[Dine]

Hi Chevy Lover,
I am glued to this travelogue, awesome kodai pictures.
go ahead with the story of X, share your experience.
Good to see Tavera keeping up with you .

Wish you many more miles

[Chevy_lover]

The ‘X’ Story - Parental guidance is advised.

Name of the male protagonist changed to protect his identity.

Mr. X is a man in his early sixties. He is about 5 feet 3 inches tall, very lean, but muscular. Even in the bitter cold, he was wearing just a cotton shirt and a dhoti. He also wore a woolen cap. Worst of all, he wasn’t wearing any footwear. He had dark eyes. But his eyes had seen sights which would send an average man to the hospital with a stroke! He is survived by his wife. He spoke fluent Tamil. He was thrilled to meet us, because we were from his home state.

Here is the story of Mr. X, exactly as it was narrated to me.

Incase of a reported suicide or murder or accident, the Kodai police asks Mr. X to go down to the valley to search for the body. X prepares for the trek by packing food for a week. It takes three days for Mr. X, to trek down to the valley through dense forests.

On reaching the base of the hill, it is a difficult task finding the body. Most of the time, it will be badly mutilated by the fall and wild animals. Some times some body parts will also be missing.

Though X is shown a photo of the victim, he rarely is able to identify a victim that way, as the fall will always smash the ribs and head.

So, on finding the body, Mr. X cuts a piece of cloth from the body.

He then treks back to the top and shows it to the relatives to identify.

[Chevy_lover]

On getting a green signal and payment from them, he again prepares for the trek to the valley. But this time he will carry his equipment with him.

Know what his high-tech, state-of-the-art equipment is?

A nylon sack!

He told us that the bodies would be so shattered, after the fall that it would fit inside his nylon sack. He even showed us the sack that he uses! It was an old 50 kilo rice sack. We were speechless! We did not notice that our eyes were moist!

Mr. X will be accompanied by two of his assistants this time. The whole trail is dense forest.

The body, by this time, would be over seven days old. X then would pack the body in his sack and the group would then take a different, faster, climb to the top of the hill. This is done because of the advanced stage of decomposing of the body. He showed us that trail also.

It takes them two full days of climbing to reach the top. It is almost a near vertical climb to the top of suicide point.

The body has to be tied to one person’s back all the time. X and his assistants take turns carrying the body.

He has brought up 83 bodies so far!

[Chevy_lover]

Mr. X then told us a heartrending tale.

It happened twelve years back. A newly married couple from North India had come to Kodai for their honeymoon. On the second day of their stay, they had a fight over some trivial matter.

The new bride was so shattered that she committed suicide by jumping from the point.

The husband jumped soon after!

X had the unforgettably sad experience of bringing up both their bodies.

[saleem_k]

I can see that you both had an incredible holiday! Awesome travelogue, great photos and a hear-rendering story about Mr.X and his profession!

We are waiting for more...

[Chevy_lover]

Originally Posted by saleem_k

I can see that you both had an incredible holiday! Awesome travelogue, great photos and a hear-rendering story about Mr.X and his profession!

We are waiting for more...

Thanks Saleem. It was so touching hearing X speak about what he did. He was doing such a great work for the families of the victims. He also told us that there were still hundreds of unclaimed victims on the valley floor. No one bothers about them.

My encounter with Mr. X is about to take a thrilling turn!

You would'nt believe what happened next!

Story will continue.....

[Majic]

Chevylover, nice pictures of Bhutan- Clouds, i had aldready gone through the thread and aldready commented on the wonderful narration and pictures, still reminds me of the time when you were outside the hotel in the middle of the night asking for the innkeeper( i think its his daughter who let you in). Nice heart rendering tale of Mr.X, sad that he is doing this for a living, i feel it needs to be appreciated that he takes effort of bringing back the body to the loved ones. Please continue!

[Prowler]

CL - You are the man on the clouds. Breath taking. One more thing - you are a good narrator. You can write a book.

Sad to read about Mr.X.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Prowler

CL - You are the man on the clouds. Breath taking. One more thing - you are a good narrator. You can write a book.

Sad to read about Mr.X.

I second that opinion. You have a grip on the narrative, and know where to hold. Do consider!

Amazing live story line!

[Chevy_lover]

Originally Posted by ampere

I second that opinion. You have a grip on the narrative, and know where to hold. Do consider!

Amazing live story line!

Originally Posted by Prowler

CL - You are the man on the clouds. Breath taking. One more thing - you are a good narrator. You can write a book.

Sad to read about Mr.X.

Originally Posted by Majic

Chevylover, nice pictures of Bhutan- Clouds, i had aldready gone through the thread and aldready commented on the wonderful narration and pictures, still reminds me of the time when you were outside the hotel in the middle of the night asking for the innkeeper( i think its his daughter who let you in). Nice heart rendering tale of Mr.X, sad that he is doing this for a living, i feel it needs to be appreciated that he takes effort of bringing back the body to the loved ones. Please continue!

Thanks a lot for the comments. It takes a lot of time to fine tune my story to make it more interesting for my dear Team Bhpians. I am very happy that my effort has paid off. I hope everyone will continue reading and enjoying my humble effort at writing!

Majic, I am surprised to see that you still remember that incident. Spending two hours outside in -2 degree temperature, shouting at the top of our voices, with lots of dogs for company, made our trip more memorable.

I think some dogs joined us in trying to wake up the owner!

[Chevy_lover]

When X finished his story, little did we realize what was in store for us! We were destined for an incredible experience.

Mr. X asked us whether we saw the view of the valley. I told him that I had seen the bottom of the hill, before the fence was erected. But my wifey did not get that chance.

X just smiled us in a mysterious way! There were no tourists there at that time.

Mr. X asked us to accompany him. He took us through a secret passage and the next moment, we were standing outside the fence!

[Majic]

Nice teaser at the end of the day. I really have to give credit to your sense of fine tuning the narration, it works out wonderful. Regarding the Bhutan visit i do remember most of the incedents there, it was one of the first travelogues that i read after joining T Bhp. After that i got an addiction to Chevylovers threads and spent lots of time reading through all your threads. Cheers for the good working looking out for more.

[Chevy_lover]

Our legs started shaking as soon as we saw the 5000 feet drop. It was terrifying.

I grabbed hold of wifey’s belt from the back and made her walk slowly while I followed her. She was scared stiff. I guided her carefully. I had one hand on the metal rods of the fence and the other one firmly on my wifey’s belt. The path was covered with soft grass and was slippery. We walked very slowly to the edge of the hill, not looking down, even once.

X was waiting for us at the edge.

I wanted to click the sheer drop of 5000 feet. But it was too dangerous to go any further to look down. It had rained heavily earlier and the ground was slippery. It was quite windy too.

So I decided to lie down on the ground to take snaps. Then I was safe and had a bird’s eye view of the sheer drop.
Words cannot explain the fear I felt at that moment!!!

Wifey was standing behind me with a very worried look on her face. Acting instinctively, wifey immediately crouched down and tightly held my foot.

From a lying position, I took some spectacular pics of the sheer drop of Suicide point.

I dropped some stones to test the sheer drop. It was scary seeing the stones disappear in 3 seconds flat.

I have drawn a red line and a circle on the photos to indicate how the stones fell.

Just imagine trying to find a body from those dense forests!!! It is like finding a needle from a haystack!

[Majic]

Mmmm, you have given me goose pimples all over my body, it was like me standing there and experiencing this! Sad that such beautiful place is known for the wrong reasons or is it the beauty that compels people to jump!

[Chevy_lover]

Mr. X showed us the “trail” he took when he had to bring bodies uphill. Our jaws dropped and they almost touched the ground, when we saw the so-called trail! It was a near vertical mountain!

We could not even think how this simple guy could climb such a huge mountain without any safety equipment. I am sure even experienced mountaineers will quiver when they see this photo!!!
And don’t forget that he always used to have a 50-90 kg body on his back!!! Just imagine his strength.

Anyone ready to climb this mountain without ropes, ascenders, carabiners and hooks??? I almost forgot to add. NO SHOES TOO!!!

I took photos of Suicide Point lying down on this rock.

Mr. X took some photos of us outside the fence.

We then returned back inside the fence. By this time tourists had started to flock in. They were staring at us as though we were aliens. No one is permitted to go outside the fence. We got a one-in-a-million chance. It was by far the most thrilling and bone-chilling experience of the whole trip!

We thanked Mr. X profusely. Mr. X told us that there were no suicides from the point since the last two years. We could not stop talking about this thrilling experience for the next three hours.

We returned back to the town. We decided to go to the lake to recover from the hangover. We then had lots of ice creams. I captured a wonderful sunset from the lake.