c u on top - satyabrata dam

Someone is certainly dead in this picture :)  To many of my friends around the world, I am perhaps dead today; and they would either be mourning or smiling in glee (I hope the latter). Not that I mind, since death is always by my side (as with any mortal human) and it’s good to be dead while you are still alive since then you learn how others perceive you and how deeply are you loved or hated. But then some of you may ask why my friends would presume me dead on this particular day, on this particular date! The answer is simple. When I was asked before the advent of the net, how one would know if I am still alive or dead, I simply had no definite answer. Spending most of life in places that are out of communication coverage (underwater or high above into the clouds or deep jungles) how on earth would anyone ever know, since I myself wouldn’t know. But then came the net and suddenly things changed and then I started my blog and things changed even more. Ever since I st...

The endless white sand dunes Out of the three best things that befell my fortune in Belem; two happened on the same evening, within a span of few minutes with the same person and I am myself shocked that this person hails from the male species and I really took an intense liking to him. How and what got me to Alexandre is a long tale not suitable for current consumption, but suffice to say that he picked me up one bland Belem evening to offer my hungry soul some delightful delicacies. We finally ended up in a roadside joint and had just dipped our fingers in a large cauldron (caldrao) of fish swimming unceremoniously in thick clear yellow soup when suddenly Alexandre froze, one twisted shrimp poised tantalizingly from his lips. He could as well be a fish about to take the bait but at the last moment arrested by his element of surprise. I wondered how could he take the delectable shrimp that close to his mouth and not put it in! Some display of self-control, if I had seen any...

  When I made my escape from Uruguay, I needed some place that would not only wipe away all the dust and grime of that nation but also allow me to forget all my follies I committed therein. My intended escape route out of Uruguay was ‘over the land’ trip to Porto Alegre in Brazil but as nothing ever happens according to plan, on a whim I bought a ticket to Foz do Iguacu, gateway town to the famous Iguacu Falls, which many tout as the world’s eighth natural wonder – that kept me wondering what the other seven were! Never mind my wonder, but I was in so much rush to leave Uruguayan soil that I reached the petite airport 4 hours ahead of schedule despite losing my bus and way twice.

This week I met, after several years, one of my best climbing buddies, the infamous Jim Lowther along with another friend Jim Fotheringham – the legendary British climber. While JF is a dentist by profession and all of 60 years specializing in curing snoring besides making first ascents around the globe, JL is of my age (47 – 48) and claims to be a poor farmer in the Lakes UK, never mind the fact that his peerage belongs to the Earls of Lonsdale that once upon a time were perhaps the largest landowners in UK, while as you all know I do nothing and claim to be doing nothing either and let someone prove that I do of anything worth mentioning! We had another member to this informal (over the beer glasses and huge plates of burgers) meeting all of 44 and a reborn alpinist from US, Eric, who was a champion mountain biker and took up climbing few years ago. I never thought of asking how he justifies his existence on planet earth otherwise, so his profession and occupation remains as o...

A big bright smile, vigorous nod of the head and a pair of thumbs raised straight up towards heaven works wonderfully in Brazil. And that’s how I sashayed my way through the world’s largest catholic nation for two months. I learnt a lot except the tongue. In fact I returned with less Portuguese in my vocabulary than I had begun my journey with. As always wherever I travel, I met and befriended an incredible number of people, fell in love with the land and with its beautiful women, with the air, with the music, food  both solid and fluid, beaches, animals and above all with the buses. This is an introductory post on Brazil hence I will highlight and touch upon certain aspects that I find memorable and briefly mention all the regions I caroused through; time and inclination permitting I shall elaborate upon these as well in future posts.

When the girl at the hostel reception told me that the most exciting things I could hope to indulge in, in Montevideo (being winter – whispering conspiratorially) was catch a movie in a neighboring theatre or sip maté on the roof or by the sea watching the sun sink across the bay; I should have known better to take the next flight out. But Uruguay is my 145 th country and tenacity is my name and self-inflicted injuries to my mind are what I specialize in and I wasn’t going to give up Uruguay without a fight. Living with ‘zero’ expectations and being ‘disappointment proof’ has their own rewards and nowhere else has it been proven as conclusively as in Uruguay, the country that many dream of visiting. I spent the next five days in this flat nation and this is the story of what happened or rather didn’t happen during those interminable hours.

Sometime back I had written a post on the ‘must haves’ for an outdoor trip, things without which you must never venture into the wilderness. Following that and even otherwise, people have been asking me to come out with a more extensive list of things to pack in when going outdoors. Pack in the thrills without the frills. What should be an ideal check of list for an outdoor trip, where you don’t take too much neither too little. So that it covers the essentials and few more as well. Obviously I had to think like a normal hiker or walker. My personal list would be too little for most people since there are times I don’t even carry food or source of fire. But then not everyone has adequate survival skills or experience, hence missing out on certain items could be calamitous. So here are my recommendations with few additional items that I think are ‘luxuries’ but then we live in different times and these days people often feel an ipod is an essential. When I do extreme light-weight solo...

Sometime back I did a survey through my FB friend’s and other networks asking them – if you had a minute more to live, 60 seconds of life left, how would you engage those seconds. I had no idea what to expect but within a fortnight I received 73 responses from around the globe. After that no one responded, so I waited bit more, hoping that I would be able to gather at least 100 samples before unravelling the findings and adding my two bits of wisecrack. Now I have waited for nearly a month and half without getting the 74 th response to the topic in hand. And I can safely assume that those who thought about the last minute of their lives have already responded and the rest simply didn’t take me seriously. For which they can’t be held responsible since even I don’t take myself seriously. Well, so let’s begin, as always, with the numbers –

I have a large world map chart hanging in my room. It’s the first thing I see in the morning and mostly also the last before I sleep. Within and in between that span, everything that happens to humanity or to me happens within that map, in the depths of the oceans and across the length of those continents. The map shows me the places, geographical coordinates, rivers and the mountains, desserts, polar icecaps, islands, archipelagoes, ocean currents, air and shipping lanes, time zones, equator, international date line and the tropics as well. It’s not a large map, measuring around 40 X 50 inches. It’s mindboggling to think that this tiny planet as we know it houses seven billion people and counting and countless other things both from the living and non-living world.

I shut my eyes, let my breathe play through my body, following its path through my mind’s eye as it cruises from one extremity to another, filling up my cells with oxygen... My limbs are stuck in awkward pantomime, I am frozen, can’t move, if I do, I will fall, if I don’t, I will fall My legs are gone, they feel nothing, the tip of my toes which bear my entire weight and keeps me from plunging have numbed beyond existence What’s keeping me stuck to this sheer wall of white, I wonder. I know this won’t last for long, nothing lasts for long I look at my arms, thoroughly pumped, holding on to the pair of steel shafts, bent like banana, which are beginning to tremble and shake, I know their two tips, buried less than few mm into the rock hard ice is all that stands between me and certain death The breeze plays with my hair, the cold refuses to warm my freezing mind, the body is beyond any feeling, yet my mind is alive... and I know very soon I would witness my own descent into hell, ...

You can’t fail to see the connection... the title has been totally inspired and motivated by the famous TV shows: You Can Dance and Yan Can Cook. I wish we had a TV show ‘You Can Climb’ with me as the host and three celebrity judges including Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan. Perhaps some hotshot daredevil TV show producer would read this post and get equally inspired to boost his TRP right to the top and get my idea off ground. But only on one condition, JR and MR have to be in it. So this post is for that elusive TV show producer / director, for JR and MR and finally for all you lovely people out there who are the intended participants and live or TV audience when the show is finally aired. Join me guys; let’s do some climbing aka fun style.

A reliable source claims that around 30 – 34 million visitors annually litter the streets and edifices of Paris of which around 22 million do so only in and around the top 6 sights. This could be true or entirely false and I had no desire to prove either when I started to plan something totally alien (to me) and seemingly non-achievable: to see the major sights of Paris in a day using only the rail network of this city within minimum possible expenditure. This was an audacious enterprise hence needed some sort of a plan. To begin with I needed a day in Paris. I have been through Paris on numerous occasions before, mainly using it as a gateway to the French Alps. Just like any other manmade and populated places Paris holds no charm for me, even then during my earlier visits I had once taken the lift to the top of that tower and had also gazed at that mysterious lady, who may not be a lady at all if we are to believe the painter’s arch rivals, within that museum which supposedly is wor...

It’s said that if you can’t say something briefly while retaining its purport and significance to your audience then either you have nothing to say or it isn’t worth saying; either way it would be better to maintain silence and lead your audience to believe in your wisdom; why open your mouth and confirm their suspicions – that you indeed are a fool. Among my friends, fans and followers the opinion is divided in equal measure: I speak too much and I don’t speak at all, and they are united in their opinion that I am indeed the only self-proclaimed foolproof guru who is capable of fooling everyone all the time. I take this as a compliment so I either speak or stay mute depending upon the conditions of my vocal chords and never have any consideration for  my audience; what about their choice, do they want to hear me utter my wisecracks or not but I will deliver nevertheless. It’s like on a hot day you may prefer to stay indoors and not expose yourself to the sun burning in the sky, ...