Friday, 7 am: Bus reaches riverside. Grinds to a halt. Team members celebrate by chucking empty beer cans through the window and raising cheer. Tour Leader, former officer in Royal Nepal Army, makes us all get off the bus and pick them up. He is small, but highly intimidating. Wellness trip has started badly.
Friday, 8 am: Climbed down from road to river bank. No escalator. Organisers very thoughtless. Legs trembling. Pain in chest. Now we have to make the tents. Am on the verge of collapse. How is this good for me? Pretend to suffer attack of cramps.
Friday, 1 pm: Tour Leader massaged my leg until I pretended I was better. Made me help put up temporary wellness centre. Says I have to set an example for others, due to seniority. Feeling worried. If I suffer cardiac arrest during wellness trip, what kind of example will I be setting?
Friday, 2 pm: Lunch is vegetarian!
Friday, 4 pm: Fell asleep on the river bank, due to weakness and lack of food. Woke up to see Vijay, in underwear, at the water’s edge. He has not brought a swimsuit. Felt it would be disrespectful to the Ganges. He has planted empty beer bottles around himself and he is singing. Seeing him, others begin to take off their pants. Must hire more women. Their absence is causing this.
Friday, 5 pm: Did our first personal development exercise. A net was brought out. For a moment, I thought it would be used to catch fish, for dinner. Instead, it was used for a new type of volleyball. The Tour Leader told us the rules. He is also the Wellness Instructor. We opted for the economy package. We had to divide into teams, and learn the value of co-operation. Team members were to be knocked out one by one, when hit on the head by ball. Rajesh, who is much larger than any of us, won easily. First he knocked out his own team members, one by one, pushing them down or knocking them sideways so that he could get to the ball first. After this, he eliminated the other side. One of them was knocked unconscious. Co-operation does not seem to have improved. They are giving Rajesh dirty looks. Someone is going to pee in his beer at some point. It’s inevitable.
Friday, 8 pm: Dinner was mostly paneer . Asked Tour Leader for alcohol, pathetically. He said, not today. If not today, then when? When?
Friday, 9 pm: Post dinner, had a 30-minute meditation session. Took a quick nap. Now, we are doing Antakshari. Nobody can sing, but they know a lot of songs.
Friday, 10 pm: Lying on my back, looking at the clear night sky. The boys are singing ‘I am a Disco Dancer’ for the third time. Tomorrow, we go river rafting. Am concerned. Only three of us can swim.
In Shovon Chowdhury’s most recent novel, Murder With Bengali Characteristics , fish are the root of all evil
