A trip to Karnala

Long Ago, when I had completed my college, I went to stay with my sister for a few months. She was living in another city, far from our hometown. At that time, she was staying in a working girls’ hostel. One day some of her hostel-mates and she planned to go trekking in Karnala Hills on a Saturday. She invited me to go along. I was completely unaware about the place where we were going to trek. Anyway, I was very much excited, because it was the first trek in my life. We left the hostel early in the morning because Karnala hills were far away. After a hectic journey in a series of trains and buses, we reached the nearest place from where we could walk to the foot of the hills. After reaching there, we realized that the trek was not going to be easy. The hill was not very high, but the route was very difficult. The narrow, extremely uneven, and full of pebble route was actually formed by wood-cutters footsteps and tiny waterfalls. The waterfalls usually dried up after the rainy season. We started trekking, towards the top with a palpating heart, along the narrow path with gorges on both sides, to reach a dilapidated fort there. One of the features of the fort was the high and steep steps at the entrance. The fort was created in such a way that, there were no other options but to use only the steps to go inside. We had our lunch there, and after getting a rest for an hour we started climbing down. Just after we started down, I wanted to tell something to my sister, so, I turned back without watching the steps in front of me. As a result of that, I slipped and fell down on a step. I had relieved that I escaped any big mishap, because there was possibility of falling from a great height. However, when I tried to stand up, I couldn’t move my right ankle, and I felt a sharp pain there. I realized that, something serious happened to my leg. Communication with anybody, except our group members was out of the question on that deserted hill. I was trembling like a dried leaf. All of us panicked under that unexpected situation. Nobody had thought what could be done in that situation. I knew I had to walk to reach the foot of the hill. Even today I don’t know how I walked more than one hour on an unfriendly hilly path with a broken leg. Not only did I walk down the hill, I travelled all the way from there in buses and trains to reach the hostel. The next day my sister took me to a hospital and a doctor told me that I suffered from a torn ligament.