MOUNTAINEERING SKILLS

     Each country has a unique way of kindling the adventure spirit of its fellow citizens. In the western society the thrill of pushing the limits of human endeavor might be reason enough to prod them on mountain climbing, extensive trekking, white water rafting ,  sky diving and what not. For the home bound compatriot like me, an entirely different impetus is required to stir us on. Yes, put a temple on the hill top and make us prod up. Open a temple in tiger reserve and embolden the common man to dare enter the beast’s realm. Well anyway, the result is achieved and a robust health is bestowed on the adventurer.

I’m basically an arm chair sportsman and exercise of any sort is strictly off my vocabulary. I would rather use a bike to cross the road rather than walk it up. For such a person, you will be amazed at my repeated attempts at mountaineering (well, at least small heights). My first attempt was an utter disaster which a sensible person will refrain from recollecting. We were in college then, and as part of the extra curricular activities we were asked to climb the Valanadu Hill which was close to our locality. This is a small hill with abundant flora and fauna. Our teacher split us into two batches and set us up on a competition in scaling the hill.  She needn’t have bothered, for from the very start our batch of bookworms was trailing and in fact I was bringing up the rear. When we were half way through, the other batch was returning after the climb. Some of my friends tried to motivate us saying there was a naked sadhu up the hill. But nothing could pep up our spirits, so our teacher ordered us down. This we did with great speed.

The next attempt was at the hill of Sravanabelagola, (also called Vindhyagiri or Per-kalbappu), which looms majestically at 3347 feet above sea level. From the base a flight of 614 steps, finely carved from the granite of the mountain, leads to the summit, where a great statue of Sri Gomatheswar stands. Just before the climb, as if by cue, my sister and I  some got into some kind of  a match of breaking the groundnut shell and popping the nut into our mouth.  we began feeling the after effects when  we started to climb those steps. The entire family containing old and very young  members had briskly climbed up while both of us were left mid way through. I explained to my sister that the hill was whirling while she corrected that it was our blockhead. We were at last left having covered only some 200 steps, holding our whirling head from spinning off and desperately clutching on to the floor. Well, we returned again defeated this time too.

It’s not for nothing they say “He who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day”. That could be said for climbing too. My third chance came when along with my colleagues and a family of military veterans went to the Vaishno devi shrine. The shrine is about 5200 feet above sea level. The 13km uphill walk to the Bhawan where the main deity is available took me a solid 6 hours. If not for the constant support, cheering and joking of my friends I could certainly not have made it. If my family members had been around they would have stopped me then and there and my mountain climbing adventures would have ended abruptly. But one fact came to light, my legs were strong and I did not have any limb pain but my lungs took a long time to acclimatize to altitudes. Once I got the hang of it , I made good progress. The next day, from Bhavan we proceeded to Bhairon Ghati (6619 feet above sea level) and my speed of ascend left everybody (including me) gasping.

My next attempt was to Thirupathi. This hill of about 3200 feet above sea level, which is roughly 11 km and over 4000 steps took me a whole six hours to climb. It is said that some veterans finish in less than three hours.

By now  I don’t know whether I was becoming very religious or  a mountain trekker of sorts, for I have climbed the Kottamalai hills near Padavedu. There is an ancient temple of Sri Venugopala swamy that has been discovered and renovated recently. It is open only on Saturdays. It is about 2500 feet above sea level. One has to travel on a specially designed tractor through the ghat road upto certain distance. Further up we had to climb about 350 steep steps to reach the temple.  The steps lead through beautiful iron bridges which cling to the sides of the mountain. The breath taking views make you forget your puffing and panting. But I climbed the height with a much lesser effort than my previous attempts.

My latest triumph was the Shollingur hills. Here there are two hills, each with a temple at the top. The big hill is only 500 feet above sea level with about 1300 steps which is the abode of Lord Narasimhar. The smaller hill which is completely dwarfed by the bigger hill is only about 200 feet and there are 400 steps to climb. While I accomplished the bigger hill with ease, trying the smaller hill too at a stretch made it difficult.  Anyhow I completed the feat.  At this rate, who knows one day I might end up climbing the Mt. Everest too!

REACTION IN THE FACE OF CALAMITY

The word tsunami entered into the vocabulary list of most of the people in the world only after the Dec 2004 debacle. Notwithstanding the fact that this natural disaster occurs quite often in Japan and other such extreme eastern countries, with live coverage on TV and net, the disaster was brought even closer home. The images we saw were heart rendering and proved the insignificance of man against the might of nature abused. But tsunami is not really a new term, it has been there and it has occurred in the past too.        My first knowledge of the terminology came when I was probably in the fifth standard where, in the prose lesson there was the story of an old man who realizes that the tsunami was fast approaching the village. As he is very short of time he rings the village bell which is available in the temple over the hilltop. This bell is a holy one and tradition demands that it be rung only on very special religious occasions. But our “old man at the bell” rings on and he stops ringing only after the entire village has assembled in the high ground. The villagers demand an explanation to his impertinent behavior. Right then the huge wave rises and drops just short of the hilltop. The entire village below is wiped out but by the presence of mind of the elderly man no life is lost. The villagers then thank him, but we at standard five didn’t, as we were particularly irritated with this lesson for we found it very difficult to remember the spelling of the word tsunami. 

            I presume the big wave that “Kalki” refers to in his “Ponniyin Selvan” is indeed the tsunami and the huge waves find a word in “Silapathikaram” too. But as they were so well into the past the impact was less. The tsunami during 2004 showed the world that the Indians were very emotional and grieved quite demonstratively. Physical attributions such as beating one’s stomach or chest with hands and wailing uncontrollably although common to an Indian were shocking to the eye of the foreigner. When I heard them comment about this I felt perplexed for I know of no other way of grieving. I personally felt that only showed the family values that an Indian so believes in

            The tsunami that struck Japan on 11^th March 2011 was an eye opener of sorts. I was amazed to see that in spite of the line up of misfortunes that seemed to befall the fellow Japanese, they were a totally passive, composed and committed lot. Every paper commented that there was no looting, there was no gate crash for essentials, and there were no tears. Each Japanese face was a contour of grim determination. If they had any sorrow it was private property and not for public display. Honestly I respected the Japanese for their honesty and solidarity but a few more tears seemed more appropriate to the departed souls. Now, I stop my self from pondering further for perhaps now I am like the foreigner who commented on my exhibition of grief.

I must reiterate that the patience of the Japanese, their boldness in the face of such mammoth disasters amazed me. Not one but a line up of mishaps- an earthquake that triggers a tsunami, a number of after shocks, the lone eruption of a volcano, the biting cold which were natural and  the explosion of the nuclear reactors .

I feel all the more confused; how on earth a land that has already experienced the devastations of an atom bomb opt for a nuclear power source. How on earth a land that is geographically plagued by volcanoes and earth quakes dare to embark on such a disastrous project.

I can only pray for Japan.

CHILD LABOUR

The moment you switch on the TV, the first thing that beams on the blue screen are the advertisements. In fact most of the channels, if not all channels, take up most of the prime air time with advertisements. Gone are the days when ladies ruled the roost in modeling, even for products as masculine as a motor bike. For one, motorbike is no longer construed as masculine and next children have become better models of late.

            You see kids selling baby products, cars, and above all, hold your breath even insurance policies. Previously motorbike sellers used women models as they felt they could get the attention of the male population by beaming a sexy lady . Now we all know that children are most attracted to kid movies, cartoons and kid pictures. So obviously if the seller wishes to get the attention of his target population -the children, it was best to use kids. But now, mobile phones advocate the strength of their signal with a boy and his pet dog, children sell jewels, bridal costumes and more the insurance companies employ kids to sell their policy packages ! Certainly, no normal child would be interested in policies. If that be the case, why use them. That is because, children with their innocent façade have the capacity to attract the attention of the grown ups. In fact all the babies both animal and human are created sweet and cute, as they are utterly helpless and they require “looking after” to survive. Their cute chubby, baby fat looks are not accidental; in fact they are in fact created by evolution for a selfish purpose.

            Well I’m straying, my topic here is not “Beauty of Babies”, it is instead “Prevention of Child labor”. At the international level, each nation has evolved Juvenile protection laws and Child labor prevention acts. Stringent mechanisms have been developed to ensure that the children are not exploited. Free Primary education for all children, has been vigorously campaigned by various NGO especially in villages and poverty alleviation programmes have been announced and implemented by governments in earnest. With so much of monitoring and attention, it really amazes me as to how making children model for advertisement escape the watchful eye of the law. It makes me wonder:   

Is  exploitation of well fed children not a crime ?

Is child model not child laborer ?

Are those tender kids not put to health hazards by over exposure to those bright lights?

Will not their character and attitude be damaged by this celebrity status that they get at such early age?

Will their education not be hampered by their shooting call sheets?

The one consolation is, they are paid hefty amounts and at least they do not starve.