The adventurers who taught me to see
- Harish Dixit
- Jul 12
- 3 min read
Harish Dixit
Senior Infrastructure Manager – APAC
Every trek teaches you something.
A few teach you about yourself and some teach you about people.
My trek to Sarasgad Fort, this weekend, with the group called “Blind Who Trek” did both, and it humbled me in ways that two decades of trekking across four continents, had not.
After paying the registration fee, I was added to the WhatsApp group and received the itinerary. The plan was simple.
Our bus pulled out of Borivali National Park at nine on a Saturday evening, picked me up along the Western Express Highway, and collected the rest of the group before reaching the base town of Pali.
We were thirty-one in all. Fifteen visually impaired adventurers and sixteen sighted companions.
A few stolen hours of rest and a sumptuous plate of poha got us moving.
By half past five the bus dropped us at the foot of the fort.
We received a careful briefing on how to hold our designated buddy’s hand, along with the usual dos and don’ts.
I was paired with Aadesh, who was doing his second Sahyadri trek. Watching the pairings form, hearing the easy laughter between strangers, I felt the day’s first quiet lesson arriving.
The climb began under merciful clouds.
Sighted companions described the unfolding world as we gained altitude, the curve of the path, the shape of the rocks, the line where the forest gave way to open sky.
By eleven the sun broke through, and a familiar scent rose around us, the warm mineral smell of sun-baked basalt that every Sahyadri trekker knows.
The heat grew heavy but nobody complained.
At the summit we shared whatever snacks we had carried.
Food tastes different when you are hungry.
After photographs and a brief rest, we began the descent.
Our water was running low and the sun was no longer kind.
On a flight of about ninety uneven steps cut into the rock, each nearly a foot high, between the two peaks, I sat down.
I closed my eyes for a moment to feel the wind move across my face, and I understood, in a single breath, a small fraction of what my companions experience the whole way up.
Lower down, the rocks scorched our palms when we sat to negotiate a tricky patch.
The forest received us kindly, lending its shade for the final stretch.
At the first house in the village, a gracious lady sold us bottled water, offered us a chilled bottle from her own refrigerator to settle our thirst.
We request her to sell us some lemonade and happily obliged.
The glass of lemonade tasted like elixir. Then the rain gods showered their blessings on us. A thirty-minute shower cooled our body and spirit.
We changed clothes, ate a quick lunch, and visited the Ballaleshwar Ganesh temple in Pali before turning the bus toward Mumbai.
I have stood on higher summits. I have walked longer trails. Yet seldom has a trek left me so humbled.
My friends without sight conquered Sarasgad in punishing heat, with quiet courage and no grievance on their lips.
Society often defines people by what they cannot do. It says blindness is a limitation. It says some dreams are too ambitious.
They proved that human potential cannot be measured by eyesight.
It is about showing that when determination becomes stronger than fear, the impossible becomes possible.
They climbed the fort. They also climbed over every limitation the world had set for them.
That afternoon, on those warm rocks, the only things that mattered were trust, kindness, and an unbreakable spirit.
In their company, I learned, perhaps for the first time, how to truly see.
-chalatmusafir (HD)
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