years back.

In those days my Watsapp and Facebook used to get flooded with pics of people grouping with their life jackets on. Few of the pics were of folks sitting on the edge of the raft and eventually floating with their life jacket in the middle of the Kundalika River. The only pictures that used to appeal me were the pics where the groups were busy eating Bhajji Pav and Wada Pav post the rafting session along with a cup of tea. I used to get jitters thinking of river rafting as I was a hard core non-swimmer and non-adventurous types. Except the Bhajji Pav piece rest everything was repulsive.

One maverick friend of mine who used to have all adventurous escapades to maintain his sanity forced me to join him for river rafting on a weekend. I just couldn’t say no to him as even I was keen on getting my tick mark done on this river rafting crap. Through the week I got nervous pangs thinking of what to do if the raft capsizes on any of the rapids. I just wanted to get myself done with this crazy activity.

The D-day arrived and we got into groups to drive towards this rafting site. I was determined to take as many snaps as possible to enjoy my bit of footage of doing river rafting.

In Kundalika River the rapids are created by the damn water that they release at specific timings and we were running late.  We reached the venue did our registration wore our life jackets and immediately after the briefing session sat on the edges of the raft as per the trainer’s instructions. The raft starts sailing on the water and Lo the adventure begins, rapid after rapid and we were swirling in the water, taking deep breaths not knowing when the raft would capsize. It was indeed a breath-taking experience surviving each rapid.

After few kilometres of facing the rapids we entered calm waters. It was bliss to realise that I had survived all those rapids and was out of it. The instructor informed us that now it would be calm waters for few kilometres until we reach the river banks. Suddenly I saw the folks jumping in water. I was pretty sure of not doing any stunts, especially after surviving all those rapids. One by one everybody from my raft jumped into the water but I was stay put in the raft. For me water escapades were only until such time that my feet are touching the ground and my neck is way above water level and here the instructor was telling me get into water where my feet won’t ever touch the ground. The instructor encouraged me to jump into the water giving me full confidence about the safety factor as I was wearing the life jacket. I was reluctant about getting into water but the instructor insisted and after lot of apprehension holding the rope of the raft with lot of negativity I entered the water. Then the instructor suggested me to release the rope which I did and there I witnessed one of the best experiences of my life. I was facing the blue sky floating on water, for the first time I was off my feet floating on water. For the first time ever I just wanted the floating session to go on for the next few hours.

Even after reaching the river bank I was still mentally floating for a while, I could still feel the calm water and the clear blue sky above me.  

The rafting got over and on my way back to Mumbai, I suddenly realised that while I had the best of my time I somehow missed on taking snaps. I was very sad with the realisation that while I completed the entire cycle of rafting I didn’t have any snaps to flaunt. I had actually forgotten to click pictures.

 A co-rafter added some sense to my sadness by just admonishing me saying that forget snaps just think about the experience you had for the last few hours, the snaps may get lost but the experience will stay with you. At that moment whatever the co-rafter said didn’t make any sense to me as the fact remained that the event was over and I didn’t have any snaps.

Eventually now after 3 years it was only when I was narrating the entire rafting event in a high octane manner that I realised the magic and value of experiencing things in life.

Unfortunately, now I only see people busy clicking pictures to be shared with others, rather than actually experiencing the place. I find it very funny when I am sitting in a restaurant and see people clicking pics of the food first before actually experiencing the magic of enjoying the aroma and savouring the food.

Guess what, I changed my phone lost all the snaps which I ever had on my phone, I may even have some trouble recollecting all those events of which I lost the snaps. But, I still remember the rafting experience as fresh as if I would have done it just last weekend for which I don’t have any snaps.  

I hope we get to experience events where we just forget to click pictures and gradually start living beyond the lens.  

 Sachinkodolikar@gmail.com