Rafting and thoughts...

Let me confess at the onset – I am not one of the bravest people around! Darkness scares me and so do ghost stories. But the one thing that can completely freak me out is the fury of mother nature. However rich/poor, strong/weak, popular/unpopular you may be, when nature strikes, everyone is brought down to the same level!

My latest encounter with the same was on a trip to Rishikesh. Rafting sounds like an exciting and adrenaline pumping adventure .. but all said and done, when I sat in the raft and we saw the fury of the ‘Golf Course’ rapid rising in front of us, there wasn’t a throat on the raft that did not go dry.

Rafting is like life. It seems like a great journey and we all look forward to having a great time! Experts (read people who have been through this already) tell us of the pitfalls that lie ahead and caution us not to be too confident, but we don’t give them much credit and think we can face anything – after all, countless people have done this before. The lull before the rapids rock us into a false sense of security. And then, we hit the rapids. While in the rapid, the mind goes blank…you just row like mad and pray that you don’t fall out. But once the worst is over, the fear vanishes and it doesn’t seem so bad in retrospect after all!