The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Hyderabad boy chosen for trip to Antarctica

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 29, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad boy chosen for trip to Antarctica

By Our Staff Reporter

Abhijeet Shah

HYDERABAD, DEC. 28. A 20-year-old boy from the city, Abhijeet B. Shah, is preparing to spend his New Year in a place that few Indian students would even dream of visiting.

This youngster, who completed his class 12 from Hyderabad Public School, is the only undergraduate, the youngest and the only Indian in a biology field trip from the Iowa State University (ISU), USA, to Antarctica.

The team headed by Carol Vleck, an associate professor with the Department of Ecology in ISU, set off on the trip on December 25, and will be on the continent known for its ferocious winds and blinding storms till January 8.

Detailed study

The group first flew to Buenos Aires in Argentina, from where it proceeded to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. On Tuesday, the team comprising 12 students boarded a special Russian ship.

The ship is expected to take two or three days to sail to Antarctica, depending on the weather conditions. Once anchored off the Antarctic coast, they will make day-trips in small rubber boats to the icy shoreline of the mainland and nearby islands, where they will be looking at the penguins and other birds nesting there.

They will also be observing seals, whales, icebergs and glaciers, apart from visiting an old whaling station that was abandoned because of volcanic activity, according to an ISU communication.

Meanwhile, Abhijeet's parents, Bharat and Anita Shah, who live in Hanuman Tekdi, are excited about their son realising his childhood dream of going to Antarctica. "When he was in class 6, the class was asked to write an essay on where they would like to have a holiday. Abhijeet wrote that he wanted to go to Antarctica. He is there finally," says a beaming Ms. Shah.

Training

Ms. Shah, a museologist, and her husband Bharat, who is an architect, say Abhijeet was trained with the team for six months with weekly seminars and discussions on biographies of early explorers.

Abhijeet, with his elder brother Anirudh, a computer engineer, has been in the US for one year, and is doing his undergraduation in bio-chemistry.

He will be conducting experiments on anti-freezing properties of proteins in micro-organisms, the ISU communication said.

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