Flirting with danger

From times immemorial, man has been drawn towards the unknown – be it Ferdinand Magellan and his trip around the world or Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in their quest to conquer the highest mountain peaks in the world. As these men challenged the limits of their endurance and courage, there were hundreds others who stood behind them with vital support – both economic and moral. While India has had its fair share of daredevils, mass support and more importantly media exposure has largely been absent. For example, Colonel Kotiyal, who has been atop Mount Everest twice and back, is a completely unknown figure. However, there is growing a breed of Indians who are making a name for themselves in the international community by nurturing as well as indulging into the spirit of adventure.

Take Anchal Khurana for example. While she is not exactly a popular public figure, the circle of people who take an interest in sky-diving know her well as someone who is doing her bit to make the sport accessible in India. She is running the Kakini Enterprises which is working specifically to provide opportunities to more and more people to jump from the skies, quite literally. Her team of instructors have got the ratings in free fall and tandem jumps, having made their mark in para jumping in the armed forces.

Anchal's work has not been easy nor is she anywhere near her goal. A lot of work and streamlining remains to be done before skydiving becomes a popular sport. “This sport needs meticulous preparations and a lot of money to train people. You require an aircraft or a helicopter to jump from and then you require a parachute which will cost upto Rs 5 lakhs" says she. Apart from money, there are a number of permissions that need to be taken like clearances from the Director General, Civil Aviation, the nearest Airport and the local administration.

Similarly, Ajit Chouhan and his band of friends have been hard at work to promote adventure sports in the backwaters of Raigarh. Self funded, this group of 13 that calls itself the Friends Foundation has started organising a congregation of a whole gamut of adventure sports since 2012 in an event they call ‘UDAAN – flight to your dreams’. Ajit talks about the interesting story behind this initiative: “All of us are into business and whatever time we get, we try participating in one of the many adventure activities. And then suddenly it struck us,: if instead of going on individual adventures, we did this on a larger scale, it would let both our families and other people participate. Thus, in February 2012, we made a beginning.”

TSI visited Raigarh and witnessed this event which is one of the few platforms where every activity in the adventure category is available. Para gliding, hang-gliding, para sailing, bungee jumping, rappelling, hot air balloon, all terrain biking; these are are just a few of the  activities that were on offer. What is interesting to note is that a large part of the adventurers were women. Many of them had come with their families, like Natwar Aggarwal, who was encouraging his teenaged daughters to jump off from a huge height with bungee cords tied to their feet. Kakini Enterprises was a part of it as well, with the response being overwhelmingly large. “We had to turn people back even though they were ready to pay us as much we wanted,” says Anchal.

There has been some positive response from the government as well. Many states have come up with their own plans to help in organising adventure sports and activities. Speaking to TSI, Chattisgarh Tourism Minister Brij Mohan Aggarwal said, “I was not aware that UDAAN is so well organised and is of this high scale. We are giving them a support of Rs 10 lakh and are busy formulating policies to help such activities.” TSI got to know that the Chattisgarh state government recently took the help of professionals to devise methods to make Chattisgarh a adventure sports hub. Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh are helping to get such activities organised as well, and for good reason.

Having said that, the biggest problem remains the lack of awareness and media exposure. For example, hardly a handful are aware that the Indian Air Force team of swimmers set the Asian record for relay swimming and crossed the English Channel in record time of 11 hours and 5 minutes, or that they were the first to do it twice in eight days in October, 2012. Wing Commander Paramvir Singh told TSI, “Our feat was  much appreciated by people in England. The hotel where the team was staying actually flew a Tricolour above its national flag.” Sadly, the reaction from the nations hardly compares. Commander Dilip Donde, who not just became the first Indian to go around the globe on a sail boat but also helped in training Lieutenant Commander Abhilash Tomy to take on the very difficult challenge of going on a non-stop solo circumnavigation, is slightly better known. But that is only after the  Indian Navy kept pro-actively informing the media about voyage.

What India needs now is a well concerted effort from the government to promote, aid and popularise people like Anchal Khurana and Ajit Chauhan, a bit on the lines of how the armed forces have been doing. Their problems, like the high costs of these adventures and the financial risk involved in trying to promote these activities, need to be taken care of as well. If that can be done, India has the guts to measure up to any in the world.  

mayank.singh@thesundayindian.com