Summing Up 2020
A year that literally began for me at the roof of Africa, atop Kilimanjaro amidst eclectic group of friends and held uncharted possibilities has now come to its pre-destined end. That the year was unique is a hyperbolic understatement. It was downright unprecedented and never even imagined in my wildest fantasy and mind you I do have some magnificent flights of fancy.
2020 was a cataclysmic, apocalyptic, and to a very large extent pessimistic year for the entire planet. A pandemic of this proportion had never happened before in the human history and I pray to almighty may never be repeated. That it was necessary, some ruminated, if only to teach us humans a lesson in humility and to pause our all out war on annihilating our planet of her resources, including species of all kinds. Sadly as the year sunk into oblivion we haven’t learned any lessons at all. Anger, envy, hatred, cruelty and mistrust and all such human failings are very much still in the offing and perhaps in greater magnitude. Instead of uniting us as one family, we are fighting bitter battles to blame each other for this pandemic. Wars and genocides are still being conducted. Greed and hatred is still killing the innocents. Scarce natural resources are still being devastated; polluted and lesser species are being driven to extinction unchecked. Nothing has really changed at a deeper meaningful level. We are still the vilest species on Earth.
Prima facie what seems different was our ability to freely travel around the world and in that sense something happened to me that not only had never happened to me before but I couldn’t have imagined that it was even possible. But now I have a new sense of possible and a redefined sense of ‘impossible’.
Last sunset of 2020
And this post is about my personal voyage through 2020, as I saw the year go by, mostly sun soaking in a little known mountain village in India. You might say that this seems rather self-centered, while the world is falling apart and people are dying, how can I only narrate my 2020 adventure. Well, I have finally given up on mankind and humanity at large. Though I still believe in individual efforts and human goodwill at a micro-level. And I do have many such friends and acquaintances who are engaged in amazing work to save the human race and I respect and admire them from my deepest core. But I have stopped my dream of saving humanity. I used to be a dreamer, but now I am realist. What cannot be done cannot be done, period. So I have decided to just mind my business, follow my own ethics and just do my bit. If in the process I end up inspiring few others to alter their lifestyle and thinking process then so be it. So here I am sharing with you my 2020.
By the last week of March 2020 the entire world was practically locked out and in. And this severely hit my year-wise country and peaks average. I managed to chalk up only seven countries in this order – Tanzania, Turkey, USA (twice), Mexico, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and of course not to count India. Which also translates to only four continents. This is truly pathetic for me. In terms of climbing, the highest was the summit of Ojos del Salado in the Atacama Desserts of Chile. At 6893m it is the highest volcano in the world and the second highest summit of South America. This was my second ascent of this beautiful peak. And before that, I managed to climb two more 6000m plus peaks for acclimatizing, the names of which escape me now.
I sailed from 2019 to 2020 on Kilimanjaro, literally on the summit. A joyous way to begin the year for sure. That followed with a charming safari where I witnessed all the five big games from close quarters. And a week later I headed to the US. I returned to the Yosemite after a long time and had a wonderful week, hiking and climbing solo through the snow covered valleys and cliffs. Being winter it was low season and I barely saw anyone in the upper ridges. Bears were a potential hazard, as the charming ranger girl at the reception cautioned, but somehow they and I kept out of each other’s life. Then I did some more snow tramping in that beautiful state of Utah. And then just for the larks I visited the metropolises of NYC, DC and SFO meeting some long lost friends who all kindly hosted and fed me.
I saw 2020 sail out from my tent
Exactly on my birthday I headed
to Mexico and then to Chile, one of my most favorite destinations, yet I was
returning after a decade. What followed was a month long mad cap climbing and
hiking, first in the Atacama and then in the Patagonia. Looking forward to the
rest of the year when I exited at
By the time I returned, India was shut down. For several months I had to stay locked up in the suburbs of Delhi and but for my hyper imaginative mind I would have gone crazy. To engage myself I started relearning Spanish, Rubik’s cube, magic, yoga and also underwent some long needed rest. Finally managed to escape to the mountains when the travel restrictions had eased a bit and since then I am in this beautiful green mountain village that is my adopted family’s home. Though I wished to escape immediately into the high mountains I couldn’t because I had arrived in the middle of the monsoons. So I started writing my books and catching up with my long-unutilized culinary skills. I did tons of online yoga classes, mind you, only the free ones or shared by some well intended friends.
Chasing the tail-end of Monsoon by end August I returned to my regular antics. Hiking and exploring some of the least frequented trails, solo or with friends, and typical to my kind of adventure even managing to come rather close to annihilation. I did one more significant thing, which I guess wouldn’t have happened but for the lockdown and my apparent stationary state. I revived my blog that had been lying unattended for over two years. The moment I published my first post after the two-year long hiatus, it sent a signal to many of my blog readers and friends (with whom I otherwise have no contact; mind you I am a recluse by choice) that I wasn’t dead yet. Perhaps not in the right state of mind but physically alive. There followed mails and messages from around the globe expressing delight and surprise in equal measure at my (still alive) status. I also completed some of my pending social projects and started supporting new ones, raising funds and awareness about these remarkable individuals who selflessly work for the good of others.
Towards the very end, precisely on 21 Dec, a remarkable astronomical phenomenon, sometimes referred as the Christmas Star, occurred when Saturn and Jupiter came within such angular proximity as observed from Earth that they nearly looked like one big bright star suspended on to our SW sky. From my village I had the perfect vantage view of this rarely occurring phenomenon, and to celebrate that night I slept on the roof under the sky in my dome tent. Christmas was spent exploring a little known valley, predictably away from civilization and I observed the last sunset of 2020 and the first sunrise of 2021 from an excellent hill top right behind my village. Perched at 3000m with some bits of snow and frost on ground as I gazed towards the east and spied the first rays of 2021 sun creeping through, I could only feel full of gratitude and merriment for I was still alive and there were still so many places for me to explore in the new year and so many friends to meet for the first time.
In retrospect, when I look back at the year, from its periphery, I think this year I did more ‘did not do’ things than that I actually did. I am a man of action. Mere words or flights of fancy do not satisfy me, so in terms of mental adventures I had many, but in terms of real on ground ass-kicking action I had very little. So if I am to make a list of things that I didn’t do in 2020, then for the first time in my life ‘things undone in a year’ by far outnumbers the things I did. This is unforgivable but for once I can truly lay the blame at someone else’s door: yes you guessed it right; the all encompassing pandemic or rather how mankind reacted to it.
Things that should have happened but didn’t:-
Number of countries visited reaching double digit
Ascent of Mt Everest
Ascent of at least four more peaks out of the seven summits
Crossing four oceans
Motivation talks
Visiting a barber (though by now I am an adept at self trimming my coiffeur)
Things that should not have happened but did:-
Stayed at sea level in city conditions for three months
Revived my blog
Published several books on Amazon Kindle
On line conferences and consultation
Spanish vocabulary of 100 words or more
No international flights in 9 months
Covid 19 RT-PCR test – tested negative
I normally conclude my yearly summing up by mentioning few remarkable individuals I physically met during the year. Though I didn’t have much chance to travel this year the honors goes to: the 92 years old grandmother of a friend. This amazing lady lives in a tiny village called Lamu and does the work of the entire household kitchen. I couldn’t believe her strength, mindset and simplicity. She cooked food for 12 people including making exactly 120 chapatis (Indian flat bread) right in front of my eyes. The other person was a 68 year old illiterate man from an obscure village, whom the forest department had forgotten, after employing him nearly 20 years ago to survey a road building site through the mountains. The project has long been abandoned but the man continues to work relentless since he still draws the meager salary of Rs 30 per day (less than 50 cents). When asked he simply answered it’s not the money that keeps him going, since it doesn’t, but it’s the thought that what he does is important to someone. Finally I would mention a footloose and fancy free girl from Cuba, who claimed to be an animal whisperer and past life regression therapist. We literally bumped into each other at San Salvador airport international transit lounge where I had a layover of 8 hours. She was only 22 and had just stepped out of her country in order to see the world. She didn’t have any money and everyone whom she knew told her that her dream was impossible. Yet she hit the road with a one way ticket to South America having already sold everything she ever possessed. We had couple of hours together. She was beautiful and a real dare devil. And she was sad as she was forced to return to Cuba, barely a fortnight into her travel due to the lockdown and pandemic restrictions. While I hugged her goodbye, I assured her in my pathetic Spanish that her dream was very much possible and this pandemic too would pass and I hoped that we would meet somewhere somehow in the years to come. As I think of her now, I feel full of hope and I am sure she is already out somewhere exploring the vast unknown world.
At a personal level, the most devastating news for me during 2020 was that of a dear friend who suffered a stroke thereby losing his mobility for the time being. He is not only a world class Alpinist but one of the finest human beings I have had the privilege of knowing. He is currently wheelchair bound and is magnificently supported by his absolutely amazing wife and his worldwide friend community. With his great sense of humor he is able to laugh and smile at his predicament, even making fun of those around him. I pray for his recovery and return to the vertical arena during 2021. He is one of a kind.
To all of you who survived 2020 my heartiest congratulations and to those who are looking forward to 2021 with optimism my heartiest good wishes. As always life is full of what we wished for and what we didn’t and then what we didn’t but happened nevertheless. If it was all good, then ‘good’ would lose its meaning and cease to exist. We cannot go up without going down and between two summits we must always reach bottom. So perhaps 2020 was a bottom and to rephrase: a bottom (blessing) in disguise. Only time will tell if it was indeed so. Keep dreaming, keep hoping and keep doing your bit for a better brighter happier world.
I will see you all on TOP.
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