Footprints on the Mountainside

Honestly, sometimes I feel like shutting down Wide Aware completely and I would, if that would stop people from “loving” the outdoors so much. But it will not, so the best I can do is to do my bit for the outdoors.

What is this bizarre mood I’m in? Its no bizarre mood. It is looking at some photo albums on the net. Lovely pictures of hill forts in the Sahyadri, with litter in the foreground.

What struck me, is that it is really no shock to find garbage almost anywhere you head out into the outdoors in India. Its like free decoration of the mountainside. Why is it so? Because there are so many people who love the outdoors, that they just have to go there. Apparently, once they have seen the place, its done. The place can go to hell for all they care after that.

You think I’m being anal? Think again. Been to Kondana caves? Why go that far? Been to the National Park? Even with people employed to keep the place clean, the garbage is not under control. The poor playground near the train station is literally swept with brooms every day and all it manages to achieve is soil erosion I guess. The flood of nature lovers doesn’t end.

Do everyone a favour folks. Stay the hell away from the outdoors, if picking up after yourself is beyond your capabilities. Pick up every bit of garbage you throw whether it is biodegradable or not. Smokers, don’t forget the stubs. and gutkha eaters, the wrappers are not for permanent route marking for hikers to come.

And yes, I’m angry. So would you be, if every spare moment in the outdoors was about cleaning up the place. And if you don’t, please do. Pick what litter you find. Speak with groups you come across and ask them to do the same.

Please, while you’re at it, pick up the degradable stuff as well. LEAVE NO TRACE. If possible minimize traces people have left too.

Bio-degradable stuff has an impact on the environment too. Plus, it is going to be litter until it decays, and the place will never be clean, because there will be other people throwing bio-degradable stuff constantly. To put it bluntly, shit is biodegradable. Do you like sitting next to it?

Think of a beautiful location in the outdoors. You’re the only person there. Its untouched. You like? Untouched is only going to be possible when we clean up the place and give it some time to recover. Not if we keep allowing “touches” to remain behind - degradable or not.

I almost forgot: Leave no trace! READ IT, PROMOTE IT, PRACTICE IT.

I just love how the net connects people. I was spending some time reading around, and headed across to Mridula’s blog - Travel Tales from India. Most of her recent posts are about Nainital.

Honestly, I hadn’t given much of a thought to Nainital, as to many mountaineers, “hill stations” are like the plague, unless they are access points to outstanding trekking routes or peaks. I’d been to Nainital, pretty much like I go to a railway station. But when I looked at the blog, I felt so connected, that I felt a sharp pang of regret, that my snobbish attitude had blinded me to the beauty of the “regular haunts”. There is a reason Nainital is a well loved hill station, and in my thirst for adventure, I had missed it entirely. Speaking of not bothering to stand and stare!

Then of course, I was in a Nainital mood, and found another blog - this time by Lokesh Shah and had my fill of looking at Nainital pictures. He has some really nice pictures, and the whole feel of it is one of familiar fondness.

Now I’m off to see what else I can find. I have two hours before heading off for a climbing session at Kanheri, and I plan to put them to good use.

The difficulty I faced in my ALHP has helped me face some needs I have in terms of emotions and insecurities.

Coming back from the programme, it was easy to just let go and return to my old ways of vague, supressed dissatisfactions, but I’m surprising myself with my eagerness to actually deal with my needs and care for myself. I’m trying to be aware of the motivations behind my actions, and seeing patterns in my own behaviour.

Don’t know where this is taking me, but right now, it feels like I’m an onion, with layers and layers and layers. The inner layers also have a greater tendency to bring tears I’m meeting myself for the first time and I like it.

Relationships are very important to me - is a new discovery I’m making. I like to connect with people. Perhaps this is why, rather than have a business website, Wide Aware has this massive informal place with pictures and discussions and articles which will never ever sell anything. I want adventurers to feel comfortable here. I want to connect with people.

Another thing I’m discovering is that I am very fast, and I tend to make people feel pressurised when I expect them to cope at my speed. By fast, I’m not speaking of actions, but of thoughts. It tends to alienate people when I do that, because it makes them feel inferior. It hurts me too, because I want them with me. I am now consciously trying to take my time and be sure that I am actually communicating, rather than assuming that people understand because of familarity, and I find that it is helping me be more connected with them.

There are other things too. I tend to focus intensely on things and tune out all distractions, which makes me lose touch with other things that are happening. I’m trying to maintain regular awareness of things I care about.

That’s it folks for now. Thanks for bearing with this rambling session, but it feels good to admit it, and acknowledge that I am also doing something to make things better. Hopefully, Nirvana is round the corner. Its more likely to be new discoveries round the corner.

I find that the internet acts as a barrier to the morals of many people. Many people who wouldn’t be causght dead stealing in their day-to-day lives steal without hesitation online.

A regular visitor here just brought it to my attention that another blog (which I will not mention here) has been steaking content from this site. She found out accidentally when she forgot the exact url (she has this site in her bookmarks at home) and tried to search for the site from some specific words she remembered in the article she wanted to access. Our site showed up as expected, but another site showed up too, with the same article.

Thinking that it was something I used for a reference, she browsed through it, to see if it was of any interest. What she found is the exact same article, copied word for word, including links in the article to other pages in the site at specific areas. The thieves didn’t even bother to pretend to cover their tracks.

Our logs here show plenty of hits coming from that site, so I’m not complaining. The articles refer to the links in a tempting way, so the thief is actually losing traffic, because people are very likely to click on those links. I’m not complaining
I doubt if it matters to him though.

I wonder what makes people want to steal people’s content. I freely allow anyone to use any information from this site, as long as a live link is maintained to this place. The reason is as much one of credibility, as the fact, that most of my articles and experiences are closely related to my knowledge and experiences from the very off-beat life I’ve led. It will simply sound fake if copy pasted, and the rest of the content in the site is obviously someone else.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter to me, because they can’t really steal in terms of removing content from here. This place is more important to me than some scraper who cares nothing about visitors.

Situational hazard. I shrug and move on.

Heh. It’s a life long project. I’m 31 now, and I still don’t know what I want to become when I grow up. There are so many passions to indulge in. One life - so much to do. I’m making a note of my most wanted futures for this life time, in an attempt to get them on record. Regulars here know that this is subject to change - of course.

Yeah - so go on - yell at me for infecting your mind with these tempting little dreams and don’t blame me if you want to do these too.

1. I want to develop a small farm. Organic farming is something I am really interested in. I plan to build a spacious home on the property, which I will be using to run programmes in as well. This home is going to be constructed with natural materials. Mostly stone and mud with some wood. Planning to make the property self-sufficient in terms of energy needs. Solar power and bio gas for cooking, heating water, light and electricity. Perhaps wind/water mills for electricity as well. Totally organic produce, which will provide for most of the food requirements of the people living here. Horses and dogs complete the picture of course.
2. I want to become a mahaout and live a wandering life with my own elephant for at least 2 years. I don’t know much about elephants, but I’m a willing and hard worker, not to mention experience with other animals and a sharp brain. I will learn.
3. I want to raise my kid away from the stereotypical city attitude. Living in the city is fine, but there is a whole world to explore, and chips are not the tastiest food on the planet, television and films are not the best source of entertainment, and having fun need not always be noisy. I’d like my child to learn the value of living straight from the heart. The importance of running full power behind dreams that we are sure about. Yeah I know I don’t have a child yet, but that is a matter of time.
4. I want to put my memories on record. I’ve had some incredible experiences in my life, and am constantly advised by friends and family to write a book about them. I will. I don’t know how fascinating it will be, but I dare say its not going to be something that can be put down easily.
5. I want to do something really nice for the environment. It could be in the form of creating awareness of environmentally friendly options and responsibilities in far flung regions, or it could be working in a forest department to help conserve the resources and protect the animals or it could be something I haven’t thought about yet. But I will do it.
6. I want to get people tempted by solar cooking. Its really easy to build a solar cooker and it works to save a lot of money, natural resources, energy and effort. So why not. For those who don’t know, solar cooking uses heat from the sun to cook food. It is slow cooking, so the food doesn’t char and burn, and the utensils are really easy to clean quickly. The slow cooking retains most of the taste of the food and makes it really delicious. You can put food to cook and skip off to do your own thing for a couple of hours without haunting the kitchen or worrying about it boiling over, burning, or setting fire to something. You save electricity / gas / kerosene / wood / whatever you use for cooking. An efficient solar cooker is really cheap and quick to make, so if you need to cook more, you can simply make one or two more cookers. They can store flat and hardly take space when not in use. They can double up as a fridge at night (reversing the cooking process). If it gets old, you throw it out and make a new one, without worrying about the expenses. Tempting - isn’t it?

So much for now, but stay tuned to this page. I’m bound to drop in and make additions and revisions.