Numb!!!!!!!

I had done rafting, rappelling, trekking but I yearned for more.My hunger for more adventure lead me to a sport called paragliding.It was the winter of 2007. Thinking that it will be a fun outing, and a chance to experiment with my canon, I was grossly mistaken. What followed in the next few days was gruelling in terms of the physical rigour required. We had to learn the technique of hopping over slopes, the right way of communication on the radio, the basics of aerodynamics(Bernoulli’s principle being the most important(being an engineer surely helped)) and the art of controlling your glider before we could actually fly solo.It was awful, I kept committing mistakes, fell down, got entangled in my glider, but never gave up. Till the time I perfected the right hopping technique I kept mushrooming my glider and carried it to the heights from where I could run and be in air for about 30 seconds.

My First Solo Flight

Much has been written about the first solo flight of a pilot. Many say that they are completely awestruck ; others say that it is difficult to put the feeling in words. People have researched that paragliding is the closest a man has come to feeling like a bird. My experience is slightly different. I don’t recollect being happy or being sad on my first solo flight.
We reached our camp. My instructor asked me to climb up the mountain.It was not a big hill (250 ft) and I managed to climb all the way up in about 30 minutes. I got myself harnessed, checked my radio and put on my helmet. I checked the wind direction and just when I was about to run for my take off tragedy struck....My instructor’s assistant came running all the way up the mountain with my cell phone and said that my father was on the line and it was an emergency.
With huge reluctance i took the phone and put it next to my ear. My father's voice was sombre. I knew something bad was coming. He told me that my grandfather was critically ill and I should come back home as soon as possible. I knew it was worse; he was hiding something from me. I tried to confirm the state of my grandfather’s health. He did not want to tell me directly that he had already died. But I knew (I can’t explain why, but there are certain things that you get to know without there being any communication)

Harnessed up, with a glider on my back in a remote village in Maharashtra, I was stranded in no man’s land. I was more than 2000 kms away from my home in Delhi.
I have always loved my grandparents as much as my parents if not more. They shielded me from my parents even after my countless mischiefs as a child, taught me the importance of respecting others and most importantly the importance of standing on one's own feet. They made me feel like the most important person on the earth as a child. No harm could come to me in their company, I was the KING. I can claim to have had 4 parents instead of 2. When they grew old and vulnerable and as I became conscious of life I tried to give my utmost love and care back to them.

I was numb. The only thought in my mind was to reach flat land as quickly as possible and rush back to the airport in Pune and the board the first flight to Delhi.I could reach flat land either by walking down the mountain which could have taken me 30 mins or or by going through with my first solo flight and touching ground in about 10 minutes. Without more thought I ran towards the edge of the mountain into the wind and was airborne. I had no feelings while in air. There was only one goal and that was to reach the landing area and rush to the airport.

I opened the gate of my house. Around 50 people were gathered there. The mood was sombre. There was an eerie silence. As if the time had stood still. The darkness of the night made the mood of the place gloomier.Intuitively I entered the room I was supposed to enter and I saw the dead body of my grandfather lying on ice.I saw my grandmother close to the body. Tears rolled down from my eyes. I moved forward, hugged my grandmother and cried.It was a long and tiring journey for me, but I volunteered to look after the dead body, to check if the ice was not melting and the holy fire was burning properly before we cremated his body in the morning

After the cremation of my grandfather, my aunt (grandfather’s daughter) came up to me and told me in my ears that before they took my grandfather to the hospital, my grandfather called her in his private room and said – “I am praying to god that please allow me to live a few more days more so that I can die after seeing my grandson”

Tears Rolled Down...............