All characters in the below story are authentic and original. Some salt and chilly (namak and mirch) is added to dramatize the sequences. Just for Nirmal Anand!!!
Hi!!
Arey ek trip ki kahani padh ke man nahi bhara kya?? Ek aur Lambi kahani sunane aa gaye. Any way ab aa hi gaye ho to.....maje lele ke padho. Ye kahani thrill, horror and suspence se bhari ek simple Nanogon(9 apexes) love story hai. For those who hate to read, I am going to elaborate my version of another AAF's memorable trip to Nainital and SaatTaal. Those who dont know SaatTaal, its a small
Warm Up
This time background of trip was cooking in a new camp. Its good that our new members have shown more enthusiasm than old ones. Manuj has coded this program for some of his clients....hey hey..Am I going too technical. As far as I know, initial list of candidates included some new faces (out of group). I don't know about much details why they dropped us or they were dropped. Their were some grievances within group (AAF) but lets not talk about the negative part. In fact those things consolidated my willing ness to be a part of this memorable trip. But I will specially mention one negative thing about trip. Our dear Kalu was missing as he was going to his home.
Starting Point :
On the D-day, we all assembled at Old Delhi Railway station. Let me have the pleasure to introduce the trippers. Myself, Danish, GNC, Kailash, Hema, Manuj, Debolina, Piyush, Vivek and Chandrakiran. For old members of PAG, Manuj, ChandraKiran, Vivek and Debolina have joined in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Piyush is Debolina's Fiancée and Hema is our good friend from CMG. Kailash was joining us till KathGodam only. Those who have read the stories of Rishikesh, train reservations were again the same. Even worse. We have 4 seats at one place, 3 at another, 2 at another place and 1 alone. The 4 seats were in fact in another compartment. Being the seniors, we 4 decided to sacrifice???(was it a sacrifice or escape ;-)). Anyway, after an hour or so, we (me, dany, kalu and GNC) moved to our seats in next compartment. Nothing to tell much about the night as things were still warming up. But three of the people had their head aching after listening my non-stop stories. Even the family underneath our birth was listening to us whole heartedly till late night. We even lost a bet to GNC meanwhile. For details please contact GNC.
Its a small place near Nainitaal. Its second last railway station in that root and we have to catch taxis after that to reach Nainitaal. Our tour guide Kailash was with us who told us to leave the trains at Haldwani so as we will get Taxis cheaper though we have tickets till Kath Godam. I came to train door one station before i.e Lal Kuan. I can see the mighty sun stretching its body from the laps of young mountains of Himalyas. You know, when I was a kid, I used to wonder why the Himalyas are highest though they are youngest of all mountain ranges. Some day I would like to see the Himalyas from top of them. I have seen
To the Hotel
We booked a tata sumo and marched towards Nainitaal. The breakfasts were taken in a small village dhaba in between. The name I don't remember. It was bread slice and aloo parathas and of course tea. When we reached Nainitaal, it was relatively less crowded. The hotel agents started bugging us but we decided not to listen to them and enquire our selves. We saw some three hotels but the rooms seemed too costly. Then a agent jumped in to show a hotel. The hotel was good but the rooms he was offering to us were on the fourth floor. I got scared. One thing was good that we have a balcony outside our rooms which gave full view of the
To tell you frankly, Nainitaal is not my kind of place. The crowd has started appearing, most of them (married?) couples coming for their honey moon. Ab wo sher hai naa...Tadpa diya hai a-had-e-gujarata ki yaad ne. dekha hai hamne jab bhi kisi ko kisi ke sath. After having our brucnh, We hired a taxi for sight seeing. The trip was OK types and we enjoyed site seeing at places like China Peak, Lovers Point, Suicide Point, Water Fall. They dropped us to NainiTaal in evening. 
Now it was time for Nainitaal lake trip. We hired a rowing boat for 80 bucks an hour. The rower was an old age man who told us his stories also. The Naini lake is divided into two parts namely mallitaal and tallitaal. Both of the two parts have different source of water. He used to participate in the boating competition in his young days. It was an spectacular view of sun who emerged from the lap of mother mountains in Lal Kuan, setting in deep solace of mother mountain in Nainitaal. Night life of NainiTaal has started as lots of crowd can be observed on Maal Road. We visited Naina Devi temple and did some shopping around. One can purchase scented candles and wood work etc from Nainital. I bought some "Ball Mithai" very famous of haldwani. This is a chocolate like sweet with small white balls over it. After some ladies shopping done mostly by Kiran, we were back to hotel.
Next day we woke up late in morning. Now the plan was to tour all lakes and then drop at Rani Khet. We were planning to spend a night there with bar-be-que and bon-fire. Luckily we got taxi driver a muslim who knows where to get halal chicken for bar-be-que. Danish "The Chef" has started collecting materials for this like Iron Rods, dry wood etc. After visiting some small lakes like khurpa taal we reached to Saat Taal. The name saat taal is given because of its seven corners. Saat Taal is positioned in a spooky area surrounded by dense forests. As we entered there, in beginning only we saw some camps as we had in rishikesh. A group of young girls was staying there. We all decided to ask for accommodation if possible in tents and Danish and me went to settle the money matters (As usual). The guy, named Sunil, was quite helpful and he immediately offered us a rate of Rs 300 per person for staying and some water games like KAYAK and rock climbing, tracking swimming etc. We told him about our bar-be-que plan and he assured as of full help. We had our lunch there and moved to Naukuchiya Taal, the largest of all Taals. There is a famous say which says that after every three years, this taal takes sacred offering of a life (BALI) and then the color of water goes red. Another is that if a person is able to see all 9 corners of this Taal then either he becomes very fortunate or dies. We had a house boat ride their. Next was Bhim Taal. Its believed that Bhim, second of Pandavaas, pressed his feet to form this taal. We purchased the necessary ingredients like chicken and spices from this place only. Rani Khet was dropped from our list and this was beginning of whole drama and action and thrill and suspense we experienced in Saat Taal.
When we finally reached saat taal it was late evening. Due to surrounding forests, the place was covered in darkness a little bit earlier. As we reached the tents, the group of those young girls was leaving. So it was only our group (with two already engaged girls) in the camps. Sunil gave us four tents, 3 for 6 guys and 1 for gals. After reaching their, we started roaming around and suddenly Vivek came with some real scary information about a grave nearby. My "khurafati" mind came into action instantly. As I have interacted mostly with Sunil and kitchen guys, it was easy for me to use their names to authenticate my story. The story goes like this. There was a famous tour and adventure sport lover, James Robert. He loved this place saat taal. He used to visit this place very year from UK and had developed a special affection to the place. When he died while climbing a rock, as per his wish, his body was cremated in saat taal. Furthermore, he loved the bar-be-qued chicken and his spirit must be around the place as we were planning to have bar-be-que.
