The Fear Factor

A recent office picnic to Kolad was planned out to be an adventurous one – we deliberately kept it that way and did not want it to be yet another of those pose-at-the-various-points-in-a-hill station-and-return-back kind of a thing. And Voila, several of the to-do activities in my bucket list - river rafting, rapelling, rock climbing, burma bridge got knocked off at one go. But, the experience also brought back those age-old, scary memories of the past. Memories of fear of several things, people, activities, that engulfed me as a kid and since then till date!

The Fear factor aside, the picnic itself was loads of fun. Yours truly was secretly feeling like an MTV Roadie and trying to overcome the evident F factor by diverting the mind onto more inspiring things like watching others perform tasks and joining in the fun to the extent possible.

The 12 km long river-rafting (Level 2 rapids) to begin with was just perfect for non-swimmers like me with frequent roller coasters of the raft and aqua splashes on us. We followed it up with attempts at rappelling which looked formidable before I had tried my hand at it and seemed surprisingly simple once I was done :D. Rock-climbing ensured that we all got into our tribal avatars and make it look like we were born as climbers and do it daily for a living. Next came the Burma Bridge which was walking on a high, loosened up, thin rope - quite literally! My mom, if she were around, would have typically commented – ‘what a kazha kooothadi velai’ :P. Personally, rafting was the most fun thing to have done. The experience of staying overnight in a tent house which opened out to lush green terrain was quite novel too!

Throughout the string of adventures that I was testing myself at, the F factor would keep peeping through often and reminding me that I aint no Jhansi Ki Rani after all – even the harness and other equipments tied on to us to protect from any mishaps were not of much help.  So much so that I had to resort to other modes of consolation like –

•  Look Aparna, even a 11 year old kid does it so fearlessly-so why can’t you?  
•  If its not today, U may never get this opportunity again and u would regret it for life.
•  You are almost done baby, its just one more activity to go.
•  If u do not try these to begin with, how are u going to even think of Sky diving and Scuba diving which u want to do some day in ur life.
•  Would’nt u want to flaunt such brave pics of yours to the 390 odd FB friends, imagine the high it would give..:D...

      .....

...and so on......

But, No, my mind – being its own – held on, and the F factor kept playing its role. Somewhere, mid way, I went into a self-introspection mode and started to think of all the sundry things that I was always phobic to in my life - Pets (Dogs n Cats alike), Lizards, Diwali crackers, Roller Coaster rides at a theme park as a kid, Water sports, In-flight turbulence, etc. Of course, there are more serious things that also scare me quite often – like losing my loved ones in life, breaking down in public and embarrassing myself, having to live in a world without the internet, and a few more. For all the brave and Independent girl that I claim to be, I even wondered whether it was very human to be afraid of certain things or is it just with me!....and further wondered if I would qualify for an award for the F factor..:p. My one-line bio which reads “girly plus gritty combo” is, indeed, very candidly written!

By the end of it, I did perform all but the jump-into-the-water-from-the-raft thingy, albeit with an initial bout of uneasiness which did vanish subsequently; and I must say I stretched my borders far above by my standards. Atleast, I had made a beginning.

What, then, should be the way forward – Well, last read in a Lonely Planet magazine, the rafting at Rishikesh had Level 5 rapids and if you haven’t sky dived at Kiwiland, u have’nt lived.

Game, any one????!!!????...:D