Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Climb every mountain
|
Mountains are alluring and mysterious. Is that why they are sought?
|
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE Many are enamoured of the elegance of the highlands
Mountaineers might have been spared by the Yeti, but there’s no way they can escape this clichéd query. Why do you climb mountains? Annoying. Why do you mobike? Why do you gym? Third degree, but there it is.
A snappy answer would be: “Because it is in my way!” The famous one is: “Because it is there!” Can’t come up with something chillier? Pass this yarn: “The view is amazing!”
Fact is, mountains, even tiny hills are irresistible. Has there been a kid who walked around a sand hill or a gravel mound on the road? Didn’t spring up to the roof to retrieve a ball, kite or cat? The allure is in the risk, in the unknown. The more dangerous the ascent, the more attractive the appeal. You want to pit your strength against that mute giant. Climbing a mountain is like reaching a goal.
Mark the phrase. People attempt “to conquer” Mount Everest, with snow and icy winds for cold company. Treacherous crevasses dot your way up, avalanches rush to help you on the way down.
Frost-bite is part of the game. “Doing” it is an act of courage. It affirms your faith and fulfils the need to challenge the limit of your ability.
It’s the push-myself syndrome followed by satisfaction: the bonding that climbers develop staring at danger, the top-of-the-world feeling. It could be the fresh air, the picturesque view, or just the “bliss of solitude” and utter peace.
“Mountains? The Himalayas for me,” says Navin Gulia, the Limca Book record holder for driving non-stop in those “breath-taking” surroundings. His is a poetic route. “Mountains are life giving: it’s the chilling pure air audibly moving into my lungs, the music of silence in my ears mingled with the music of the wind in its unknown quest. It’s the snow glistening in the sun, the sound of the mountain stream. It’s me with myself, my thoughts. No ringing of phone, no knocks on the door, no TV channels dishing soaps; no deadlines to meet. When on a mountain, you see a bigger picture, with an extended vision. Is it surprising that man has sought and found himself in the Himalayas?”
Oh, umm… There may be no knocks on the door – you’re in door-less terrain – but there’s audible knocking in the region of your teeth. But his “ode to the mountain” isn’t a solo number.
Lofty reasons
In his Mountaineering - an Indian View, writer G.C. Joshi, a scholar from Almora, lists lofty reasons why the majestic rocks should be scaled.
“Mountaineering is a divine hobby, a kingly game, a queenly subject, a perilous exercise, an aristocratic pastime, a musical glee, a magical sport, an elevating education and an angelic refreshment,” he croons. Monarchs, saints, scientists, philosophers, artists, poets, travellers and anglers have been enamoured of the elegance of snow-capped peaks.
“What is it about the mountains that moves certain people?” asks Randeep Singh Nandal in Defence Affairs.
After walking the craggy rock faces of Leh, the rolling Kashmir hills, the pristine shadows of Himachal and the beautiful Nilgiris, he’s convinced “nothing beats the air of the hills in Garhwal and Kumaon.”
But then, as he confesses, he grew up following Jim Corbett’s trails in the highlands.
About the special pull of the Garhwal and Kumaon? “Maybe these hills are so integral to Indian mythology,” he suggests. “The Himalayas are the abode of gods, there’s a timelessness to them. This link with the past is integral to my understanding.”
He finds another connect. “Parts of Kashmir and Himachal are in many ways pale versions of Europe. It’s only in Garhwal and Kumaon that you’re constantly reminded that this can only be India. The woods here shout out the word Jungle! This is India, old India, India that lives in its folktales and its narratives.”
He quotes a friend posted in the Siachen Glacier during the “hot” times.
Three months after he lugged his bags to 19,000 feet above sea level, the Armyman sent a telegram. It read: “Very cold. But God, I love the hills.”
GEETA PADMANABHAN
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
