c u on top - satyabrata dam

This is a simple tale of a human being who is totally unknown to me but who had touched my life briefly very recently. He is not a climber, nothing extraordinary and we cross people like him by the hundreds each day. Here's the story: - Recently I was in Mumbai and had to go to a friend's place, which is rather close to the Bandra local train station. I got out of the station in the impossibly sweltering heat looking for respite from the sun. There were many autorickshaw fellows, but all of them refused my fair since I was traveling only a little distance or they asked for a much higher fair. But for the sun and my parched throat I would have perhaps taken a bus. Finally I waved down an autorickshaw with a puny little old fellow in white dress. Hearing my destination he smiled and asked me to hop in. He quietly lowered the meter and off we went. He put on a music and offered me a sip from his water bottle. We reached my destination and the meter read a paltry sum of Rs 13.00 on...

Things happen to each one of us all the time. As long as you are alive on this planet (and may be thereafter too!) not a day could possibly pass without something happening to you, around you, with people whom you know, at places you have been or wish to be. Incidents and happenings, like our thoughts are an integral part of our lives. Some of these things happen due to our own actions or inactions, and some times they are dictated, executed by others, and even then affect us and change our lives in ways we may or may not wish to. Now the point that I am trying to drive here is; what happens after something happens? How do you take it, how does it affect you? Broadly speaking any incident or happening that influences us can be in only two ways: bad or good / encouraging or discouraging / positive or negative. That should make you realize that in reality how simple life really is. Just two options to choose from and at the end it really is upon us to choose the one that we would take aw...

Your face on canvas I drew Are you real, are you true Have we met before! Why do I want you more? In the rising sun I see you Like rainbow in morning dew Upon the grass as I stride You smile and walk by my side I watch the birds, with them I sing Ruffling my hair, in my arms you swing Through the day I think of you You stay within me like a heady brew When I return to my empty house You hold my hand you hold me close Walking alone beneath the starry sky I often seek and I wonder why? When I know you are nowhere Why do I see you everywhere? Are you real or only in my mind! Your touch I feel; is it your hand! On your eyes I long to kiss Feel heaven and the sheer bliss But where do I find you Are you real, are you true!

In the mountains we have a thumb rule that we apply when we are hopelessly lost and come to a cross road from where one trail is going down and one that is going up. Obviously the one that is going down is more tempting to take as it is an easier one, but in the mountains we always take the trail going up for three simple reasons: if this is indeed the right trail then you are ok, if this is the wrong trail then all you go to do is descend which is easier on the face of tiredness and a wrong route, and as you gain altitude you are also able to see further since your horizon widens and you can see more landmark etc that you may be able to recognize to reorient yourself. None of these would have happened if you took the trail going down that was apparently easier. Same thumb rule can be applied in our normal lives too. Always take the trail going up, even if it is the wrong one. At least on it, you would have the satisfaction of knowing that now all you have ahead of you is the easier pa...

This is perhaps my first post that is essentially aimed at seasoned and experienced climbers. If you are not then you may like to skip this post. I will be using techniques and terminologies that a non-initiate may find hard to grasp or visualize. But read on nevertheless, since in this post I am going to give a brief beta on almost everything that you need to know to experience the toughest form of climbing possible. In the world of natural climbing grounds we can divide it into three prime categories: rock climb, ice climb and mixed climb. I specialize in the latter two, though my best trad rock lead has been a modest 5.12 b. It’s on ice and then on mixed ground that I find myself most comfortable and intense. While rock and ice climbing is easy to grasp and understand, it is the mixed climb (MC) that is often misunderstood and hard to master. But before you begin mixed climbing one must be a seasoned ice climber and a modest rock climber. So let’s get our racks and boots and ice too...

It’s summer time now, the spring is all but gone, many of my friends are right now struggling to stay alive in the higher echelons of Everest and some of the other highest peaks in the world as many of you are now gearing up for the summer treks, and planning your holiday in the hills. Any trip to the mountains, high or low, alpine or Himalayan proportions certainly calls for some experience and expertise to deal with personal injuries and health conditions that may arise on ground. The entire field of mountain medicine is too vast and yet uncharted for me to discuss here, so maybe I would break it down in smaller segments. The majority of the casualties and deaths that do take place in high altitudes are due to just that, the altitude, which plays havoc with the human body and mind. But even in the lower hills, a sudden chilly downpour, an accidental fall in a river or storm can catch you unawares and lead to cold injuries. While not fatal (like high altitude ailments) by themselves, ...

Only yesterday I was telling a friend about my adventures into the great Namibia Desert along the Skeleton Coast of Atlantic, emphasizing in particular how I am not too fond of the deserts during the day since cold places are essentially my home. I thought she was an ocean and mountain person like me, but she surprised me by confessing that she is equally enchanted with the deserts of the world since they too are boundless and immensely beautiful and redolent with life – not that she had visited any, besides Thar in India. That set me thinking and I soon realized that though not among my favorite places on Earth, I have walked through parts of several of the world’s largest (area wise) deserts and have had a firsthand encounter with their diversity, flora and fauna, spectacular beauty, with the burning sun of day and the frozen moon at night. While my mind thus wandered retracing those forgotten voyages across the arid lands, I recognized that I too was fascinated with deserts as muc...

Horizon is a place where the earth and the sky appear to meet. In terrestrial sense it is also a place that is furthest from the eye of the beholder. We can’t see what lies beyond our horizon and we don’t know how the world really is beyond our horizon. Horizon is always mysterious, haunting, exciting and intensely bewitching – at least to me. Is it any wonder then that horizons have always attracted me and have incited me to look beyond where my eyes couldn’t travel. My life as I have lived has always had its ample share of horizons. Despite being a submariner cramped within a tiny steel tube thousands of feet below the inky ocean depths my world has always been redolent with the most remarkable and abundant horizons and I have never missed a chance of looking at them, staring at them intensely till my eyes could not stare into the darkness any more. The most symmetric, clearly demarcated horizons are seen either over the oceans or great bodies of water, over deserts and from the top ...

Today is the 30th day of April 2010 and you all know it but many of you wouldn't know that today I finally leave the Indian Navy after 22 yrs of service to the nation. What has that got to do with the title of this post – plenty. The title pretty much sums up my own life in one word. There are always at least two ways of looking at anything and everything. Entire nature and universe and we are formed out of duality, of opposites, of things seemingly different, so we have the day and the night, we have men and women, we have water and fire and then we have the possible or the impossible. But the key literally is in the world impossible. When as a child I looked at an impossible task for the first time, I viewed it not as impossible but broke it down to: I M Possible, and within this simple coinage and play of letters I found the fundamental mantra of my life. Everything became possible for me. Much like my idea of becoming a submariner one day aka Captain Nemo of the Twenty Thousand...