c u on top - satyabrata dam

I wrote this piece, way back in 2001, climbing along with one of the all time legends of the mountaineering world, Sir Chris Bonington. I would talk about him later at another place. For the time being I am posting the link to what I wrote. We went on to climb several peaks during this expedition and stepped at many places as the first human beings to have done so. I also ended up having a major accident and despite my better sense, climbed a virgin peak thereafter. The link http://www.bonington.com/argan_news/109.htm

I am 45 and have a short term memory, which means that I often forget things that has happened recently... say within the last few days or hours or minutes. This is not a bad thing actually. Makes up for a great excuse and it is true. My doctors, who have been experimenting with my body and brain to study the effect of extreme high altitude, rarefied atmosphere along with oxygen deprivation and prolonged exposure to low atmospheric pressure, has finally ruled that my brain cells have been permanently damaged or altered in a way that they find hard to explain. But my short term memory is an outcome of my vertical life. While my long term memory often remains intact, though now, as I could probably 5 years ago, I would find it rather difficult to rattle out names and heights of several thousand peaks and passes scattered across the Himalaya. Nevertheless, this evening, a short while ago, suddenly a vision from the past came to me. I was back to being tiny thirteen and an uncle asks me;...

There was a Gnu In a zoo Who had flue And he was so sick He could no more pick The nuts people threw I went to a shop To buy some crop But there was none So I came back With a brown sack Full of bun My pet bear Was such a dear That he would not Without a cot Go to sleep Like a perfect creep If in the sky The birds do fly Then they must have flew In the skew And will be flying In the skying Mr Moo of Mozambik Was a bit eccentric He would have One dozen crab For his lunch Which he would munch And then complain They taste like toothpick

We were on our way to the North Pole, but the weather was bad and we were holed up in the northernmost habitation in the world – Longyearbyen, the main city of the Svalbard Archipelago of Norway. This was one of the few places on Earth, where a Polar Bear had the right of the way on a road. The gun laws were ludicrous at the best. With Polar Bears often straying close to civilization, it is mandatory to carry a gun when venturing out anywhere, even slightly out of the town lights. To hire a gun from a shop, all one needs is a photo id and demonstrate that one knows the general direction the gun barrel must be pointing when one is pulling the trigger. But that doesn’t mean that one can rampantly kill a Polar Bear. Surprisingly, but obviously, if a shooting accident happens and a Polar bear does get seriously damaged or dead, then the benefit of the doubt is awarded to the bear. So after you kill a bear, you have to conclusively prove in the court that the bear had every intent...

I just finished reading the spine chilling and nail biting second book of my friend, Andy Cave. He is among the best all round alpinists in the world today, though you would never catch him proclaim it or hint it even, vehemently refusing instead, that he is nothing more than a bumbling stumbling clumsy guy with ice tools. I wrote the following review of the book for the Himalayan Journal: THIN WHITE LINE. By Andy Cave. Pp 230, 45 photos, four maps, 2009. (Arrow Books, London, £8.99) Andy writes the way he climbs his mountains. Pure and simple, direct, and above all beautifully. Having known him personally, it defies belief that such an unassuming man could be one of the finest contemporary climbers in the world who wields his pen with finesse equaling the swing of his ice axe. Starting off where he had paused in his bestselling debut Learning to Breathe , Andy now takes us on a whirlwind tour to some of the severest alpine challenges across the globe from the high ec...

Life offers us unlimited options and choices, most of which are manmade. I don’t accept most and consciously and willingly reduce my options to the barest minimum. Grasping only what is essential and natural. There is an almost non-existent line separating our dreams from our realities, for we think therefore we are! And in our dreams we can cover galactic voids in a wink or create universes out of nothing. There is a constant yearning for what we are not and what we want to be, there is a perennial struggle to grasp what lies beyond our vision while discarding those that are within. My life is essentially devoid of these struggles or turmoil, since I live only for my dreams and I foolishly believe that all my dreams are viable, achievable and definitely within the span of this lifetime. Choices are extremely limited, banal to the best, so I go for it, most often than not, I rush in where angels would fear to tread. Life on and off the edge is all about believing in my dreams, ...

Once I climbed a hill only to find that there was an endless chain of mountains stretched as far as I could see. With no hopes of crossing them ever, I took this picture, slept under the open sky and next morning, descended with my heart full of unspoken joy