Class XI

As Founders' Day celebrations drew to a close, students of class 11 started packing their woollens and prepared to leave for a four-day camp at Mukteshwar. As 8 O'clock dawned, cars began pulling up at the school gates and eager kids tumbled out of them.

We reached the Old Delhi Railway station well in time and despite some confusion regarding the bogie (we were split up into 2 separate bogies) we settled down quite quickly. The teachers duly fell asleep while the rest of us, well just had more interesting things to do! Needless to say, there wasn't much sleeping that night!

We caught our first glimpse of the sunrise over the breathtaking beautiful mountains, as the train pulled into the Kathgodam station. The chill hit us as we stepped out, but nobody minded and windows remained open throughout the picturesque side to Mukteshwar, which lasted about 3 hours (including the halts for tea, omelettes and Sakshi's stomach).

The first impression of Camp Purple was a bit disappointing and the most commonly heard refrain was 'Sattal was much better'. We were proven very wrong over the next few days.

After breakfast we headed towards the rock-climbing site which was a couple of kilometres away from the camp. We spent the day near the cliffs, rock climbing, rappelling and jummaring. Most of us had attempted the first two, but jumarring (which is basically a means of artificial ascending) was a totally new activity.

As evening approached, we headed back to the campsite for a session of ghost stories around the campfire, followed by a night trek (no torches allowed!!) to a haunted house!

The trek was regularly punctuated by shrieks, moans, groans and of course frequent cries of "There is something there" and "Run for your life!"

As our incredibly brave (?!?) batch descended lower into the valley, we finally gathered the guts to walk bang into the 'haunted house' - a cowshed where hot chocolate awaited us, as did the kitchen staff who had dressed as white ghosts!!!

The next day we split into three teams and after a heated discussion (!) decided to name ourselves the "dal-dals", the "panad jawans" and "Mukteshwar ke gadhey"!! Each team was given a map and had to simulate an actual mountain climbing expedition, with frequent hidden clues to direct us along the way.

That evening as we sat around the bonfire (ah-heaven) each team had to present a play based on three Hindi sayings. Needless to say our brilliant (?!? ahem!) performers kept everyone in splits, especially Pratik's near- perfect imitation of Laloo!

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of our (relatively) warm sleeping bag at 5 in the morning to see the sunrise and scintillating view of the Himalayan peak (which definitely made the climb well worth the effort). There we were introduced to a new game called 'Riki tiki tomba' which went like this. One team would line up and each person would bend down holding the waist of the person in front and keeping his or her head lowered, thus forming a chain. People from the other team would then vault on top of the chain and keep piling on till the chain broke! This was definitely the most popular game (though it wasn't much fun for those who had relatively 'heavier' individuals land on their backs).

After the 'riki tiki tomba' session, we spent a couple of hours learning how to make and fly kites, which proved to be the most enjoyable experience.

That afternoon, some kids opted to try out advanced rock climbing, rappelling and jumarring, while another group chose to go visit a village some distance away, where an NGO called 'Chirag' teaches the village women how to spin, weave and dye cloth. This was interesting and we learned a host of new things. For example none of us knew that cloth could be dyed in onion skin pulp and 'bichhu bhutti' or nettles. A few other kids had to clean up the tents, utensils and loos (that wasn't out of choice!)

On our last day we trekked to a waterfall where many of us had a great time bathing in the ice-cold water. It wasn't much fun for Niyokta though, because she slipped and her toe nail came out.

We returned for our last meal in Mukteshwar - the one highlight of which was that Adhish and Siddhanth had to do the dishes as they had cracked one too many sexist jokes…

We had to leave that evening and after thanking the instructors we left for Kathgodam (hoping against hope that we'd miss the train). (Unfortunately) we were well in time for the train back to Delhi.

As we stepped out, the all-too-familiar bustling scene - and stench - of the Old Delhi Railway station hit us - and it was a truly depressing sight.

The only consoling thought was that there is always next year's camp to look forward to…