Footprints on the Mountainside

We have one life to do it all in. So many dreams to live. I believe that it is important that I give it my best. It doesn’t make sense to waste time on things I don’t care about, or to take things I care about too casually.

Dilip had once asked participants on a management training programme, “How would you be, if this was your last minute on earth?” To all those who said they’d be the best they could be to leave their imprint behind, his only question was, “How do you know it isn’t?” We don’t know the future and what it brings. What we have in hand, is what we can be sure of. Why not do it to the best of our abilities, while we have the chance?

Live life on full power. Half hearted unfocused attempts are not something we’d like to be known for, no matter how earnestly we claim that we will eventually get back and do it well. The time for that is right here, right now. The time we save in coming back to repeat what we did would be better spent in fulfilling one more dream.

TOURISM MINISTRY PROMOTES INDIA AS A 365-DAY DESTINATION: The ministry of tourism in an effort to promote India as a 365-day destination launched three CDs on MICE, adventure sports and cruises. The ministry is showcasing India as a world-class MICE destination with many convention halls coming up in the line of Hyderabad International Conference Centre (HICC). The CDs also give details about all the adventure sports facilities available in the country and the many cruising options that are coming up.

TOURISM MINISTRY ISSUES GUIDELINES FOR ADVENTURE SPORTS: The ministry of tourism recently issued special guidelines for adventure sports activities in the country. The guidelines are regarding land activities like mountaineering and trekking; water sports like river running; and air sports like parasailing, paragliding and bungee jumping. The ministry has laid down the basic minimum standards for adventure tourism related activities that are undertaken in different parts of the country.

KERALA TOURISM TO REVIVE THE URU / ARAB DHOW: Kerala Tourism has plans to start URU cruises to replicate the spice route travel of the 16th century. The uru is a home made colossal sailing vessel made out of timber which used to ply the Indo Persian routes in times gone by. It is the Indian equivalent of the Arab Dhow. When launched they will operate on the Bekal - Cochin sector.

HELICOPTER TOURISM SERVICE IN KERALA: God’s Own Country Kerala will be luring tourists by launching a ”Helicopter tourism” service. Visitors will be taken from one tourist spot to the other in a seven-seater helicopter to save time and also discomfort on the roads. A nu mber of cost-effective packages have been designed in the helicopter tourism segment like ”Capital by Air”, ”Backwaters by Air”, ”Fly the Hills” and ”Shoreline Flights”. The ”Capital by air” offers sightseeing trips around Thiruvananthapuram. The backwater trip takes tourists around Kumarakom, while the ”Fly the hill” provides tourists a taste of the hill stations at Thekkady and Munnar. It will also touch Kochi and Kumarakom. The ”Shoreline” flights offer sightseeing to Kanyakumari along the picturesque coastline.

PALACE ON WHEELS ADDS SEVERAL LUXURIES: The second Palace on wheels to be launched in Rajasthan early next year will have a dance floor, a massage center, a conference room and bars. It will be the third tourist train to be operated by Rajasthan Tourism after Palace on Wheels and Heritage on Wheels (on the Shekhwati sector). The second Palace on wheels will also have special suites.

MEDICAL TOURISM BROCHURE RELEASED: The Ministry of Tourism is aggressively promoting India as a global healthcare destination and has recently released the ‘Incredible India Brochure on Medical Tourism’. The government has also started issuing M (medical) visas to the medical patients, and MX visas to the dependent accompanying them, which are valid for a year. Around 200000 medical tourists visited India last year, and the figure will grow by 50% this year.

GARIB RATHS (PLUSH TRAIN FOR POOR): The Indian Railways has introduced the ”Garib Raths”, a maiden scheme to provide plush rail services to the poor at affordable rates, and plans to link all state capitals with express trains, with the induction of 24-coach trains. The success of the Garib Raths, can already be seen in the rail operating between Saharsa (Bihar) and Amritsar (Punjab) which is a boon to the traveler especially during the festival season.

TRAIN TO KASHMIR HITS THE HIGHWAY: Ever heard of a train running on a road? It does in Jammu and Kashmir. Set to chug in Kashmir’s bewitching landscape in snowy February 2007, the first-ever trial train to Kashmir took off for the Valley on November 7, not on traditional tracks but on the 300 km-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway. It has added another chapter to the history of Indian Railways and Kashmir’s national rail project, as the first trial diesel mobile unit coach, a 36 tyre wheeled train pulled by a 460 HP engine, drove up the Jammu-Srinagar Highway at 0700 hrs and headed toward Kashmir’s Budgam railway station by taking a road route and not a train track.
JAIPUR TO SELL HERITAGE LIQUOR: Shops all over Rajasthan will sell heritage liquor, made from age old recipes of Rajasthan Royals. It is made from dry fruits, nuts, herbs and spices with a touch of saffron sometimes. To begin with, shops in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Bikaner, Ajmer, Udaipur and Bharatpur will sell the special liquor.
8000 DRUMMERS TO DRUM UP A RECORD IN MEGHALAYA: A band of 8000 drummers is set to break a record for 5 minutes of synchronized drum beats set by Hong Kong. The band will play a newly composed piece, “Positive Vibration” to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. The ensemble will play at Meghalaya’s autumn festival which expects to have entertainers from Australia as well.

GUJARATI EXPATS OWN 42% OF US HOTELS: In the 1970s the Patels moved in to buy motels in the US, so much so, these motels were often referred to as “Potels”. Some three and a half decades later the same Gujarati (mostly Patels) own 21,000 of the 53,000 hotels and motels in the US; a staggering 42% of the US hospitality market with a combined worth of $40 billion.
FAIRY QUEEN BEGINS DELHI-ALWAR-DELHI RUN FROM 11 NOVEMBER: Built in 1855, the Fairy Queen is the oldest steam engine in working condition. Every year it takes visitors on a Delhi-Alwar-Delhi trip. This year the schedule has been announced. It will ply twice a month (beginning 11 November) in November, December 2006 January and February 2007.

Link

This is very interesting and welcome news among the mountaineering community, as well as those concerned about the Kashmir peace process:

A mountaineering base has been planned at Siachen to promote adventure activities. So, while the political establishment may find it tricky to compl.
According to reports published by leading TV Channel, that the government of India is likely to open up the Siachen Glacier for mountaineering expeditions. The Army is clear that demilitarization of Siachen is a proposition India can do without. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s idea of converting the world’s highest battlefield into a mountain of peace, it appears, is getting a push.

A mountaineering base has been planned at Siachen to promote adventure activities. So, while the political establishment may find it tricky to completely overrule, the Army viewpoint on troop disengagement is that this could be the way forward for a Siachen thaw without provoking a backlash in the form of security concerns.

The idea seems acceptable to the Army’s Siachen icons. Colonel N Kumar, a Siachen Pioneer, says, “There’s no shelling there; no firing. We should allow freely so that awareness will also come that Siachen is with India and you can go and climb there.”

A Siachen peace park driven by adventure sport may also create room for a politico-strategic interaction between India and Pakistan, even though military disengement may yet be some distance away.

Kapil Kak, a Strategic Analyst, says, “You look at joint mountaineering expeditions. You look at joint tourism boards which will look at this area and provide clearances to other foreign expeditions which come there, and in the process, greater contact between the two sides without coming into the inherent fundamental issue of territoriality.”

Opening up Siachen to actors other than the military may just be an idea whose time has come. There’s peace on the world’s highest battlefield for the last three years. The next step in normalizing Siachen could be to dilute the military character of this frozen frontier. There are many who believe that a Siachen thaw will be a precursor to peace in Jammu and Kashmir.

I’m not normally into lists of any kind. But occassionally, I find something that fits in just right on my beliefs and sense of humour. This email list from a friend has a couple of lines I like. italics mine

1. Winning isn’t everything. But wanting to win is. bingo
2. You would achieve more, if you don’t mind who gets the credit. or paid?
3. When everything else is lost, the future still remains. as long as its not life that was lost
4. Don’t fight too much. Or the enemy would know your art of war. I’d prefer to say “Fight as much as you like. Makes my chances better ;-)”
5. The only job you start at the top is when you dig a grave. well… whatever. List filling material - me thinks
6. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for everything. probably
7. If you do little things well, you’ll do big ones better. sometimes
8. Only thing that comes to you without effort is old age. and body fat
9. You won’t get a second chance to make the first impression. hmm. ok
10. Only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. Yes, absolutely. nothing is nothing.
11. Never take a problem to your boss unless you have a solution. sounds like someone’s” voice of experience” out here
12. If you are not failing you’re not taking enough risks. not really pushing limits would be more like it
13. Don’t try to get rid of bad temper by losing it. well said
14. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you. my favourite
15. Those who don’t make mistakes usually don’t make anything list expanding material
16. There are two kinds of failures. Those who think and never do, and those who do and never think. too much
17. Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. we’re entering “God zone”
18. All progress has resulted from unpopular decisions. running out of creativity
19. Change your thoughts and you change your world. frail attempt at recovery
20. Understanding proves intelligence, not the speed of the learning. and pray tell me how this matters?
21. There are two kinds of fools in this world. Those who give advice and those who don’t take it. and a third - one who doesn’t fall into temptation of expanding lists
22. The best way to kill an idea is to take it to a meeting its a corporate classic
23. Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things. more theory
24. Friendship founded on business is always better than business founded on friendship. makes sense

ok. Looks like this is another of those lists I wonder if I should post this at all. I’ll keep it for now, for the sake of #1, 13, 14, 22, but there is no accounting for me changing my mind.

I travelled on a local train yesterday (its rare). In the ladies compartment, there was a bunch of about 12-14 Muslim girls chattering away to glory. All of them wearing a burkha. They were going on a picnic somewhere.

They seemed quite educated in terms of conversation, some topics even included affairs - typical girly stuff. Quite unexpected, considering their clothing, but it suddenly made me awake to the fact that they still were young college girls, with all the usual interests.

I got a call from a team member, about some equipment requirements for the AECS students programme, and had a brief discussion about mountaineering equipment and the set up we’d be using for the rappelling at Sanjay Gandhi National Park. One of the girls noticed and asked me about my profession. I explained the best I could, in terms of relevance to their interests. She was curious, and I elaborated in the directions she probed.

More girls caught on to this conversation and there was genuine interest about outdoor adventure. We spoke about adventure options near Mumbai including hikes to forts, mountaineering opportunities near Mumbai on the many forts and rafting possibilities. Most of them were keen to experience adventure, but some were apprehensive about the response they would get at home.

Surprisingly, a girl in full veil was completely gung-ho. She wanted to come on a rock climbing expedition. I was skeptical. Considering her clothes, i wouldn’t have thought that her family would allow her to pursue such “tomboyish” interests. She however was confident that her brother would also want to come along and seemed to think that together, they could convince her dad as long as other females were present as well.

I pointed out the clothing factor. Burkha is a definite no-no, as wearing a mountaineering harness makes trouser-type clothing essential. She said that she would wear trousers and a burkha on top, and simply remove her burkha when needed. After all, if she could trust someone with her life when she was climbing, surely she could trust the person not to have “evil intentions” about her for that short period of time. They all giggled uncomfortably at the thought.

This girl inspired me with her extremely practical approach. I saw in her a willingness to follow her dreams, while conforming to cultural expectations - an admirable combination of assertiveness and cultural identity. I doubt if I’ll even meet her again (she took a card, but the rest of her gang was not as sure about climbing). What remained with me, was her practical attitude. Somewhere down the line, we assume that people who are conservative also lack the spark it takes to go beyond standard expectations in hot pursuit of a desirable goal. This girl wore the burkha, bacause it was a cultural thing and she had grown up expecting it to be the clothing of a modest woman, but could see that here was something she really wanted to do, that did not allow it, and was equally willing to be practical, even if the idea seemed strange.

She had laughed when I said that the burkha looks confining to me “It is strange for you. For me, it is normal, like those aunties wearing saris everyday. I think they will wear salwar kameez, if they want to ride a horse on a hill station too. Why wouldn’t I?” Definitely progressive thought and a valuable insight into the mind of a “category” of people I was not very familiar with.