The Big Bang Trip – Trippers view

We had organized The Big Bang Trip in the month of September 2015 .

Before we dwell into the  intricacies of The Big Bang Trip, it’s important that you understand our purpose and vision for it. The thought came in  the minds of mine and Chandrabhan  when we were in a train journey of similar sorts. The idea is to connect, network, inspire people from various backgrounds so that they look at various aspects of types of people. Along with the general trip activities  we lay stress on the experience of learning. We want you to draw an experience from this trip and use that as a catalyst. Most of us keep waiting for the right time to strike while forgetting  that  the time is always right. The idea is to share stories so that at end of it we have a large takeaway . Therefore people are the most important aspect of this trip . We had some crazy people on the ride.

After that I thought of writing a trippy diary.

So we thought why not present to you a trip summary written by a tripper himself which might just give all a better point of view .

Sandeep Nanu who travelled with us wrote this:

“Thanks to some last minute work for some clients I had not even bothered to check who these Trippers were going to be. Just before my flight to Delhi is when I did pause to think what will be in store for the next 10 days. Told myself, have gone tracking king cobras in the wild, what will 25 odd strangers do? After a big hug to Dips and a huge moral support to Vids to hold fort for the next 10 days, left early morning on the 5th to Delhi.

My entry at Zostel was subdued (it’s just my style, the calm before the storm types) while I recognized some of the faces. Polite hellos were exchanged. After a quick book gifting/signing session with Parul Tyagi, the two instigator sessions followed with Suganda and Charnita. Was good to learn their alternate career paths.

Decided to stop for chai at 8 PM and ended up having dinner instead much to the amusement of Sarpanch saab aka Saurab.

I had the pleasure…eeeks. I was fortunate to have shared my room with Saurab at Rishikesh. Poor chap, wouldn’t have walked so much as he had in one day going from Lakshman jhoola to Ram jhoola to Nirvana café to Buddha bar multiple times. Forcing him to yell “Arrey tuk tuk lethe kya apan?”

Anyway, we decided to leave Delhi on the 5th night to Rishikesh. I thought I will be just like in school trips, sit at the back and scream at every one else randomly. That didn’t last too long when the Bollywood numbers started. Didn’t know one song in that set. Just head banged for a while and took a vicks action 500 after that.

We reached Rishikesh early on Sunday morning. Stayed at Kriya Yoga Ashram. It’s a nice and peaceful ashram with the regular ashram type restrictions. Like no shorts, no sleevless, no smoking, no drinking, no talking loudly…I think they are high on oxygen. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuh! (Trippers will understand this style of laughter).

Walked around a lot here. I had set out for a morning walk as the oldies, I mean the youngsters wanted to take rest. Met one yogi of sorts who tried to con me to cough up more money after I gave Rs. 20. Speaking of cough, bless you Karthika. The yogi used some sleight of hands to impress me. If only I had my card deck with me.

Spent the two days walking around and exploring the place. We also witnessed the famous Arti on the Ganges. And the trek to Neergarh waterfall was stunning. This is where I ended up being the D.O.P for The Chica Way. Was hoping at the end of the video she would say “with camera person Sandeepaani Nanalu in Rishikesh for the Chica way.” This is also where I ended up bonding with 3 of my favorite people in this trip – Sneha, Ashish and Francesca. We were a riot from this point onwards.

The funniest incident at Rishikesh was during a meditation session. We were asked to do shavasana for like some 40 minutes which felt like 2 years. The resurrection positions of Nikhil, Jay, Niraj and Ashish were… well, like ROF and the rest of us were L.

Next up. Kasauli. Done. Then we moved to Kasol. Oh wait, we did some walking around in the evening shopping and visiting a church at Kasauli. This was more like an overnight stay before we headed to Kasol.

Kasol is breathtakingly beautiful. And that good shit people smoke, seems to grow everywhere. Ashish and I went for a long walk in the morning. Post which some of us decided to trek to Chalal. Sat beside the water stream that’s close to our resort and clicked away selfies after selfie.

To the surprise of many, we came to know that an instigator was traveling with us all along. Aakash Ranison. This guy, is the most inspiring person I have met during this trip. He started an NGO at the age of 17. Decided to change his surname from Mishra to Ranison. The reason for that will make your jaw drop. It will take me a while to explain so won’t even attempt it. For those who need to know, his mother, Rani is the most important person in his life and Ranison is actually Rani’s son and thats only half the story. He bikes or hitch-hikes to go from point A to B anywhere in the country. Aakash dude, take a bow.

The ‘Lifeline’ session where we had to plot our high and low points in life to share our stories got us closer to each other.

We finally reached Mcleodganj on Friday the 11th. The place where you will fall in love with the hills. After meeting our final instigator, Abhinav, also realized I may end up moving or atleast spending more time outside Bangalore soon enough. All of us cooked for each other that night, which was another highlight of this trip. Abhinav took us trekking to the secret waterfalls the following day and I think this was possibly the best part of the trip for me personally. No pictures can do justice to the beauty all around.

Back to Delhi and it was time to say our goodbyes to some as they were leaving the same day. Dropping Sneh and Joshi to the railway station had a DDLJ feeling. Actually, don’t know what that means as I haven’t seen that movie.

We partied at the American Garage in Delhi that night with a crazy karaoke session. Chetan with his “It’s my life” and your truly with “Ice Ice baby” ensured the TBBT table made more noise than anyone else.

Can’t thank Chandraban and Chetan enough for making this happen and possibly making a dent in our lives through the Big Bang trip.”

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That is his entry.

Here’s a video made summarizing the trip.

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