A Dream Trip or ….. ?

By Amritha Chandrasekhar

A Dream Trip or ….. ?

Once upon a time there lived 6 friends. They were Rishi, Brishti, Charmi, Rishaan, Sayant and Advait. They did their schooling together, except Rishi and Charmi everyone else joined the same college in engineering. Rishi and Charmi joined MBBS in a college which was in the same city as their friends. They all, after finishing their respective studies started working in the same city too. They are the thickest friends one could ever find in this world. They were all brought up in a middle-class family, where the only tours they went while growing up were temple tours. All of them had only one aim, it was to go on a real fun memorable trip.  

After earning enough money to afford a trip, they started planning on where to go? As they were planning to go during the Christmas vacation, they decided to go to Andaman and Nicobar islands. The beautiful island archipelago with superb sceneries, pristine beaches has so many fun activities that young people could enjoy. The other main reason they selected that particular place was that, the best time to visit Andaman is in December, because of the relatively cooler climate. 

They planned for 10 days trip, it was actually a bit long for Andaman but they just didn’t want to miss any place as it was their first fun trip. They visited Port Blair, Shaheed Dweep, Swaraj Dweep, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose island. The last 4 days were actually leisure for them to shop and just explore Port Blair some more. So they visited museums, and some other places that they missed. They visited almost every place in Port Blair in 2 days and wondered what to do in the remaining 2 days.

They were all sitting in their suite’s living area, looking at the photos and videos they took. Advait got a crazy idea and shared it with his group “ Guys, earlier when we visited the museum, we all saw about the tribes right, what if, just what If, we pay them a visit and see how they are living.”                                                                                                                                      “Yeah let us visit the Sentinelese Island and learn how they will kill us one by one and eat.” Brishti said mockingly.                                                                                                        

“Haha, so funny. But according to the documentary we saw in the Museum, we can actually visit the Onge’s tribe which is in little Andaman. It’s around 9 hours ferry ride. I researched about it, it’s so beautiful, those tribes are the most friendliest it seems.” Advait said and showed them what he researched.                                                                                                      

“ Wow, it’s so beautiful.” Charmi added.                                                                                          

 “Can we go?” Advait asked eagerly. After giving it a thought they all agreed.

It was around 1:00PM so they all had lunch and reached the ferry station, for booking the 4:00PM ferry. They were disappointed when they found out that, it was completely booked. They searched for other options to reach there, as they had to leave for little Andaman that day itself as, even if they do so, they will have only a day to explore the island. They then thought of other options, only other option was a helicopter. Advait was pretty excited about it, he wanted to go on a helicopter ride since childhood. They went to the helicopter base and tried to book. The price was too much, it was around 65K per person, it was not affordable, as the whole trip itself didn’t cost them that much. They then went to the fishing boat area, and bribed a fisherman to take them to the island. The fisherman asked around 40K up and down for all of them. They all agreed except Charmi and Sayant, they somehow didn’t feel okay about going there, they had a gut feeling that something bad might happen. After the group’s continued persuasion they were convinced to come.

They bought enough snacks, fruits, instant food, packed food from hotel and emergency medical kit, as the fisherman said, it takes around 10 to 12 hours to reach Little Andaman. They also rented 6 porticos and two large tents as they found a camping resort in the Little Andaman, but as they couldn’t find any available tents, they thought if they rented the tents they could get the permission to camp with them.

 They were walking towards the boat when they heard some angry discussions happening on the boat. They rushed towards the boat, the fisherman and another young man were fighting. Fisherman was shouting “Get out of my boat, I pay you wages and you cheat me.”

“You pay me a very minimum wage, I bet, you will never find anyone who works like me with that money.”

“Oh you don’t worry, there are 100 other men who work cheaper than you.” The old fisherman says and the young man walks out of the boat, staring at the group for a brief second angrily and walks away.

The old fisherman came outside angrily and a little depressed, looked at them and said “Oh you guys came, can we go?”

Sayant asked “Are you okay uncle? You look a little worn out.”

“Hmm, what to do? My time is very bad I think. All bad things are happening to me. Come in will  tell you on the way, we have a long distance to cover anyways.” The old fisherman said helping the group get on the boat.

Charmi looked around the boat and asked “Uncle, is there anyone other than you accompanying us?” 

“No child, that cheater was supposed to accompany us. But he left me. That guy cheated me and sold all the fishes he caught using my boat and didn’t bother to give me a single penny. I am bankrupt, my sons left me alone in my home, my wife died 2 years back due to covid. I don’t know why god is showing no mercy on me.” The old fisherman said, almost about to cry.

Sayant said “ Uncle if you are not feeling well, please take rest. It’s okay we will find some other boat.”

“No no son. Please don’t do that, I am already penniless, I need some money to survive. From past one week I am just surviving with the money and the rice given by government. So I need some money. Please don’t back out.”

“Okay uncle, but are you sure you can do this alone, it’s almost 120kms and we have zero idea on the navigation or driving it. We won’t be of any help.” Brishti asked.

The old fisherman laughed and said “Child, don’t underestimate me just because I am old. I lived on the sea more than the land all my life. I started fishing since the age of 4. You don’t have to worry about the safety at all. Moreover, I went little Andaman island some 1000 times in my life, I can even take you there in sleep.” 

They all agreed after giving it a thought and started. It was hot so they all sat inside the tiny cabin, which could accommodate them tightly. For an hour it was okay and then it started to get uncomfortable as they had to sit in a very small cabin. They started to feel suffocated, so they all sat out, as it was already 4:30 and the sun was almost down. They all took photos and videos on the boat, enjoying the sunset and the ocean. It got dark. It was really pitch dark and no other light was visible. The only light was the light from the boat, nothing else. Brishti went to the Old fisherman and asked “Uncle, it’s really so dark, are we going in the right direction, do you have any navigation helper or anything of that kind.”

The fisherman laughed and said “ It’s a boat, not a ship my child. I don’t need any artificial things I have my compass and I follow it, again the route is new to you but not for me, like I said earlier, I can even drop you in sleep. It’s dark because today is Amavasya (No moon day)” 

Brishti laughed nervously and joined her group. They played dumb charades. Later they had dinner and thankfully no one had any sea sickness yet as Rishi made sure that everyone took sea sickness tablets before starting. They offered food to the old fisherman too as they packed sufficient food which could actually cover 4 meals for them, as the fisherman said the food in little Andaman will be 10 times pricier than Portblair. The fisherman said “ Its okay. I don’t know why, but today my stomach is not good. I think it’s maybe due to gastric problem. I do have buttermilk rice with me, I will have it.” Immediately Rishi offered him a pantop tablet and asked him to have dinner half an hour later.

After an hour the clouds started to get grey, and heavy thunderstorm started. The fisherman asked all of them to get into the cabin immediately.  The boat started to swirl, as the ocean got really rough. Charmi asked the fisherman “Is it okay uncle, the ocean got really rough and the storm is pretty heavy.”

The old fisherman said “ Child this is actually nothing, I have seen worse. The swirling is high because we are going exactly against the wind direction.Don’t worry, I will take care, you all sit tight.”

Its been around 4 hours since they all started. Rishi noticed that the old fisherman was sweating in this chilling climate, he understood that something was wrong, he walked near the old fisherman and asked “Uncle you are sweating, is there any problem with the boat.”

“No no nothing, actually something is wrong with me.”

“What happened ?” He asked thunder struck. 

“I am feeling nauseous, I am not understanding why I am feeling that way. Cause I have gone through even worse storms. I don’t have sea sickness, I never vomited in the sea my whole life.”

“ Okay, I will get the seasickness tablet immediately.” Rishi stormed out. Everyone else noticed and asked Rishi what happened, he explained them and gave the fisherman the tablet and asked him to sit idle until he was okay. The fisherman ran outside and vomited in the sea suddenly. The boys followed him and helped him. The rain was pouring, the ocean was even worser. The boat was swirling very badly, it was very difficult to even stand. The boys tried to get the fisherman inside the cabin, the boat was not cooperating, everyone got panicked. They all tried to crawl and get in. Suddenly the fisherman coughed, caught his chest and collapsed. Rishi shouted catching him “Uncle are you okay?”

The fisherman pointed the finger towards the steering wheel, Rishi said “You want me to catch the steering?” The fisherman says no with his head and continues pointing at the steering, Sayant ran in and searched for what he was pointing at, then he found red torch type thing with ‘SOS signal transmitter.’ written on it, with only one red button. He brought it near the fisherman, the fisherman pressed the button, then the torch glowed bright blinding red and blinked for three times, then he said “The coast guards will find you. Press it regularly. I am sorry.” And then he closed his eyes.

 Rishi checked for his pulse and said “He is dead.” horrified. He did CPR immediately, but was not successful. Every one started to panic, they all almost started to cry, and were in shock trying to digest what happened. 

The boat was swirling out of control. Sayant slipped and fell, the SOS Torch he had in his hand fell into the sea, he shouted “SHIT.” and everyone asked whether he was okay, he said that the signal transmitter fell in the water. They all panicked as the coast guards will come to the point where the signal was transmitting, they need to send the signal at regular intervals cause the boat was moving in the direction of wind and its pitch dark. The rain increased drastically and the boat swirled very badly. Everyone with great difficulty got inside the cabin and caught the screwed chairs as tightly as they could. They didn’t know what to do and just sat there praying god that the boat doesn’t capsize and the storm to stop. 

Sayant woke up suddenly and looked around everyone were sleeping on the floor of the cabin. He looked out, it was a little bright, he noticed that the sun was rising. He went out and for his happiness he could see land, “Finally, God is there.” He shouted in happiness. Everyone woke up to his screaming. They went out, and Sayant pointed the island and said “Look.” Everyone saw it and started to jump in happiness.  

Advait asks “What island, do you think it is?”

“Some Indian island only for sure. If we go there and find the coast guard, they will be able to help us.” Charmi says.

“Does anyone know how to drive this thing?” Rishaan asks.

“Hmm well it’s not rocket science we can figure it out.” Rishi said.

He pressed something and finally figured out how to drive, he drove towards the shore as fast as he could, they noticed a large coral reef underneath the sea, Rishi tried to drive away from it. He didn’t know how to manage it and hit the coral in a very high speed and the boat was very heavily damaged. They decided to walk to the shore from there as the island was nearer and the water was shallow. They took all their belongings and Charmi asked “What should we do with him ?” Pointing towards the dead fisherman who moved from the place he was left the night before and also looked bloated. 

“Well, let's just go and get help.” Rishi said while the water started to get into the boat.

They all carefully got down with life jackets still on and their belongings, with great difficulty they reach the island and collapsed on the shore. They just laid there flat for 15 minutes. Charmi suddenly hears something. She looked into the dense trees immediately. She asked if anyone else heard anything, while others didn’t hear a thing. Then suddenly they all hear footsteps again, everyone got a little terrified and immediately looked at the dense forest. Sayant asked terrified “Will there be any wild animals on this island?”

Charmi said “I don’t think so, didn’t you hear the guide earlier. He said there won’t be any wild animals other than the wild boar in these islands. Also the wild boar doesn’t come to the shore…………. I think.” Also terrified.

Advait says” Let’s just keep walking and try to find the roadway or people or something.”

Then they all stood, still wearing the life jacket. Then suddenly an arrow landed on Advait’s chest. They all got startled on ‘what just happened?’. It didn’t hurt him luckily as it just penetrated through the vest. They all started running in terror. Series of arrows flew towards them from the forest, they tried to escape them by shielding themselves with the bags they had. A arrow hit Sayant’s hand and he cried in pain. They all stopped, and tried to help Sayant, whilst shielding themselves with the bags. Charmi asked “Sayant are you okay?” And removed the arrow from Sayant’s body and put some pressure on it while the others were guarding them with the bags.

 Charmi asked “Who are they, why are they attacking us?”

“ Where are we in the first place?” Sayant asked still crying in pain. The arrow pierced into the bags and luckily didn’t hit any one else. They were afraid to put the bags down yet and stayed in the same position terrified as hell. Then suddenly they saw 4 men jump into the sand they were tribals wearing only a red cloth covering their genitals. They were all shocked. The tribals started approaching them with a bow and immediately the boys took the arrows in their hand ready to protect themselves if they attack. The 4 men got shocked and shouted something. The friends didn’t understand a single thing the man said, it sounded like utter gibberish. 

Brishti immediately said “Boys, put the arrows down. We can’t stand them if they attack. It would be stupid if we try to attack them. They are tribals.”

Advait said “What if they attack us? We need to be guarded right.”

“Shut it, I agree with Brishti. We need to make them understand that we mean no harm.” Charmi said.

“Yeah let us do the talking.” Brishti added.

“Are you insane they don’t understand us? Or do you somehow know their language?” Advait said mockingly.

“We are in life or death situation and still you could mock, great man.” Sayant said still holding his hands in pain.

“Okay shh, wait I think they won’t  hurt women. Let us do the talking. We will just act out.” Charmi said. And they both came out of the shield the boys created. And walked slowly towards the men. The men immediately pointed arrows towards them, the guys immediately tried to come forward to protect the girls. Brishti immediately controlled the boys to not come and then hand gestured them to slow down. She then hand gestured pointing themselves and the wrecked boat. She pointed at the boat and hand gestured that it broke. And tried to explain them that they came here and they mean no harm. The men were still suspiciously looking at them. Brishti whispered that “I somehow feel that we are in Sentinelese island. In the museum, we saw a video right in that documentary, the Sentinelese actually looked like this.”

“What? It cannot be. They are cannibals. Moreover all tribals look the same.” Charmi said.

“No, in that documentary Sentinelese attacked them. Look they also attacked us. We should give them food, coconuts. I saw few coconuts in the boat cabin. They will not attack us if we give them food.” Charmi said. And looked back and asked the boys to get the coconuts. Brishti hand gestured a fruit and pointed towards the boat. And Advait slowly went towards the sea, to get the coconuts. The men immediately pointed towards Advait, Brishti immediately said “Slow down.” And hand gestures it. The men spoke among themselves loudly and pointing towards them. Then an elderly lady came, also only with her genitals covered with a red cloth and naked bust, she applied something red all over her body. Then they all started talking in their language again. Advait came back carrying 4 coconuts in his hand. The tribal men saw it and one of them smiled looking at it, he looked a little bit old than others and the women also smiled looking at it. 

Brishti whispered “See, now we just need to convince them that we are harmless.”

“Okay, how do we do that?” Charmi asked.

Brishti and Charmi took the coconuts and walked towards the men, they stiffened their bows immediately. So they stopped and placed it on the sand and went back. They came forward took the coconuts and went back. They talked among themselves and went into the forest again. 

After the tribals left, they all discussed on where they might be, Brishti said “We are in north Sentinelese island.” Everyone denied it as it might be wrong. But Brishti said “Deny it how much ever you want but that’s the truth. Look, the storm was moving north, as the fisherman said we were going against the storm. I saw the map, the north Sentinelese island is just beside Port Blair. And also all other tribals are people friendly except the Sentinelese, they attacked us as soon as they noticed us.” 

“But the Sentinelese are cannibals. Will they kill us?” Advait asked terrified. They all had severe panic attacks. Rishi dressed Sayant’s wound properly with the medical kit they brought. They fought, blamed each other and finally came to a conclusion that some or the other way they reached there, they have to accept and work on how to survive and go home. They all stayed on the beach all day. They ate the food that they packed and stayed alert. 

The sun was down, Sayant asked Advait mockingly “I think your wish is fulfilled, finally we saw very real tribals.”

Advait said “And you said not to mock in situations like this.”

They all decided to somehow repair the boat, follow the compass and return to Port Blair. Their phones didn’t have any signal. So they decided not to drain the battery. They started setting up the tents and slept there. With 3 people guarding as they didn’t know when the tribals would come and attack them. They all woke up with a clinching sound. They looked to find the tribals breaking apart the boat and there was a fire near them, and then suddenly it moved and looked like someone was sitting with hands forward in the fire. They all shouted in fear and immediately the tribals looked at them ready to attack. They calmed themselves thinking that might be the old fisherman. They rushed to the boat, the engine and all the metal part was removed and taken into the forest . The friends were heart broken looking at it, as they planned on repairing it, but then it was beyond repair and can’t explain it to them. They dug ‘HELP’ on the sand, so that any helicopter passing through would find them.

It had been 2 days since they came to the island, all their food and water were finished, the tribals would come and look at them everyday from far. They all started to feel thirsty. Brishti decided to walk towards them and ask for water. She walked towards them, they stiffened their bow, ready to shoot. She fell on her knees and begged them for water in hand gesture. They talked something among themselves and stood there. She went back to the tent feeling drowsy as it was burning hot in the noon. They all sat inside the tent, Sayant cried suddenly out of pain in his hand. The bandage was soaked in blood. Rishi opened it, and the wound was covered with septic puss. Sayant needed strong antibiotic, but they didn’t have any antibiotics with them. Advait said “I think they are waiting for us to die, so that they can eat us.”

“They could have killed us before itself, but they didn’t.” Charmi assured.

“Then why aren’t they helping us?” Advait asked. No one had an answer for that. Rishi got some salt water, poured it over the wound and dressed it properly again. They all lost hope in survival, they didn’t have energy to cry too, they were just waiting for death.

Advait woke up in the night, he found that he was not in the tent. He was laying in an open hut. He found his friends lying beside him in the hut. He looked around, he was in the forest. He woke others up. Sayant’s wound was tied with a bunch of leaves. They all got up and followed the light and sound. There were at least hundred tribals sitting, dancing and talking around the large fire. There was a man sitting on a large rock, painted with red coloured powder, and white dots around his eyebrows. He was wearing coral necklace on his neck, with a red head band around his head. Everyone stopped talking and looked at them. Advait hand gestured them for water. The person sitting on the large stone spoke something and a small boy came forward and hand gestured them to follow. They followed him blindly in thirst. They reached a small pond. The little boy handed them a large shell, they understood what to do. They each drank almost a litre of water, to get over their thirst. They felt like they got back life. They all washed their face with the water. They were then offered roasted fish and few bananas each placed in a bamboo cup. They ate the food as fast as they could. They were then brought back to the hut. The hut had straw and grass mattress and they were also given palm leaves woven blanket. They all slept there.

It had been 2 years since they got onto the island. They dug ‘HELP’ every single day on the beach. They started to understand and learn the language too. They learnt hunting and other stuffs to survive in the forest. They loved the unaltered natural beauty of the forest. The caves and the tribal carvings of their history. It was unexplainably beautiful, they couldn’t find any adjective in the dictionary to justify its beauty. They didn’t miss home anymore, as they somehow liked living there. It was so peaceful. They liked how everyone are equal, how friendly and helpful they were with each other, how they all eat together. The friends thought, how lucky these tribals were to be born in such a peaceful place, away from the real world. Having nothing to worry about, just hunt, eat, swim, cook, build, play and sleep. It felt like a dream. 

One day suddenly the tribal head said, something bad is going to happen. So they all threw stones in the sea and explained that the ocean spirits were angry. And the whole village moved, taking the essentials. The friends didn’t understand what was happening, so they just followed the villagers, they climbed a real higher ground and set up the things there. Suddenly the friends could hear the ocean sound nearer, they looked down and was astonished to find that it was a tsunami. They were really shocked about how the tribals knew, without any technology or warning, just with nothing. It was so mesmerising for them.

After the tsunami was over, and the sea went back. They went down to their habitation and removed all the wreckage like the fallen tree trunk and got back into the habitation again. Like everyday, the friends dug ‘HELP’ on the beach and went back. And finally they heard the sound, the sound they thought they would never hear. The helicopter sound and they all ran to the shore in joy while the tribals ran to attack. The helicopter found the ‘HELP’ and was right above it. As  the tribals started attacking the helicopter with the arrows. The friends convinced them to stay calm, and that they are here to take them back to their home. There was an announcement from the helicopter, “If there is someone that needs to be saved reply us now.”

“Yes,” “Yes” they all shouted together in happiness and tears coming out of their eyes. They heard it. They threw blankets down to help them cover themselves as they were also pretty naked, not as completely naked as the tribes but the girls managed to cover their body until above their knees, with the dress they had and boys were able to cover body from waist to the knees.

“Is it safe if one of us gets down and help you up, cause we can’t land here.” 

Advait shouted “We can talk to them. But we need half an hour time to get our things and bid goodbye to our friends.”

They went back to their habitation, took their bags as they have given everything they got to the tribals, the tents and other things. They just took the bamboo cups, shells, Wooden spatula, clay pans, palm leaves blanket into their bags. They bid goodbye to their friends, the tribal head and the kids. The tribals were so sad that they were leaving, the friends convinced them that they had families waiting for them to return so they had to go. 

Advait said in front of the whole village “On behalf of my friends, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for helping us. We will promise you that we will come to visit you as often as we could. We in the sense only we six no one else. Please don’t stop attacking the invaders thinking it might be us. Because the world we live in is cruel, it will capture your island and destroy its beauty, never be friendly with people like us. You will remain happy and peaceful like this as long as you continue being this way. It’s really heartbreaking for us too, to leave you all. But we have families waiting for us, we have to go for them. Thank you so much everyone. We will forever cherish these two beautiful years forever. We all love you. Goodbye.”

They bid goodbye and left on the Helicopter heavy hearted. Sayant asked “So, I think your dream is fulfilled now. You got to experience the tribal life and also a helicopter ride as you wished, that too for free. God really must like you man.” Looking at Advait.

“Seriously, is this really the time to mock?” Advait asked a little irritated. 

“We all dreamed for a trip and god has given us pretty long trip, just 2 long years.” Brishti said.

“A very adventurous trip for sure.” Rishi added.

Then Charmi said “A dream trip-Nightmare trip-peaceful trip. All in one trip. Waah we must have prayed pretty hard.” 

Rishaan said “After all the praying we did during our temple trips, god must give us this much. It’s actually bare minimum.” And everyone started laughing.

Lorem Ipsum

By Amritha Chandrasekhar