I bet you all must be pitying me about my sad plight living in Bihar and now in Haridwar. But Haridwar seems to be pretty darn good. Well except for the fact that there is no Non-vegetarian food (Not even eggs) available for a radius of about 8km and there are no PYTs roaming around (Pretty young things – for all the ignorant). I live in the wilderness in the industrial belt in a place called Ranipur in Haridwar.
This weekend was a 2-day holiday for me. One of course was the usual Sunday and the other was the Mahatma’s birthday that fortunately fell on a Monday (Bless his soul) giving me a 2-day weekend. (No Saturdays are not off J ) So we decided to take off higher up north into the Himalayas. You would have to forgive my childish excitement as this was the first time I was touring this part of our great motherland. We hit the road at about 9 am on Sunday and headed out towards Dehradhun. That is about 50 km from where I am. Nothing great about that. The next stop was at a place called Mussoorie Jheel – a modest 2000 m (6500ft) above sea level I think. Here there is an artificial lake with paddle boats. Not too exciting.
But what caught my attention was a faded board that said "Paragliding". The board looked really ancient and I wondered whether they were still in operation. Well I told me colleagues that I would check it out and return. They volunteered to come and cheer me on. J So we walked down the narrow part in the mountains and saw this huge parachute strung out over the cliff. It was so on! Going towards the edge I saw that there was a small artificial platform where there was this girl strapped to the parachute and an instructor, both waiting for the wind. My heart was hammering as I looked over the cliff into nothingness below.
Well I then paid up and stood for my turn. A strong gust of wind took them over the cliff the parachute blossoming above and a heart thumping, breath stopping ride all the way down. As soon as they were back, it was my turn. I could hardly hear what my colleagues were saying because of the blood thumping in my ears blotting out all the sound. The harness was fitted over me and I clamped the helmet over my head. The sound of the thumping grew louder.
I waited for the wind.
As I looked back over my shoulder past my instructor, I saw a faded advertisement for a popular cola; the tagline – "Life ho tho aisi". Seriously man!!
I was suddenly very helplessly pulled off my feet and backward. Looking up I saw the orange and white parachute blooming over me. The instructor was yelling at me to run. I picked up my feet and (sorry for the cliché) ran like the wind J without a second thought. Closer towards the end of the cliff. It was so darn crazy!
When all of a sudden… there was silence… and nothing below me.
We were airborne. There was a lovely feeling of floating over the air. I could see the people below like ants. I was flying. I noticed the mountains in the distance and around me. The sky was azure and wind gentle. The valley sloped away smoothly into the horizon.
As we got closer to the ground, the wind dropped a little. I felt as though I was in a free fall when the chute caught the air again. There was this loud roaring sound as we so closer towards the ground. The instructor was giving me a landing lesson mid air as we were about to touch down!! I touched down in a perfect 10 landing J What an awesome high!
White water rafting seems to be next… Watch this space!
