c u on top - satyabrata dam

By the time I turned 13 I had two distinct achievements, firstly I was among India’s top five in under 15 badminton and had already climbed two major Himalayan peaks. I was strong and fit and I realized I must hone my climbing skills further from a climbing school hence found myself at the doorsteps of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling the summer I turned 13. I was underage for the Basic Mountaineering Course so I had to join the adventure course that was meant for mere tiny boppers. I was snooty to the core since I found my fellow course mates hadn’t even seen any snow in their lifetime yet. And there I met the first man to climb Mt Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. And from him I learnt my first lesson in humility and many such things that would come handy in my life long adventure career.   He was an unassuming man of average stature with a smile warm enough to melt glaciers and merry enough to usher spring in arid deserts. At that time he was the Field Director i...

Everest is an apt metaphor for the ideal concept of God and religion. It perfectly demonstrates both: the dilemma as well the clarity. Everest summit to my knowledge has 15 defined routes (perhaps few more than world’s main religions) to the top spread across haphazardly all around the massive pyramid. These routes encompass all the cardinal directions and all the intermediate ones as well. Yet no single route is more or less correct or the only right one to the top. Neither is there any one route that has exclusive right or privilege over the summit domain and it isn’t necessary for other route followers to pay any tax or submission or heaps of praises to any other. To each her own is what we believe. Everyone is free to follow their own routes (path) to the top. All we can say with certainty is if one route is technically more challenging than the others or if another route involves more objective hazards than the rest. And I suppose being the technically easiest routes the So...

Someone I know, who had enough time and focus, once decided to count the number of steps it takes from the time one starts walking from Lukla, climbs to the top of Mt Everest and then walks back to Lukla to catch the return flight to Kathmandu. On an average this entire journey takes 45 days, give or take few. When my friend shared his idea to me of counting his steps, I took it as a joke. It seemed absolutely impossible to me that someone could do it, even keep a track of steps, especially when gasping for breath above Camp 2 walking into thin air and then into the death zone. It takes all energy and focus to just breathe and climb and keep our sanity, who could keep counting steps! But then my friend did it. He counted each and every step, irrespective of the length, or speed, or place. He counted even the steps he took from his tent each day to go to the toilet and back, or to the dining tent and back. He counted the steps that ferried him to his other friend’s camps or for the ho...

I normally refrain from writing about Everest simply because Everest has already been written about at least a million times by literally every Tom, Dick and Harry and their equivalent women brigade. I wrote one post last year after the incident where 16 Sherpas died (including few of my close friends); and again this year nature has struck leaving many dead, injured and dejected, disoriented and disproportionately satiated. As speculations are flying at the speed of light in volumes defying rational readability, I felt an unbiased to the point practical look is again necessary; not only to dismal fears and ignorance but also to put forth objectively what many fail to understand in totality. I know this prelude sounds confusing, but then it is just play of words. Here follows the hard facts and figures along with hard line thoughts without apologies to none. I took this picture of Everest BC few days before it was all demolished Let’s face it, whether you like it or not, Eve...

Crossing crevasse on Everest I often have discussions with friends and well-wishers about the element of risk involved in my ordinary day to day life and I always insist that my life has far less risk than a regular city dweller; where she crosses the roads, drives, drinks tap water, etc each such so-called mundane activity that is actually very high on risk element. We simply do not realize this that your life is at a much higher risk than mine, especially when I climb those stupendously steep walls of ice or step into the death zone. So to give you a point by point comparison, I have picked up two supposedly diametrically opposite activity that can be grasped by all. Let’s say I am climbing Everest and you are just boarding a flight to a vacation or work; here are the ten reasons why you are taking a much higher risk than I: -

Everest Base Camp from South with Khumbu Icefall in the center People have been dying on Everest ever since human started attempting to reach its summit. Number of people who have died on Everest as on date stand around 265 with number of people who have summitted at 4042. This gives us a 6.5% death rate; which is not such an alarming figure at all. On 18 th April this year, 16 Sherpa guides died in one avalanche making this the worst accident on Everest ever, plunging the climbing world into a raging storm of debates. Among the dead I lost three very close friends, whom I had known for decades. Even though high altitude mountain climbing is among the most dangerous activities on Earth, people do not die proportionately to the risks involved since mountain climbing is a very specialized activity that is undertaken by experienced and qualified climbers and since we know that it is dangerous, it is done with utmost caution and after all due training. Whereas millions die cross...

As I stepped off the road my feet sank perceptibly into the soft snow. It was the December of 83, I was about to turn nineteen and on my one of the earliest forays into the greater Himalaya. I wanted to seek solitude, a decent climb and my inner self; not necessarily in that order. It had been an unusually heavy winter with snow line starting well below Manali and coating everything within sight in a sweeping uninterrupted sheet of pure white. My quest lay above Manali, deep into the Beas Valley. All the villages and road side joints, bustling in the summer with tourist and odd-stuff sellers were now deserted. The road just ahead of Manali, that wound up towards the Rohtang Pass was submerged under heavy snow. No vehicular movement was possible neither deemed necessary. Buried deep within the snow, lurked empty gaps and dangers of which I had no clue and I wished to go alone. I wound up slowly along the road and then at a point left the curbs and plunged deep into the forest. On my bac...

My friend Dagfinnur called me, ‘Hey, Satya, you will be meeting the President tomorrow morning at 11.30 am. I will pick you up at 11.’ ‘President’, I said, ‘the Alpine Club President?’ ‘No, Satya, the President of the country.’ ‘How much time do I have with him?’ I asked the most stupid question possible at the moment. Similar to asking an organizer who had invited me for a talk to know how much time I had on the dais. ‘Twenty minutes, may be, tops thirty, if you are lucky. He is an extremely busy man.’ Dagfinnur cut the line. I ended up spending almost an hour with Mr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson while pocketing (come on, what do you think about me!), eating a plate of really nice sandwich and biscuits washed with the aroma of the finest Oolong (Upper Fagu, if I am not mistaken) tea. This is the story. It was one of my very rare speechless moments. I took nearly a minute to recover my vocal and mental chords. Well, Satya, I said to no one in particular, you are moving in to high places fin...