Surviving leeches and the wild for nearly 55 hours

Sashidhar who, along with Vivek, was lost in Western Ghats recounts a harrowing tale of survival in teeth of fading hope Aron Ralston wrote in Between a Rock and a Hard Place: “You’ll never find your limits until you’ve gone too far.” Most of you may remember Ralston better when he was reprised by actor James Franco in the nail-biting film 127 Hours. And while Sashidhar Shivakumar, a Hyderabad-based techie, may not have had to saw off a limb to save his life – like Ralston – he certainly had to overcome gruelling hardship to get out of the Chikkamagaluru forest alive. Sashidhar’s story,in his own words… The thing about Baba Budangiri is that once you visit it you can’t really stay away for too long. After last year’s trek, I was waiting for an opportunity to visit again and finally I managed to join nine other trekkers on Sunday [August 9]. We started our journey from Galikere (four kilometres from Baba Budangiri); our destination was the hill station of Kemmanagundi. We set out at 9 am fully expecting a beautiful day’s trek, and hoped to reach Kemmanagundi just as the sun set. But around 2 pm trouble set in; we seemed to have hit a dead end. The trail usually skirts the hills and at one point crosses dense shola forest. But this was the monsoon and a thick fog had set in, lowering visibility. That coupled with the fact that fast-flowing streams had washed away much of the trail, making navigation nigh impossible. In fact at one point the visibility got so bad that we couldn’t even see the person standing a few feet in front of us. At 2 pm we took stock of the situation and realised that we may need to retrace our steps and head back to Galikere – something none of the trekkers was keen on. After a brief discussion we decided to keep moving forward in the hope that the rain would ease and the fog lift. It was then that I, along with Vivek Gupta [a lab technician from Hyderabad and my fellow trekker] decided to forge ahead on our own and see if we could find the path. Once we did that, the idea was we would return to the main group and then move ahead together. Vivek and I decided that we would walk on for about 15 to 20 minutes and see what we could find. The minutes swept by, the path still remained hidden or washed away. At that point we spotted a low hill and decided to climb it to get a bird’s eye view of our surroundings. Maybe we could spot something from up there. But the rain made the climb treacherous, and it took us the best part of three hours to crest the hill, braving a torrential downpour and gusty winds. The view from the top was bleak with most of the area shrouded in a carpet of thick fog. We also realised that our ’15-minute’ trailblazing had now lasted well over three hours. Would the rest of the team wait for us? The descent was as treacherous and we soon found ourselves groping in the dark, still some distance from where we thought we had left the group. Not only that, it now dawned on us that we were completely lost. We knew we had to play the waiting game and outlast the inclement weather, but we were completely unprepared for a hunker-down situation. All we had on us was some water, a compass and a few tablets; no mobile phones. Without shelter we were left to the mercy of our environment. We decided to last out the night at the next stream. All around us the night was black as pitch with no sign of civilization. We settled down onto the forest floor and hoped to catch a few hours of sleep before the sun rose. A few hours after we lay down we began to sense there was something crawling over our bodies. We soon discovered we were covered in leeches slowly sucking the blood from our bodies. Vivek and I quickly came to the conclusion that the floor was no place for humans, and we climbed a tree to get some shut-eye. That was wishful thinking: We were so afraid of falling from our designated branch that we stayed up all night. We were cold and wet and that only made matters worse. We sat, silently shivering, waiting for dawn to break. Monday morning dawned with our stomachs rumbling. We were hungry, but we could live with that considering the numerous streams made quenching our thirst an easy proposition. Our empty stomachs, however, were rumbling and would not let us rest. We were surrounded by fruit-laden trees, but since we didn’t know which ones were poisonous we resisted the temptation to gobble them. We found a clearing and checked the compass. We then headed North in search of our final destination. All of Monday we walked, but the end still eluded us. We began to fear we were walking in circles. Occasionally we shouted out in the hope that someone would hear us, but the strong winds drowned out our cries. Our hunger grew and our legs began tiring. Hope began to ebb with our fading strength. We realised this would be a long haul if we come out alive, and it was imperative to keep our spirits high and this is what we did exactly. Vivek and I were trying to boost each other’s confidence saying that we might have lost the way but not hope. Every time, it would become foggy and the path became invisible, we would try to sit down, speak some positive stuff so that we were geared up for the next day. I think being positive in us played a greater role in keeping us alive for 55 hours without food. Night soon fell on Monday and we began looking for a place to put down. Considering that the forest floor or a tree was out of the question after the previous night’s experience, we chanced on a cave and swiftly decided to camp there. Throughout the night we were constantly wakened by the sound of wild animals bustling past the cave’s mouth; or howling in the distance. The news that a tiger had been spotted in the area recently played no small part in fuelling the fear within. Tuesday came and it was a glorious day. The clouds had lifted and the rain slowed. This was our chance to get back to humanity. After a brief walk we were greeted by the path we had been seeking two days earlier. We knew we had a gruelling 10-km trek ahead of us but were barely able to contain our excitement. Seven kilometres into what we now know to have been our Walk to Freedom, Vivek heard what sounded — with a plethora of hope

— like a forestry jeep. We ran towards the direction of the sound of tyres on wet gravel. I don’t think we have ever been happier in our lives. In a scene from a movie both Vivek and I started waving our arms and screaming, but we were so tired that mere whimpers escaped our throats. Were we hallucinating? Only when we sat in the jeep did we realise that people had been searching for us. The last 55 hours had sapped us of our energy. Our thoughts went out to our families and we asked the forest officials to inform them that we were safe. Bring on the BBB After staying hungry for 55 hours, the trekkers first craving was for Bisi Bele Bhaat. A forest official said, “When we brought them to the camp site on Tuesday night, we offered a simple meal to the trekkers. However, the trekkers requested that if we could arrange for Bisi Bele Bhaat for them. They wanted something spicy. However, we said sorry as we couldn’t cook that in the forest that night.” (This appeared in Bangalore Mirror on Aug. 17, 2015)