The Big Bang at Antharaganga

Be that as it maybe, i’d like to say that AvvEntura has come out as a boon to all the adventure enthusiatics of our dull and boring college. No offense to other cultural clubs of RV, but then, there’ll definitely be a certain set of people in RV that’d demand something more. Now, there’s AvvEntura for them.

AvvEntura had an humble start from an idea of a group headed by our macha Vishwas who’ve given their hearts out to adventure. They called out in college for people to join the club. Lo and behold, they came in a mob!

AvvEntura planned out a simple outing as its maiden journey: Anthragange in Kolar. But i bet, it turned out to be a huge huge success! The fact that only a small part of the club turned up didn’t reduce the enthusiasm even a bit!

"The Kolar"

The trip started in Majestic as we headed out towards kolar. Base of the Antharagange is 3 odd kms from kolar. To give a warmup for all AvvEnturites, the team decided to walk out the distance through the road. It’d also serve a heads-up to the path that’d follow the asphalt. Trekking in a completely new place without a guide can be disastrous-then came the ‘thatha’, who’d remain with us for the entire day.

There’s actually a good flat road to the Antharagange shrine, but, what joy for us AvvEnturites? We asked ‘thatha’ to show us a path which’d befit us. We headed off the beaten path into the forest, and man! what was that path… climbing through the rocks which were of the height of around 9ft, impossible for a layman! walking through thorn plants, helping each other out on rock climbs which’d require a helluva lot more daredevilry than to sit on a couch in home and eat pizza!

Trek Path!

This was the maiden outing of AvvEntura, there definitely had to be an inaugural celebration of this club. Yes we did have one! What can be a better place for this auspicious (‘auspicious’? erm… probably) ceremony than the middle of a forest on a hill, on the line of the fact that ‘aventura’ means ‘adventure’ in Español. We had a simple cake-cutting ceremony- yeah, a birthday-party-at-home type cake-cutting but the only oddity was the location!

The celebration!

We found a couple of caves on the way, not big ones, but of sufficient size to hold a handful number of guys, we’d had some nasty fun in those creepy caves!

The Caves!

After our phase 1 of our trek, we reached the shrine of Antharagange, which gets its name from a natural spring present there. Everybody quenched their thirst from the spring water (though everybody had a notion that the spring water would be sweet, turned out that it tasted as same as a bottle of Aquafina would!)

Phase One Completed!

Phase 2 of climbing further to the top of the hill was met by a warning from a police constable present there. He claimed that leopards were spotted in the forest and  forbade us from going further. Who the name of lord would give heed for that warning! Even ‘thatha’ thought so; then we headed on an alternative route towards the top, a simple walk which didn’t involve any rock climbing this time and we made it to the summit in no time! (Apart from the fact that it was too hot and we rested and posed to pictures more often than we made some actual progress on our path, can’t help, those rocks and locations beckoned us to take pics!)

One such pit stop...

There’s a village on the top of the hill and we found that there was a road to that village! We had made another offbeat journey! Now was the time to rest and have lunch. Many thanks to Yashaswini and her father who’re from Kolar for arranging it!

‘What’s next?’ was in everybody’s mind. ‘Thatha’ decided to take us for further exploration of the hills, ‘thatha’ leading us all as he always did! Phase 3 had officially begun!

We expected to find the caves of Antharagange in this phase. Yeah, you are right, we did find a cave, and guess what-that cave was similar to the one which is featured in the movie ‘127 hours’. More to it- you could just stick your hand into the space between rocks and you might as well be James Franco!

Too many James Francos!

Further on the way, we found many more weird rock designs and by intuition, one of the AvvEnturites found a location which had a deep vertical fall. ‘Beautiful’, as it was described by Shifa, an avid adventurer. Everyone gathered around and Shifa started the ‘intro’ game, though the fun factor in that game was low, but the serenity of the location compensated for it!

I guess that much hands are enough!

With an AvvEntura flag-bearer in the middle (it was definitely a flag, doesn’t matter if it was made from a handkerchief!), the trek continued and we encountered many more weird rock arrangements, and many more pics! Soon, the descent began, and more rocks. Did i mention? AvvEnturites ROCKED on those rocks!

The Rocking on the Rocks!

Finally, we reached the base of the hill and it was the time to bade goodbye to our ‘thatha’. ‘Thatha’, you have been of great help and you’ll remain in the memories of all the AvvEnturites…

An awesome trek-sunday had come to an end. Though everyone was exhausted, AvvEnturites knew it in their hearts what they had seen and experienced…

We needed to travel until the bus station of Kolar which was around 1.5km from the place where we had landed. Some took the auto, but some AvvEnturites thought of adventure even there! They made a power walk and reached the station in no time even if they were tired! Now, that’s the true spirit of adventure!!

We boarded the buses which was crowded and only a few guys got seats, we decided to sit on rotation basis, that’s the unity among AvvEnturites…

Sun said goodbye to this extraordinary day with due respect, we got to see an enthralling sunset on the way…

An amazing sunset!

Now, only memories remain of that wonderful place and all the fun we had there, on a day that was custom-made for it! we’ve made sure that those memories are preserved forever…

Hold on! This is just the beginning… There are a zillion more such trips coming from the houses of AvvEntura, more such extraordinary days…

see you there!!

AvvEntura FTW!!