Fifteen Minutes, According to the Map

The map said fifteen minutes. Remember that number. I've stopped trusting it.

We had just finished darshan at Trimbakeshwar. Four of us, a calm morning, the kind of start where you feel the day has already been kind to you. Someone mentioned that the origin of the Godavari was close by. At least, that's what we believed. We checked the map. Fifteen minutes. Easy. Some construction on the road meant we had to walk a bit. A bit. That's the word we used. There was a ticket counter at the start. Twenty rupees each. If we'd been smart, we would have asked the man behind the counter one simple question: how far is it, really? We didn't. We were too excited to ask. I think that's how most big things begin. Not with a decision, but with skipping the question that would have stopped you.

The fifteen minutes that weren't

The path kept going. Then it started to tilt. Somewhere around the point where my calves began filing complaints, it hit us. The fifteen minutes on the map weren't to the top. They were to the start of the climb. The real thing hadn't even begun. We were at the foot of Brahmagiri, wearing shoes meant for a temple visit. We stopped someone coming down and asked how much was left. Their face answered before their words did. We hadn't covered even a fifth of it. That was the first real question of the day. Not "how far?" but "do we keep going?"

The kind lie

We asked a few more people. Each one smiled and said the same thing: "Bas, half an hour more. Forty-five minutes at most." It wasn't true. They knew it wasn't true. And I'm grateful to every one of them. They weren't really lying. They were protecting the part of us that would have quit if we'd heard the real number. Sometimes the kindest thing someone can tell you is just the next step. So we kept going. We started counting steps. Fifty, then rest. A hundred, then rest. Then we made a rule: rest only at viewpoints. In between, a glass of nimbu sherbet, which on that mountain tasted like it had been invented just for us.

Being overtaken

Somewhere in the middle, a group of women caught up with us. Young women and grandmothers, climbing and singing, pulling each other along like the mountain was a festival they'd been invited to. We tried to keep pace. We couldn't. So we stepped aside and let them pass. I'll be honest: being overtaken by someone's grandmother does something to your ego. But watching them disappear up the steps, I realised they weren't racing us. They weren't thinking about us at all. They were just climbing their own mountain, their own way. The only one comparing was me.

Three words

The steps changed as we climbed. At the bottom they were a few inches high. Further up, some were a foot and a half. That isn't walking anymore. That's lifting your whole body, again and again. My dad walks every day, so he could handle it. A climb like this is genuinely hard on my mother. At the first big viewpoint, with the peak still looking impossibly steep, my dad and I asked her one last time. Should we turn back? She was exhausted. I could see it. And she said, "We've got this." Later she told us why. She didn't want us to miss the view because of her. I've thought about that a lot since. The people who love us carry our journeys on their own legs, even when it hurts, and they rarely say so. By then there were monkeys everywhere. People shrieked and shooed them away. Honestly, the monkeys were just having a good day. Leave them alone and they leave you alone. Not everything on the way up is a threat. Some of it is just part of the mountain.

The top

Near the summit, the carved steps ran out. No path anymore, just bushes, mud and slippery rock. We picked our way through slowly, using our hands in places. And then we were there. The world below had turned into a miniature. Fields, roads, temples, all tiny and perfect, like someone had sculpted them with great care and left them out in the sun. I stood there and forgot, for a while, that I had legs at all. That morning, there had been hundreds of people at the temple below. Up here, there were only a handful. Every step was worth it. And I silently thanked every stranger who had told us "just half an hour more."

The way down

On the way back, we found the singing group again, and this time we walked with them. They told us they trek four to seven times a month, a different peak each time. One of them teaches fitness classes for women. They talked, we laughed, someone started another song. And here's the part I keep coming back to. On the way up, on our own, we rested every fifty steps. On the way down, with them, we didn't rest once. We did stop for one nimbu sherbet together, but that wasn't rest. That was just company. Same mountain. Same legs. Different journey. We had set off at eleven in the morning for a fifteen-minute stroll. We came back at four in the evening, sunburnt, sore and somehow completely fine. Even my mother. No pain at all. As if the mountain had decided to be kind back.

What I brought down with me

If you're a student reading this, maybe in the middle of a hard year, here's what that day taught me. The map is always wrong about how long things take. That's okay. You don't need to know the whole distance. You only need the next step, and sometimes someone kind enough to tell you it's close. You will be overtaken. By toppers, by friends, by people who seem to be singing while you're gasping for air. Let them pass. They're on their own mountain. Most people stop at the first beautiful viewpoint, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the top is a different view, and the path to it is slower, steeper and lonelier for a while. Find your singing group. The same climb feels half as long with the right people beside you. And the people waiting for you at the bottom? They can only see you when you come back down. They can't see the climb. So they worry. Their worry isn't doubt. It's just love without a view.

Keep climbing. One day, you'll bring the view down to them.