c u on top - satyabrata dam

The year of 2013 is nearing its predestined end. Even though we are still a fortnight away, I am offering my regular year end post bit early as from tomorrow I would be in situations from where a post may not be practically feasible; and perhaps where a post or internet would not be a part of my itinerary at all. Yes, you guessed it; I am off into my mountains. Barring a few, who have sighted me recently, perhaps most of you out there who know me only vicariously by now presume that I am no more, not in the physical sense since my last post happened more than three months ago. But I am here once again to disappoint you. I am alive, very much so, and laughing at the paradox of it all. Though I must say if not for the year end post, I would have written another post only in 2014, since till now I had written exactly 13 posts, and that seemed beautiful for the year 2013. But alas, as so much in life is unpredictable, you will now have 14 posts in my blog for the year 2013. And...

People often ask me what have been my worst moments in life, when I almost died, or felt that I wouldn’t get back alive, when everything seemed hopeless and totally lost. My answer normally is that despite anything nothing is ever hopeless. As long as I have my last breathe within me even if I am totally lost and on the verge of dying. There is hope as long as there is life. And then I embellish it with saying that there are no worst or best moments in life; it all depends on which side of the fence you are looking at it from that decides if it was worst or best; albeit it was certainly a MOMENT. Whereas it is said that you should count your life by how many moments that took your breath away, I normally count them by how many mistakes I made and therefore learnt something out of it and in my case my mistakes are always goofy since I laugh about them upon my own silly attitude. Oxford dictionary defines goofy – ludicrous or foolish; and mistake – a wrong action attributable to ...

The other day while wading through Kalahari I met Mother Teresa and Madam Mata Hari One sweet lady and the other deadly I asked 'Hello girls, how do you do?' Mother said, 'Bless you son' Madam said 'I better kill you' I love them both so couldn't say no Mother embraced me within her glow Madam put an arrow to her bow Being a warrior of peace I told Mother to walk with the breeze And to oil her bow I gave Madam some grease So Mother ambled spreading love and joy I tumbled behind like a lost boy Madam would have nothing of this decoy Following one and pursued by another Two beautiful ladies asunder I wished being a better runner And then my dream ended Upon this earth I again landed Bruised and a bit jaded Two beautiful women with hearts of gold Kind Mother and Madam bold My soul to them both sold The above utterly ridiculous lines are a no-holds-barred impromptu take on two very dear friends, I have recently met. I respect, ...

Your Russian Guide in Kremlin I just returned from a madcap adventure in Russia with a group of friends to visit the highest summit of Europe – Elbrus in the Caucasus. This post is not about this climb. I know or knew Russia and Russians well and a smattering of the language that had taken me from the high volcanic plateau’s of Kamchatka to the Baltic or Finnish Lapland and from the frozen shores of Laptev Sea (Northernmost tips of Siberia) to the breezy Caspian, often pursued or accompanied by stern non-smiling men and women in uniform whose purpose was to ensure I did or came to no harm. So rushing through the Russian Tundra aboard the Trans-Siberian Rail or reindeer-sleding towards the North Pole, I had always been amazed and impressed with the Russian diversity and the people’s tenacity over so much anarchy and butchery. My first trip to Russia was more than 20 years back when KGB ruled that world and the mere mention of Lubyanka could make any lion-hearted feel dizzy; ...

Often hailed as the world’s most popular and most recognizable puzzle game and also the most perplexing, I doubt if there are many on this planet who haven’t heard of Rubik’s Cube. And I am sure most such people have always harvested the desire to solve one, if one could be solved. With 43 quintillion permutations (43,252,003,274,489,856,000 to be precise) this cube has long puzzled mankind leaving only very few cube crazies to be able to do it. When we look at a scrambled cube and start to unscramble using whatever little brain or logic we have, very soon we realize that we are not reaching anywhere. And after few hours we are ready to throw it out of the window out of sheer frustration. Yet when we watch a master turn and twist the abominable cubies or cubelets (the tiny cubes that make up the entire cube) and place before us a perfectly solved cube in seconds then we can only gasp and wonder at the magic of it all.

I am motionless as a spider spying upon its prey. I am stuck on a sheer column of ice, no thicker than few inches with visible ground far beyond my eyes dare to travel. I feel like a spider but wonder (the most irrelevant notion at that moment) if ever a spider has ventured across icy terrains of such smoothness and vertical travesty. Even as my eyes, though still, look for places where I could place my ice pick, my four limbs glued to the element begins to grow weary. Precious seconds are ticking away and all I can do is gasp, breathe, and pray for a miracle. With mother Earth nearly 100 m below I am venturing upon a new ice route in the cold frigid mountains of Colorado’s Telluride town deep end of box canyon on one of the most treacherous and iconic winter routes of all, the dreaded ‘Bridal Veil’ graded WI 5-6 under normal conditions. It is a tottering column of such jumbled ice sculpture that from the bottom you cannot see even 1/4 th of the way up.

I like to believe that I am a happy and content human being even if I aspire for more. And this self-belief has only been heightened by hundreds of my friends who seek my advice and guidance in matters of happiness at moments of perplexity. So I figured I must be doing something right to be in this constant state of flux, always changing, transforming, yet smiling and happy and joyful – most of the time. Few religious beliefs and schools of philosophy has led us to accept that ‘life is suffering’, also most of us find life too difficult or complex and complicated. But not once do we see that the key to happiness is with us, within us. Happiness and sorrow are simultaneously present no matter who we are, where we are, what we do or how we live. The difference is in our vision, in our attitude, in our way of life. I must explain the title to this post before we proceed further, lest some of you may be offended: a short guide since your guide here is short (I am only 170 cm in my he...

I just got back after climbing a big mountain, really big, really high though may not be really difficult. This story is not about this mountain or about the climb but about a vivid dream that I dreamt one night in one of the high camps and then on waking up, remained so clear that I jotted it down in my diary (which incidentally has not even one line about the climb). So here is the dream verbatim as the way I remembered and recorded in my diary. This is what I saw… A wise man from a fair skinned nation once traveled to the great East, into the Himalaya and chanced upon a naked sage, who, it was reported, had remained stationary at one place beneath a towering peak for as long as one could remember. The wise man, full of wisdom and himself, drew level with the naked sage and asked, ‘why are you stationary, so seeped into stillness when everything within this cosmos is in motion?’ The naked sage smiled through his dense beard and muttered, ‘my honorable friend from far,...

Recently I climbed a big mountain; big both in girth and loftiness, very big. Much happened during this climb and much that should not have happened, but today’s story is not about this mountain or about the climb, it’s about something else entirely. Something that is intriguingly significant to me and even though I do see its rationale in afterthought I am still puzzling over the incident. Lord Shiva is one of the primary Hindu Gods, in fact the most supreme of the trinity. He is on one hand the destroyer and on another the procreator since without annihilation there can’t be creation or so we believe. Shiva certainly is someone’s figment of imagination on high testosterone and the legend is an extraordinary saga. Of all the facts about Shiva that we are led to believe, the one I hold closest to my heart is that He resides in the Himalaya and his five abodes are spread across the length of the icy peaks. Therefore with that belief, he is my only god since Himalaya is my hom...

Today I am going to tell a little story and some thoughts in this post. The story may or may not have any link to the thoughts like any other things in this life and universe. While each is related and linked to each, they are also not. Just as a grain of sand can be the entire cosmos or it can just be that – a grain of sand. I will begin by quoting one of my favorite Zen thoughts - A person may appear a fool but he may only be guarding his wisdom carefully

Climbing mountains is my journey through life, a pilgrimage and a quest for my own true self. Reasons I chose this path of exploration are many and diverse; breathtaking views, infinite possibilities, solitude and redefining my own boundaries are primary among them. And the fact that they are there only helped. People say that I do things that very few in the world do and when they ask me why, I reply ‘why not?’ Though in my opinion what I do is not so uncommon; you and I, we all climb our own mountains of body and mind and of soul and your journeys are no less exciting or unpredictable than mine and at the end we all do wish to reach the top and then get down safe and happy back from where we began. And perhaps in this regard our climbs begin to differ.

I looked up at the white summit, across and over a convex wall of rock-hard ice... it looked tantalisingly near yet I knew I would never reach it, at least not today. I had reached the end of my endurance, expertise and wits. I had nothing more to counter the mountain’s defences. If I wished to live then today I must quit. For the moment it was a summit too far.

Once upon a time in the late eighteenth century there lived a group of monks by a fast mountain river that flowed from the hills and through the serene woods where the monks lived in a modest monastery. These monks lived a very simple life doing what they were supposed to do, and taught by their master. They cooked and ate and then preached the Lord Buddha’s teachings among the poor village folks that came to see them. Out of all the monks the brightest was Chen who lived the life of a true hermit never seeking more than what was given, never saying more than asked and never going further than his monastery. He was a pure soul yet he wasn’t ready to go and his master, despite his best efforts hadn’t been able to show Chen that he was ready and now needed to leave. Now what these monks had never done before was cross the river that flowed nearby though they drew its sweet water each day. So the master talked to his brother on the other side of the river and one morning ...

I have to admit that the title is an unabashed copy of Somerset Maugham’s autobiography with the year as a suffix and hence my own in a way. Not that I should be ashamed of copying that great now-dead author Mr. Maugham. I absolutely adore him and his writing skills. As always I felt the need to sum up the year though I am sure no one gives a rat’s shit (kids please pardon my cussing) what that is since I don’t give myself. But then there are people who do slither across my blog looking for some banality and blemished banter and of course some intended pun along with bitter humor. So let’s begin at the very beginning (where else can one begin from?)… As I pen these words, I can hear the rushing waves of the Pacific on the west coast of the US of A on the last day of 2012 / first day of 2013 through the darkness and to imagine that exactly at these hours and day precisely a year ago I was fighting ticks and other abominable wild life deep into the Agumbe Rainforest of Souther...