Up in the air

I am sitting under the shade of a small tree as I write this. There is a sprawl of green fields sparkling in the afternoon sun and I am surrounded by mountains all around. Just a few moments ago, I was up in the air, at least a 1000 metres higher than the 2600 metre high Dhauladhar ranges in Bir, Billing village in Himachal. I had my brief half hour tryst with glory in the skies and I guess I am not going any higher than what I just did.

Having made it to the takeoff point after a slow winding ascent from the base, on a serpentine road that had the width to support just about the four wheels of our land cruiser, there is no question in my mind that being airborne was the only way to come down this mountain. However, once on the top, I see a woman almost tripping over while taking off on the para with her trainer and the million fears that gnaw at my mind are already making their appearance full blast. There ain’t a phobia which ain’t my pal, acrophobia – the fear of heights, being jus’ one of them. In any case Sports and I have exemplified same pole ends of two magnets which by nature have to repel. Adventure sports, therefore would come with a greater repulsion push. However, despite all the fear, I also have an overwhelming desire to prove me to myself, the quantum of which is greater than the surge of panic.

strapped on

With a bit of nervous trepidation I am strapped on to a contraption that looks too limp and flimsy to support one body form, leave alone two. I am not too convinced about this life-jacket look-alike that hangs loosely shoulder downwards till way below my calves. I am told this will transform itself into a seat once we have our feet off the ground. There’s a clicking of clasps in at least ten different places and then they tell me that I am ready to go.

running before the takeoff

 I’d thought there would be some mechanism which will just push us up against gravity. Much to my surprise, I discover that it is I who has to be the propellant. I have to run a certain distance to let the wind play its part. With my helmet and goggles and this appliance all around me and an audience to boot, there’s no way, I can say no now, so I simply start running only to feel the weight of a bullock cart at my back and before I realize, my feet have left the ground, I have a seat below my butt, a beautiful canopy of the para above my head and there I am greeting the wind in the face and looking at the sun in the eye – I am up in the air. 

Surprisingly, it is so smooth that I actually get all poetic up there thinking I am riding the wind. My pilot perched right behind me, on a slightly elevated seat, asks me to move back on my seat and just enjoy the ride. I am a little taut, scared of any movement that might disturb the balance but I manage to shuffle around a bit and surely with my back rested, I feel more secure than ever as I keep feeling the elevation with the trees and people becoming mere specks below. The pilot maneuvers the para around for me to get a view of my kids and friends below and the jubilation of having done it engulfs me, so much so that I am brave enough to let go of one of the ropes that I’ve been holding on to for dear life to wave at them and shout, “I love you” to my kids. I hear a faint shout from one of them and I am ecstatic. 

victory wave from the skies

The para which has taken off just a minute before us is some distance away and I can see it moving about, while I seem to be only suspended in the air. I am foolish enough to ask my pilot if we are actually moving much like the one ahead of us. He assures me we are and asks me to look at the mountains in the distance to feel how we are moving; he even navigates the para in a way that I am able to get a spectacular 360 degrees view of the valley. I had anticipated fear to build up in me once we were up. Astonishingly, there’s none, not even when I look down upon the tree-tops which resemble a green carpet ready to cushion the fall, which, heaven forbid, if it ever happens. 

I can hear the wind as if huge reams of paper are flapping in my ear drums, only to abate for a few second and then take off again. The sun is brilliant but not harsh, thanks to the dip in temperature because of our height in the atmosphere and after a couple of minutes I begin to relax, suspended there, absorbing sensations, which I couldn’t have ever been able to fathom from my take off point.  

The only ignominious sensation that wells up in this near-perfect scene is that of nausea. My pilot asks me to look straight far ahead and keep talking. Despite my innate ability to talk nineteen to a dozen, there’s nothing much I can ask this guy besides his age and marital status and how long he’s been at this job. I emit a volley of burps and for some time manage to keep the nausea at bay. Now I know the expression ‘dizzying heights’ in its entirety. For one shameful moment I even wish that this ride is curtailed and that we make a landing sooner than the prescribed 30 minutes. But I am not going to say this and ruin the effect of a courage that I have mustered from God knows where. So I just think of what I am going to put on my facebook status and what I’d tell my husband of this act of valiance. To hear his reaction on a person who’s scared of air travel being up at 4000 metres on a para, open and exposed to the forces of nature.

The pilot tugs at his navigating ropes and brings us closer to the earth and I am almost thankful with relief on finding that we’ll be landing soon. As we begin our descent a fresh wave of nausea sweeps over me, and I am vomiting all over myself and around. The pilot is sympathetic, he only tells me to direct the ejections towards the side so that his contraption is not soiled. Despite the mess I’ve created there is a physiological relief and I am able to enjoy better the mid-air swinging supported by the gust of wind. 

No sooner have I begun to enjoy the ride than the pilot informs me to brace myself for landing. This brings on another worry; much like the take off, it is I who has to land on my feet first. Very gradually, we start to come down, the houses start looking bigger, the trees come closer and I space my feet in a manner that when they touch the ground, the feeling is soft, unhindered and as natural as a bird perching itself on a branch, with one aberration of course, after I land on my feet, I just let go and rest my butt on the ground. And no amount of pilot’s asking me to take a few steps would make me get up. After I am freed of the bulk around me, the relief of being in my natural habitat washes over me, and I get up to wash myself from a tap nearby. The lady who’d taken off before me is also there and we make our way to sit under the tree and share our experience.

While I write a portion of this experience sitting there under the shade with not a soul except this stranger by my side, I am applauding myself for having done what I thought I would never be capable of. Paragliding is definitely not an extreme sport, some would even scoff at the quantum of achievement that I am ascribing to that half an hour of being up in the air. But for me it is not about the thrill or ability to stay up there but it is more about surmounting the psychological barriers that I had created in and around myself. It is about deciding to do it with no extraneous influence, about taking that one step after another from the take off point, about having made that one beginning towards conquering my fear, about taking flight into the unknown and relishing the voyage as much as the touch-down.