The incidents that I am about to pen down took place about 6 years ago. My cousins, a couple of friends and I had gone on a trip to Ranikhet, a hill station in Uttarakhand. It happens to be a beautiful valley with lots of creeks surrounded by vegetation. In the month of December, the place is very quiet and serene. There is not much to do over there apart from seeing the natural beauty and going on treks in the nearby hills.
As far as I remember, we went trekking every day. On one of those days, we decided to pack our lunches, and head out into the wilderness. After spending time on a small waterfall, climbing down on broken trees, taking snapshots of each other, we decided to head back to our hotel. Unfortunately, with all the twists and turns that we had taken throughout our trek, we did not remember the way back. It did not bother us too much as we could see civilization in the distance. After about an hour or so, we came across some abandoned military posts and shooting ranges. At about six in the evening, we reached a military academy which seemed quite deserted. This was the first time I had been on the inside of a military academy and I was quite fascinated by the equipment and the training facilities they had. One thing that comes clearly to my mind, is a rope hanging from a cross- bar. My friends and cousins took turns to hang on the rope and pull themselves up. Now, I have seen many a Bollywood/ Hollywood movie where the hero is hanging by the rope and he pulls himself up by the sheer strength of his arms. Even though I am very thin with no muscles whatsoever, I had confidence in my abilities and decided to give it a shot. In a moment or two, I realised that I was no Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible movie so I decided to have fun and started swinging on the rope and at the same time making a lot of noise. At this point, I saw two soldiers charging towards us with guns in hand, shouting at me to get down. Our entry had apparently caused a security breach and the military wasn't exactly happy with us. After telling them our story, which they thankfully believed, we finally did head for our hotel. We had a nice dinner sitting next to a bon fire and went to sleep.
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| Me-Swinging in the military academy |
On our way back from Ranikhet, we had to go to Delhi to board a flight for 'namma Bengaluru'. We reached the airport about 3-4 hours prior to the departure. There were nine of us including my aunt, uncle and my friends' parents. We completed all the formalities, checked-in our luggage and were then waiting in the lounge area. After about half an hour, my friend's dad brought my attention to an announcement. The announcement went something like this: ''There is a black bag lying near the x-ray machine. Whomsoever's it is, please pick it up. This is the final call, we will remove the bag from the area for security reasons.'' I was very sure that my bag was checked in but since I was bored, I just went along with my cousin to see what the whole fuss was about. Fortunately, it turned out to be my bag. Unfortunately, there were three men guarding the bag with guns. I claimed the bag to be mine, started to pick it up, and at that point one of the burly men stopped me and said, "Saab ke paas chalo". I was then taken to a room where I was told that my unattended bag had caused a bomb scare in the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Apparently they had passed it through the x-ray machine thrice but could not confirm anything. They were on the verge of calling the Delhi Bomb Squad to check for any explosives. Sheepishly I apologised and told them that it was a genuine mistake. The matter was closed with a hundred rupee note (this was not a bribe- I was actually given a receipt which I seem to have misplaced now) and I was allowed to go home.
And thus came to an end a very peaceful holiday involving the army, lots of guns, security personnel, but thankfully no ka-BOOM!!!
