Buying Experiences over commodities

A typical day at the office, dealing with the same customer, dozing off in front of the computer screen. I started to wonder how it would have been if the customer were dealt in person rather than from a computer screen. There were two possibilities one I would have been fired from my job being so sleepy or I would have been more enthusiastic to the customer in-live-in-person. Whatever the possibilities were there, nothing was able to beat down the sleepy-ness in me. So I abruptly stand off from my chair and turned to Mark ji ( one of our colleague in office) and said " Mark ji, please say something interesting, so that I could beat these brain cell and wake them up, " he said " want to go rafting this Saturday?" and in an instant my mind was at the Bhotekoshi, the tides there, the raft on the tide, a true exposure to water I was there feeling the wind on my face letting myself free fall in the imagination then suddenly I was drowning in the river, and at that moment I realized I don’t know how to swim. With which speed I had been there earlier, it only took me a nanosecond to return back to my office and said “I don’t know how to swim". Our friends over there said, you don’t have to know swimming to go for rafting, you get a life jacket. That was a relief. So there was our plan to go for rafting in Bhotekoshi.

And that was us going with the tide

The Guide dai giving us instructions

The raft team!

First, they tell you how to sit in the raft, lock your feet, and hold the paddle and row. But what I found interesting was the guide telling us to row forward, backward, stop and all the other orders. I was feeling like I am in military camp and the senior is yelling at us to do things this and that way. Once you start rafting you feel the excitement on the tides. It was not the same as we see on the TV like the high tides of anything but it sure is fun. When you are in the river like Bhotekoshi on the strongest tide, you sometime cannot hear what he is shouting from back so you happen to keep on rowing the paddle backward when he is shouting forward out of his lungs! Yeah, that went a little off the plan at times, but not like a serious problem. At some level the tides were not so strong, so the guide would say we could swim in the river. We would clip our leg on the rope of the raft and float freely, that was peaceful. You would stare at the sky floating in the river. At one point, one of the raft team even started humming “Every night in my dreams...." I float for most of the time and when I was pulled back in the raft I felt like gravity is stronger by four times. That was awful, I could not sit, and I was lying on the raft like a bulk piece of meat. I guess you should not be in river water for more than ten minutes, the tides hit you and you feel weakened. Then the guide suggested we could make the raft upside down. I don’t know if he should be suggesting this kind of thing as a professional, but he did and I thought it was a cool idea. Everyone except me and Ritesh ji (our colleague) did not vote for it. However, as stubborn as we are, we convinced them. So the process of making the raft upside down is quite simple, the entire members on the other side of the raft come to one side of the raft and it’s done. The guide dai delivered his professional speech on the safety, hold the rope as soon as you get in the water and importantly don’t panic. And the most important one if you get under the raft, slowly pull away and come out of it. Sound very simple to us; me and Ritesh ji as we were the manipulator in the team. So we did, out of odds, I was under the raft and that was not so simple, in fraction of a second I began to think " I should have listened to mom and not come for the rafting" everyone must be outside the raft holding their ropes, no one will find out I am missing until I die and float outside" " people die in young age, I don’t want to die in here" it’s a long thought but it did not take me long to remember what our guide said, "don’t panic". I float up and it was dark that was where I freaked out! Oh my god! Am I dead?! I was having a hard time breathing like I was breathing in a vacuum. It was weird, but I kind of felt good because I realized I was not dead and it was actually the raft, I was under it and the air trapped inside helped me breath for a while. I was pulled outside the raft and then I realized it wasn't more than ten seconds for all this series of incidents, some of our team members were still searching for the ropes. The human brain is an exaggerator when it comes to its selfish gene. We climbed up and the rest of the ride was normal we landed (yeah, it feels good to use the word) in Dolalghat. Our raft member started to play the Holi in the mud there, we were disgustingly covered with mud and the agency did not allow to sit on the seats of the bus so we rode all the way back to the camp standing. It's funny how we realize no matter what the best way to have fun in the bus is by playing "antakchiri" and strangely the songs we sing are the same as we used to when we were kid. The same rato tika nidhar ma, paan ko paat , esara le bolaunu pardaina and all.

That is us going for the up side down of the raft! Oh yes the most excited one with her legs in water is me!

That was the mud holi and the retarded one there is me!

That is me trying an unsuccessful attempt to save myself from the mud fire

On the ride back to kathmandu for the "Antankchiri" show ;) photo courtesy: Ritesh ji

Even though I have this thotro mobile and I need a new one, even though I  am in a huge debt and even though I hear constant yelling from my mom that I should buy something useful as she says " kei jodera rakh" I feel good that I bought the experience, no matter how tiny it was. It feels good that I paid for the experience and not for commodities. Well commodities must be good too, but I guess it’s the matter of preference. Buying the experiences over commodities. It's hard to manage the finances, but we sure can do that curtailing our expenses or being in debts from friends. :) Have fun, go out and buy the experiences!

Here are some of the photos I managed to have during the rafting.

A cup of coffee by the waterfall :)

Our Mark ji being a nature observer

The dew... and we receive the vibe of Dashain around .. Dashain Aayo!!