Trail to Adventure (Ecomomic Times, Madras Plus, 16 September 1999)
The Army had, among other things, instilled a credo in Major Ashok Candade, which was to be the beginning of Adventure Wildertrails. "Keep your bio-rhythms high on weekends, so you roll into Monday without the Monday morning blues." When Ashok and Kalyani moved to Madras in 1994 and surveyed the "where-to-this-weekend?" scene, Croc Bank and Mahabs did nothing to their huge appetite for the outdoors. So they took it upon themselves to find new, unexplored adventure trails in and around the city. And soon realised, that there were like-minded people out there, in search of fresh options to rejuvenate their tired minds and bodies. Adventure Wildertrails Club with 65 members (read that as 125-130, family members included) and 26 long camps in two years has indeed trekked pretty far and wide. The excitement of the great out-doors - camping, trekking, mountaineering, rock-climbing, nature trails and jungle trips - is the promise of induction into the AWC fold. "Finding new places is a hobby of mine," says the Major, and goes on to detail his modus operandi. So how successful is each trip? "We are an interest-based and not a profit-motivated club. So we work on trips where members evince interest. The event runs if a certain number pay up by the last date." The two great pay-offs of these trips is a heightened feeling for nature and a real sense of bonding amongst family members. Children, especially, stand to gain a wealth of fun and education from these adventures. Their 'nature awareness' which is otherwise restricted to a biology lesson, soon grows into a love of the plant and animal species they encounter on their expeditions. What does it take to be an AWC member? An iron-pumping regimen? Or a gym mania? Can underused, overweight muscles be coaxed to comply with the demands of a trek or climb? "You have to be generally fit. But the norm has been members who balked at a 5-km trek. The same people are game to do an 18-km trek in a day, just one year into the fold," laughs Ashok. The club employs a local - called a Resource Person - as a guide wherever they travel, to experience the authentic flavour of the trip. The couple share with me the details of a trip to some pre-historic caves, 80km outside Chennai, where they discovered 30,000/- 50,000 year-old stone tools - hand-axes, borers and scrapers - used by the Neanderthal man. They even undertook a cyclone trek once! Just as the trip was getting off the ground, a cyclone warning was issued; and, people were instructed to stay indoors because of the bleak forecast of thundershowers and gales. The club, however, decided to go ahead with its plans. While they climbed the hills, visibility was down to almost zero, and suddenly they found themselves in the middle of a cloud. Drenching and drying out in a series of thundershowers, the members enjoyed the full fury of the cyclone, outdoors! "We splashed around in puddles like kids, and soon everyone let their hair and inhibitions down and had a great time!" adds Kalyani, "After we returned, we advised every one of them to take a hot bath and stay warm. I called each one the next morning and not even a sniffle was reported!" she says proudly. Bonding and value education apart, there's an even greater lesson that one imbibes, as 18-year old Kaushik, an AWC member voices it, "On earlier trips we picked up litter because Ashok told us to. Now I'm self-motivated and cannot bear environment pollution. On a personal trip into Yercaud, I picked up all the plastic I saw and brought it home with me." Ashok and Kalyani now plan to take the lessons of the outdoors to corporates. "When you're thrown in an unfamiliar situation, how do you use traits of team-building, trust and leadership? You have to face the fear of the unknown, learn new survival skills and be humbled as just another human being, even if you're Big Boss at work. It's a great leveller'. The road to adventure is the straight and narrow. The journey is the lesson and the destination just a little further each time.
Uma Girish
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