So this Monday I went to this waterfall. I had been there two-three times before and it is a well known place here near Varanasi, but this time during the pandemic when almost no one is going out, specially this place far off the city.
This time there was no one near the water fall except us and another group that joined us later. What made this visit more exciting was that the main gate to the sanctuary was closed and gate keepers didn't allow us to go in. We tried to ask permission from all sorts but it didn't work. So I told my friend let's just go to the dam right next to the sanctuary and we'll be there for sometime and then we'll decide what to do.
We went to the dam and we were only people there, except two local boys who were fishing in the water. It was a big open place with a big reservoir and the dam holding it with small hills of the back and thick moving clouds that's lights few hills and cover the others. The water had greenish tint but it was clear and transparent on the edges, a rare sight to see in India.
I mentioned my friends that we could reach to the waterfall just by following the small river coming out of the dam. But that idea didn't materialised. And we enjoyed our time before leaving. Then we saw a group of moter bikes acceding towards the dam. It was a big crowd almost a full dozen. Their howling and laughter echoed to the big walls of the dam. I asked my group why don't we move down the steps to the front side of the dam, as I remembered the view and also the picture I took when I first saw the dam.
It is a sand stone dam made big local rocks of the vidhya ranges. The name stone said it was built in the 50's and that's what it looked like. Water was pouring out of the cracks in the wall and and other cracks were taken over by small vegetation.
Two boys were fishing by the side of the stream, I clicked few picture of them before the big group landed down the dam. They asks us to join them to the waterfall. The plan was that we ask these boys to guide us to the dam and we'll pay them when get back but one of them had to stay back and look after the moter bikes. I wasn't sure with the idea so consulted the other two with me and they said yes. We took our bags and started following the stream down in the jungle. As deeper we got the more and more insect cherping we could hear as you hear, the trees got thicker and thicker with every brach leaning out in our ways and few thorns that we had to duck.
The jungle got dense and the stream got wider. We stopped at a tranquil place before we reached the end where the water speed was quite slow you could only hear the water flowing and the birds cherping it was like one of those acoustic sound videos on youtube, which makes me wonder how we have started comparing the real things with digital ones. This how you know a place is tranquil now.
We followed eachother one by one in a trail with a small treck and a sharp U-turn we reached to the from where i could recognise the place. I had seen the waterfall before with big crowd that surrounds it everytime you go there and all the litter that this big crowd does, but the pandamic had heald this place too, there was hardly any litter and the place looked as no one ne has touched it may be ever, except for all the name writing on the stones. Before coming here this time I had a thought that it will be that same place, I have been there, but this time it turned out something new and that's why I want to go there again and again.
*PLEASE DO NOT LITTER*
