Illustration: Shyam G Menon

An evening in Ranikhet, four of us went for a run.

It was past 5 PM.

We made for one of the quiet side roads.

We ran past the holiday huts of the army, down a few bends to the first of the `Old Grant Bungalows’ on that road, called so for their origin in British India times. It had just rained. There was a light chill in the air. The leafy vegetation around, the trees lining the quiet road and the road itself gave off that typical post-rain smell. Several turns away at the entrance to the Chevron Rosemount hotel, one of their dogs barked to announce the approaching runners. Used to seeing runners on that road every morning, it first resorted to barking and then settled down by the roadside.

Two turns away, we passed the house of a friend who was a naturalist. Wonderful address for someone so – I always thought. We ran past the small trail cutting up the hillside, which we take when the daily run has to be kept short. This evening was different. We had resolved to run a longer distance, run the full length of the road and then turn off to Mall Road and Meghdoot Hotel.

Another turn went by on the quiet road; then another. Finally we went past Adhikari Lodge, an old bungalow reportedly owned by a Mumbai business family who visit Ranikhet on and off. Although there were houses here, this area, compared to other portions of the road, was trifle more densely green. Four pairs of legs hit the ground rhythmically in slow run. Wind in the hair; nippy air on the face, a breathing that said `I am breath,’ in the chest.

At the next turn, the first runner stopped. The rest of us caught up in one to two seconds.

Walking diagonally across the sheltered road, with its back to us and seemingly no bother for its surroundings now invaded by humans – was a leopard. We watched it in absolute amazement. For all of us, it was the first sighting of a leopard so; free and unfettered. I suspect it was my shoe moving ever so slightly against the sand on the tarred road that created the faint noise – whatever, the leopard caught wind of something behind. It broke its leisurely walk to glance behind its left shoulder, sensed the four humans and in a couple of elegant bounds was up the other side of the road and lost to the dense vegetation between the road and the households beyond.

We stood there speechless.

It took a while for things to sink in.

Slowly, our awe struck faces broke into smiles. We shook hands.

Then we resumed our slow run.

Leopards are not unusual in Ranikhet. But here’s the key according to my friend Ravi – don’t go looking around for the animal. I know quite a few people, including me, who went looking for leopard and never saw one. It was as though the shy animal read your mind and stayed away or you were too deliberate that your search affected your prospects. You know, too desirous of what you want that you become this big solid mass disturbing the universe’s subtle arrangement. Expect nothing and lo and behold, the universe rewards you. Leopard was the last thing on our minds that evening we ran. We saw one!

Illustration: Shyam G Menon

I sometimes get outdoor work in Kumaon (the eastern half of Uttarakhand). That’s how I land up in Ranikhet, helping out at the India branch of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS http://www.nols.edu). I have a regular running route; the earlier mentioned road; voila, my name for it – Leopard’s Walk. Past where we saw the leopard, that quiet road continues on; it skirts one side of the local tourist rest house property and eventually joins the road to the Jhoola Devi temple, in front of the West View hotel. From here you can either turn towards Meghdoot Hotel or take another quiet, isolated road, often carpeted by dry leaves and run all the way to the temple avoiding the main road. Some colleagues from the school choose to run further. There is a military check post at the temple and a stiff ascent of several kilometres that takes you to Chaubatia on top of the hill. The place is home to one half of Ranikhet’s sprawling military base. To my knowledge Ranikhet is one of the very few towns, maybe the only one in India that is home to two army regiments – the Kumaon Regiment and the Naga Regiment. Being military cantonment and located away from the normal Nainital-Almora route, Ranikhet has a quietness that is disturbed only by tourists and visitors. That’s why I like my morning run here. It is also why I rarely speak of it – for these days to speak of the solitude in some place is to invite its violation. Reduced shelf life is contemporary media’s gift to existence.

For a relatively small town, Ranikhet has many people running. Most obvious and most regular are the soldiers. They fall into three categories – two, I profile below and a third general variety closer to jogging for fitness than running. On the road, the first group typically manifests as an approaching rustle ahead of me or behind me. Either way, they whiz past for they seem to be a dedicated team of endurance runners. They commence a run together; warm up exercises, stretches et al and then progressively spread out in accordance with individual pace. However they are never so spread out that the tail end doesn’t see the leader; their average pace is pretty good. Their youth and fitness crunches me like a tank running above the head of someone in a lowly trench. I have also occasionally met a slightly slower lot, who like to remain clustered as a distinct group. They run like a herd. My deduction is – they are the boxing team. It is nice to think of all these probabilities as one gets overtaken, lapped, left in the dust and forgotten, all the while happy for it as the morning air is much cleaner than the average Indian city’s, there is very little traffic and the early morning hours are enjoyably cold.

Ranikhet’s civilian runners appear to fall into two categories. There are some who run regularly. More important – every now and then the number of civilians running goes up. When the numbers go up, you know bharti or army-recruitment is due. You find such preparatory running all over Kumaon; daily run done, candidates from everywhere converge at Ranikhet for that is where bharti happens. No army for me. I am the wandering, peace-loving middle aged soul, timid enough to avoid gladiators of all sorts and embrace a refuge, a trench. Much before I started running, I ran away – that’s the truth. Put an urban gladiator in front of me, I will run away again. I usually run alone in Ranikhet and when I have had company, it has been from the outdoor school. For some time, till he got married, Harish Singh was regular company. Indeed he was there when we saw the leopard. Twice, a local taxi driver with affection for running came running by and said – let’s go together. Narayan Singh (I think that was his name) was fine company for those two days. Once in a while, you see another visitor like me savoring the different ambiance of running in the hills. But that’s rare and I don’t blame those who choose to rest in their hotel rooms or go for leisurely walks instead. Fact is – the urban life is tougher, including the running therein. Back from the hills and running in Mumbai, I am exhausted in just one day coping with the heat and humidity; my respect for everyone sweating it out in the city.

Whether I like it or not, the urban trend of organized running is catching on in the hills. From Leh to Mussoorie and places in between, there are staged events with calendar dates, gladiators and all. But I am partial to the unnoticed variety wherein running (I call my version of it – trotting) becomes a means to get around. The enjoyment I have had from this is immense and seductive enough to leave me with shin splints; that classic outcome of overdoing things. Plus, the terrain is undulating; there are long ascents and descents. That adds to the strain, which you don’t notice till injury settles in, well and truly in love with your shin. Still, unplanned running is fun.

Once Ravi and I were in a car headed to Tehri for a conference. Our accommodation was at Chamba, which is up a hill from Tehri. It was a long drive from Ranikhet to Tehri and by evening, as we reached Tehri, Ravi was bored. He asked Dinesh, our driver, to stop the car and pulled out his unicycle. I changed to running shoes. We reached Chamba in style, a small traveling circus of sorts, runner in front; unicyclist behind. In Ranikhet, Ravi is often called ` circus uncle.’ Mountaineer, cyclist and outdoor educator, he maintains a small collection of cycles – MTBs, recumbent bikes and unicycles.

Several days before Chamba, I had another impromptu, engaging run, rather trot – from Ranikhet to Katpudia (please try https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/katpudia/ for a story on Katpudia), which is slightly less than half way to Almora. Near Majkhali, I met the army regulars. As always, they checked me out – who is this terribly slow, old chap trotting by? Fit as a fiddle, their pace was whiz-class; they crushed me, tank-like. New element was – at the tail end of the contingent was their coach, on a cycle, periodically shouting, “ bhaag!’’ Rush hour went by thus and my cocoon of quiet refuge in the hills (call it trench), returned. I trotted to Katpudia, had a cup of tea at the local tea shop and took the share-taxi back to Ranikhet.

The most satisfying run I have done in the hills so far was in Munsyari, from the town to Kalamuni Pass and back. The credit for getting me started on this goes to Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu. As of 2014, he had climbed Everest five times besides ascending many other peaks in the Indian Himalaya (please visit https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/everest-to-the-east/).

Illustration: Shyam G Menon

In June 2014, I was in Munsyari to write about Love Raj and every morning we used to run together. That season, our turn-around point had been Betuli Dhar, which is little over the half way mark to Kalamuni. Four months later, the whole route to Kalamuni and back, happened. It being late October, this was a much colder run with ones shoes getting wet six times in all as you have that many instances of stream-crossing (basically streams flowing over and across the road) to do. My face was numb from the early morning chill and cold. But as the sun rose over the Himalaya, I was blessed by sweet warmth. Blessed is the word, for every time I experience such sunshine in the mountains, I fold my hands in namaste to the sun. The preceding cold seemed just the right setting in retrospect – without cold, would you value warmth? In such life by opposites, is the joy of the outdoors. To see the leopard, you shouldn’t seek it. To run well, you should enjoy, not be deliberate. The best advice I ever received in the outdoors is this: if you are not having fun, then something is wrong.

My idea was to have a cup of tea at the tea shop near the temple at Kalamuni Pass and then run back to Munsyari. But the tea shop was closed. I heard voices at the temple and approached. A Rasputin like-baba and three others, were making rotis. They beckoned me in. “ Sit; sit, would you like a smoke?’’ the baba asked cupping his hands to show the usual technique for smoking charas. I laughed comparing my state and need with the offer. “ No sir, I don’t smoke. But a cup of tea would be more than welcome,’’ I replied. “ Roti?’’ he asked. “No, thank you, just tea,’’ I said. Fortified by that excellent tea, I ran back to Munsyari and the beginning of yet another case of shin splints that would have me off running altogether by December.

So I sit, grounded, in Mumbai.

But there is one good thing about shin splints and no running.

I write.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. The story of the leopard was published as a small piece in The Hindu Business Line newspaper and on the Facebook page of NOLS India. In terms of distances, it is roughly 15km uphill from the Tehri reservoir to Chamba; it is 15km uphill from Munsyari town [7000ft] to Kalamuni Pass [9000ft], up and down is 30km.)

Ganesh Nayak with his bicycle at the NOLS India base in Ranikhet (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Late November 2014, my mail to Ganesh Nayak elicited the same automated message that had originally prompted this story.

A day later, he replied:

I just got back from a mind blowing trip to Muktinath (Annapurna). WOW! It blew my mind! The Himalaya here is so different from what I have been used to in India. The pine forests and snow are so close here. As I made my way towards Muktinath, the environment was very similar to Leh but there was plenty of water from all the icecaps, making human habitation possible. Ladakh in comparison had been sparsely populated. However, both have a charm of their own.

I did some initial research before heading in and knowing that there was a ton of cheap teahouses on the way, I went in with a very light weight-setup. I was as light as a cloud and just floated up to 3700m (Muktinath) from 820m (Pokhara). There is no way I am going back to loaded touring after this.

I am right now in Thamel and I am heading out in a bit to try and sell as much of my gear as it is possible for me to do. That should add some weight to my depleting kitty. My bike is in need of servicing and I am getting one done today.

Anyways, after leaving Ranikhet, it was tough going for a bit. I had been surrounded by people for a while and suddenly I found myself riding alone. That was a bit difficult. But once I entered the Terai of Nepal, I was again surrounded by people all the time. There are as many bicycles there as people and I had people riding by my side throughout the day – from school girls to army men to granddads and grandmas.

I am heading back to India after this. I didn’t have a plan as such until a couple of days ago. On a book shelf in Pokhara, I came across Anne Mustoe’s ` Two Wheels in the Dust.’ I am currently reading this book and will probably base my route back to Manipal on this.

Earlier this year, when Ganesh Nayak applied for the fall season Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course at the India branch of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS http://www.nols.edu/), the office immediately got a sense of person and predicament.

Applications typically entailed a few more instances of correspondence between NOLS India and the applicant, ironing out details. In Ganesh’s case, Ravi Kumar, Director, NOLS India recalled, the office was treated to an automated message informing that he was out on a long trip and would respond as and when he could. In the world of adventure and personal discovery, which is what NOLS is, the required flexibility is extended; not to mention – the erratic correspondence kindles curiosity for the story behind the message.

The story reached Ranikhet, in time for the WFR, on a Surly bicycle. It was the classic touring model with black steel frame, Brooks saddle, pannier racks up front and behind, gears and that generally solid appearance designed to crunch months and miles. Ganesh was riding in from Mussoorie.

It was almost two months since he had begun his odyssey – a cycle trip along the Himalaya.

What made the story particularly engaging for this author, an Instructor-In-Training (IIT) just back at NOLS India from a long hike with the fall semester course and discovering a Surly on the premises were Ganesh’s demeanor and his journey to a dream he never thought existed in his head.

Some years ago, Ganesh, now 32, was at a low point in life. Born and brought up in Manipal in southern India, the electronics engineer had taken to drinking and was generally adrift. He knew he had got it all wrong but getting out of the funk required a road map and such maps don’t visit any of us easily.

Somewhere in that troubled phase, he purchased an ordinary bicycle.

For the next six months, he rode it around; progressively realizing that riding long on a bicycle is what he wanted to do.

What happened next may seem mad but Ganesh talked of it in an utterly composed manner.

After much research and study, he bought his first geared bicycle – the Surly. It cost him over 100,000 rupees. That is expensive by Indian standards but it is not a very significant amount in these days of rising salaries in urban India and willingness among young Indians to put money behind their dreams as people in other countries have done for long. Instead, what struck home as really significant was Ganesh’s decisiveness. He felt confident of vaulting straight from six months with a modest, regular bicycle to an iconic make because he concluded that the dream evolving upstairs in his head could settle for nothing less.

Surly it had to be.

After buying the new cycle in Bangalore, Ganesh interned briefly with a city based-cycling outfit, at that time called, Cyclists For Life. He learnt how to repair and maintain his bicycle. Ganesh’s first test with the Surly was a trip of around 250 kilometers in his home state, Karnataka. He started at Manipal; proceeded to Agumbe, a place identified with rain forests and much remembered as a protected sanctuary for the King Cobra, then cycled north from there before turning south towards Kollur and Manipal.

By now feeling ready for his first long trip, he cut lose to earn the needed freedom – he resigned his job. Earlier this year, he began his journey at Srinagar in the North Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Since then he had cycled through J&K (including much time in Ladakh), Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttarakhand to reach Ranikhet. “ I had heard of the WFR from another cyclist who did it earlier. That’s how I decided to enrol. I also knew that I would bump into more people given to adventure and travel if I attended the course. That was an added attraction,’’ Ganesh said. His batch of students for the WFR turned out to be a diverse mix, drawn from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, USA, UK and Canada.

First aid course done, Ganesh planned to briefly hike in the Gangotri area with some of his course mates, return to Ranikhet and recommence his journey, cycling on to Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. While North East India was originally part of his itinerary, Ganesh felt that by the time he completed the current leg of his trip, his resources may be stretched. He may have to return to Manipal to piece together funds for the remaining part of the journey. Reality bites, dreams notwithstanding.

Ganesh’s trip engaged for yet another reason.

His daily cycling route in the Himalaya hadn’t been held to ransom by some iron clad objective to cycle along a fixed route chosen in advance. He wasn’t out to prove anything. There wasn’t a goal beyond question or negotiation. He allowed himself to be led by conversation with local people and developments along the way. Thus, in Ladakh, he and another cyclist from Chennai opted off the regular cycling route and tagged along with an enterprising horseman to do a largely off-road section, lasting several days. Ganesh liked this excursion and other similar ones availed along the way, immensely. This angle made his trip more organic and less of an imposition in search of achievement.

In the process, he discovered differences between the people of the plains and those from the mountains; in particular – glimpses of that fabled simplicity, sincerity and spirit of sharing associated with residents of the Himalaya. “ Even my Hindi has improved,’’ he said, recalling conversations sustained for long and time spent living with local people. Both in the Himalaya and in other places that he cycled through in South India, he had instances of being helped and saved from getting lost by people he met on the way.

As he spoke, one sensed a bit of the magic he had experienced since buying a cycle, months ago in the depths of a funk.

“ I now feel more connected to life,’’ Ganesh said.

That was a couple of months ago.

Several days later, I was in Ranikhet preparing to head out on a trek, when a familiar rider on familiar black touring cycle slowly drifted down the road to Khairna. We exchanged pleasantries. Back from his trip to Gangotri side, returned to saddle and minus his beard and moustache, Ganesh was pedalling off to Nepal. Ahead lay Pokhara, Muktinath and the automated message I got before his eventual update.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. He also works periodically with NOLS India. A portion of this article without the update in italics had been posted earlier on the Facebook page of NOLS India. )

Teams line up before the football final (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

For a fortnight every June, a playground in Munsyari draws crowds of people.

They are residents of Kumaon’s Johar Valley and members of its far flung diaspora. Kumaon is the eastern half of the Indian state of Uttarakhand; Munsyari is in north eastern Kumaon.

June is Johar’s month of annual get together.

The magnet is that playing field.

June 2014, it hosted competitions in various sports. Evenings featured football, coincidentally befitting the times, for as the local competition peaked to final by mid-June, in far away Brazil the 2014 FIFA World Cup got underway. It became Munsyari’s season of football within global season of football.

Munsyari’s football however went beyond the sport.

Over 60 years ago, in 1953, a group of students from the Johar Valley studying in Almora, started the Johar Club. Their idea was to get together, keep the Johar in them alive through sports. Thus was born the tournament. The first sport it featured was volleyball. For the next three years, this annual ritual was hosted in Almora. In 1956, it shifted to Munsyari. It has remained there since.

According to Sriram Singh Dharmshaktu, Secretary, Johar Club, the inaugural tournament in Almora drew half a dozen teams or so. By 1956, this grew to around 20, mostly local; including teams from villages like Darkot, Bunga, Sarmoli, Suring, Dumar and Jalat. The variety of sports also grew to encompass volleyball, football, carom, chess, table tennis, badminton etc. Soon, teams from outside Munsyari started coming; among them – Lucknow, Delhi, Bageshwar, Thal and Didihat. No matter where a team was from, one thing stayed common – its members hailed from the Johar Valley.

This year (2014), the tournament had 16 senior teams and 15 junior teams, including school teams. For the first time the event also featured girls’ teams with four teams registered to play football. These all girl-outfits were named after well known adventurers – Bachendri Pal, Chandraprabha Aitwal, Sabita Dhapwal and Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu. Further, in what was probably recognition of the growing popularity of running in India, there was a 15 kilometre-run from Munsyari to Darkot and back. There is no age restriction for senior teams. It was visible for example in the volleyball final, where a mix of youth and age fought an engaging match.

In the Himalaya, cricket is popular. If you are frequent hiker, you would have seen villagers playing the game. A good hit typically travels down several terraced fields or tiered slopes of a hillside. The fielder chases the ball and often disappears from view in the undulating, steep terrain. A powerful throw from below returns the ball to frantic teammates on the pitch. The fielder then climbs back up. In a single game, there would be many players repeating this process many times over. In mountains, big, flat spaces are hard to find. Some villages are lucky. They have a playing field. There are regular inter-village cricket tournaments. Shields and trophies find pride of place in a victorious village; I recall seeing a big shield displayed at a village temple in the western part of Garhwal bordering Himachal Pradesh. I also remember youngsters’ sorrow at a Kumaon village, after the nearby river which flooded in monsoon, washed off a portion of their flat field.

Probably because cricket has its own established circuit, the sport wasn’t part of the Johar Club’s annual tournament. Big ticket sport here was football, followed by volleyball.

Volleyball final in progress (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Munsyari is small enough for most people to know each other. Well known mountaineer and Padma Shri recipient in 2014, Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu, hails from Johar. June was his month to be home too. A local hero and chief guest for an evening’s football, he was formally received in town and taken in procession to the stadium. Years ago, Love Raj had been on a team playing football at the same annual event. Ahead of the match, oblivious of the gathered crowd, his little son had fun kicking the football around in the stadium.

On the day of the football final, the two finalist teams walked down the bazaar road to the stadium, with their supporters – one team accompanied by a traditional Kumaoni band, the other by a school band. The small stadium was full of people. Houses nearby had people on balconies and roof tops just as they do for cricket matches in Mumbai. There were people watching from roads uphill and some poised on top of rocks. There was no dearth of flourish either for the final ended in a penalty shoot-out with goal keeper for hero, a trend that would repeat at World Cup matches weeks later. Interestingly, for a long time, the football here couldn’t accommodate teams of 11 players each due to lack of space. In 1970, with help from residents, the playground was enlarged. Team size went up from nine to 11.

Preparations for the annual tournament commence in April-May. People contribute; some financially, others help with the organizing. With so many landing up, it also becomes an occasion to meet friends and relatives. At heart, the tournament is a reunion.

The annual community reunion around sport in Johar, reminded of a similar event elsewhere.

Far to the south, in Coorg (Kodagu), there has been the tradition of an annual field hockey festival. It was started in 1997. In the past, the region has been famous for talented field hockey players and a typical tournament saw people who had played at state, national and international level turn up to represent their families (please visit this link: https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/field-hockeys-family-festival/). A difference between Johar and Coorg was – in Johar, team identity spanned roots in Johar for those from the diaspora and participating as visiting teams, to specific villages and institutions (schools for example) in Johar for local teams. Either way, it was link to a place. In Coorg, the idea of roots went deeper to teams arranged under family names.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. An abridged version of this article was published in The Telegraph newspaper)

Here’s a story originally published in 2013.

It has been updated for developments since then.

Nanda Kot (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

At 6861m, Nanda Kot is the highest peak in the impressive arc of mountains guarding the Pindari Glacier area in Kumaon. On the map, this place falls in the eastern half of the Indian state of Uttarakhand through which the Central Himalaya passes.

In 1989, a youngster from Kumaon’s Munsyari region – to the east of Nanda Kot and not far from the Nepal Himalaya – reached the summit of the peak with a team from Lucknow, the city where he studied.

Willing to do anything to be on a mountaineering expedition, he had literally worked his way to the summit doing all sorts of jobs for the expedition. Atop Nanda Kot, he was happy for mission accomplished. He had no idea of what lay ahead, for although at ease at altitude reaching thus far had been quite a journey for the young man hailing from Bona, a village 2200m up in the Kumaon Himalaya and roughly 35 km away from Munsyari. He knew he wanted to return to mountaineering but just then it all seemed too much for him. Certainly he doesn’t recall giving any special attention to the eastward stretch of the Himalaya moving into Nepal, where on the edge of that country and Tibet towered the world’s highest peak.

On Kanchenjunga (Photo: courtesy Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu)

Nanda Kot was the young man’s first expedition. Life continued nondescript. He did his `adventure course’ from the office of UP Tourism’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in Uttarkashi (those were the days of undivided Uttar Pradesh [UP], when the yet-to-be Uttarakhand was still part of the large state of UP). The facility provided a taste of adventure to school students; teachers, young people. He worked there as a help earning Rs 75 daily. In 1990, he did his Basic Mountaineering Course from the town’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), following it up with courses in Advanced Mountaineering, Search & Rescue and Method of Instruction. In 1992, he found berth on an expedition to the 7516m-Mamostong Kangri in Ladakh. Returning from Ladakh he moved to the 6236m-Nanda Bhanar, reaching near the summit with an expedition from Lucknow.

On Kanchenjunga (Photo: courtesy Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu)

In 1997, the young man was Liaison Officer for a British expedition to the 6309m-Nanda Ghunti, led by Martin Moran. That trip exposed him to alpine style ascents which typically feature a small team with little hired help and climbers doing everything themselves. He then rushed to Gangotri where a team from Mumbai engaged in a set of pre-Everest climbs had asked him to join them. Their invitation is a complicated story, the crux of which was his role some time before in trying to retrieve the body of a Mumbai mountaineer. Eventually, the body was not retrieved but word reached Mumbai of the helpful young man. So, when Mumbai put together its first civilian expedition to Everest (Tata Group was the main sponsor) under the leadership of Rishikesh Yadav, our young man was made team member. Months later, in 1998, two summit windows would open up for the Mumbai team during their climb from the Tibet side. In the first, Surendra Chavan, then working for Tata Motors, would reach the summit of Everest (8848m). In the second, a young man, who almost ten years before had been on Nanda Kot stood at the world’s highest point. Expedition over, he returned to his job at the OSD. But Everest and Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu had commenced a journey.

May 2013 marked sixty years since the first ascent of Everest by Tenzing and Hillary. In a world where people are introduced as `Everester so-and-so,’ Love Raj carried his life in mountaineering lightly on his shoulders. For one, he doesn’t call himself `Everester.’ He is very unassuming, walking casually with slightly stooping shoulders, at peace with the world – which was how he walked in to the office of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) in New Delhi, March 2013. People said hello and as we sat in the cafeteria for an interview, an official wished him luck for an upcoming trip to Everest and requested him to look after the others too for he was by now among the most experienced climbers in India for attempting Everest. Should that trip happen, it would be Love Raj’s seventh shot at the summit. He was already the first Indian to have successfully climbed Everest four times.

Love Raj on the summit of Everest (Photo: courtesy Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu)

Everest is probably the best studied 8000m-peak. `Wired’ should be the word, for its normal climbing routes have been so well mastered by commercial agencies that save for vagaries of weather and the trade’s own avarice causing congestion and accidents on the mountain, well performing clients are nearly assured of a summit. An Assistant Commandant with the Border Security Force (BSF), some of Love Raj’s successful ascents were on the normal route. But look closer and it isn’t that simple. He tried and lost on the less wired tough routes. Point is – he tried. In 1999, noted mountaineer Santosh Yadav led an Indian expedition to Everest’s Kangshung Face, among the toughest mountain faces in the world. Love Raj was part of it. Between Camp 2 and Camp 3 he was hit by a falling stone that smashed his goggles and injured his eye. He had to be evacuated. In 2001, Loveraj was back on Everest, again on a route on the East Face in a team led by Santosh Yadav. The team got to the highest point yet reached on that route, he said. Meanwhile with the BSF, he climbed Satopanth (7075m), Kamet (7756m), Mana (7274m) and Abi Gamin (7355m). In 2006, he reached the top of Everest with a BSF expedition. In 2008, on another BSF expedition, he successfully climbed Kanchenjunga (8586m). In 2009, as climbing leader on NIM’s Everest expedition, Loveraj reached the summit for a third time. His fourth time on the summit of Everest was in May 2012, part of the Eco Everest Expedition organized by Nepal’s Asian Trekking with a berth for himself sponsored by Woodland, the well known shoe and apparel brand. On this trip, one that also cleaned up the mountain, Love Raj did more than the regular clean-up procedures, picking up garbage even from the approaches. He also attempted to climb without using bottled oxygen but eventually submitted to its use from higher camps.

Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

A superlative known worldwide, Everest attracts for the glory it promises. Successful climbers become famous. Pay Rs 13-15 lakhs (1300000 to 1500000), another Rs 2.5 lakhs or so for equipment – all this is accessible, courtesy a commercial trip. This has diluted the sheen of Everest. However from a climber’s perspective, Everest is any day challenging and particularly challenging along its less climbed faces where few trophy hunters go. For example, Love Raj believes that Kanchenjunga is a technically difficult (he also loved its isolation with no other team around) but safer climb than Everest. Accounts of Everest’s East Face are replete with avalanches and seracs while on its normal route lay the Khumbu Icefall. So why does he keep going back? Love Raj attributes that to a desire to test himself, Everest being well known (he doesn’t deny that) and the fact that some of the opportunities he got were to climb from less attempted faces. Both the East Face expeditions, he said, progressively leached fear away from him as he improved his technical skills. Most important, Love Raj credits his good fortune at being able to visit Everest repeatedly, to his humility, born from a hard life in the mountains. “ I struggled in life. No work on any expedition was below my dignity to do. That baked my character and even now I don’t hesitate to do any work on an expedition. I know struggle and I know when someone else is struggling,’’ he said. Asked for his impression, Rishikesh Yadav, who led the 1998 Everest expedition described Love Raj as “ tough, dedicated and resourceful.’’ Love Raj is a recipient of both the IMF Gold Medal and the Tenzing Norgay Adventure Award.

Bona, the village where Love Raj grew up (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Interview over, we had lunch at a restaurant nearby. I found that Love Raj had turned forty just the previous day. He talked affectionately of his new born son. His wife Reena is a mountaineer, an outdoor educator (she has worked with the US based-National Outdoor Leadership School [NOLS]) and the first Indian woman to ski to the South Pole. Life had come a long way since Nanda Kot. On the evening of May 21, 2013, I chanced to call up Reena in Delhi. According to her, early that morning, around 6 AM, Love Raj reached the summit of Everest; his fifth successful climb to the top of the peak. The news arrived through agencies in Kathmandu, she said.

In 2014, Love Raj was one of the recipients of the annual Padma awards for civilians, given by the central government. He got a ` Padma Shri.’

For all that happened since 1989, he doesn’t recall paying any special attention to the eastward stretch of the Himalaya, from the top of Nanda Kot.

He had been just happy for first mountain summit reached.

Please note: the height of peaks are as mentioned in Wikipedia and the Himalayan Club Journal.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article was originally published in 2013 in The Hindu newspaper.)

Climbing in Badami (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

This article in three parts is a composite of two distinct narratives, one in normal text and the other, in italics.

The story of Badami is as layered as its sedimentary rock.

If you are used to the Himalaya or even the Western Ghats, then, on the approach to Badami from Hubli, you wouldn’t expect anything that hints `hill.’ The world is flat and open to the sun. Vegetation is the stuff of hardy scrubs; large fields, still standing patches of sunflower, dry sugarcane and the occasional tree. Massive bony oxen pull carts; buffalos saunter by, dogs have their tongues hanging out trying to stay cool. It is hot. Sun burnt farmers, old women with dry wrinkled skin. Tractors join the traffic. Dust rises easily. It is January. I can imagine what peak summer would be, here. More important for climber, there is not an iota of hill anywhere. Then at one bus stand en route, you see an isolated rocky outcrop next door. Slowly, as the bus moves on, you start seeing similar isolated outcrops, at best a long wall and all no more than a few hundred feet high. Reach Badami and the rock walls there are high but not tremendously so. They are beautiful. Badami’s story lay in the subtext. If the Himalaya is famous for its marine fossils, dating back to the ancient Tethys Sea, then here, it is the other extreme.

According to Dr Shrinivas V. Padigar, Head of the Department of Ancient Indian History and Epigraphy, Karnatak University, Dharwad, the rock at Badami contains no fossil record as it dates back to the Precambrian period, or simply put, a time when no complex life forms existed. Accounting for roughly 7/8^th of Earth’s history, the Precambrian period ended around 540 million years ago. Respect for Badami’s rock thus stems from a dimension different from physical properties. It is frozen time. To imagine such antiquity, you should take a peek at the shape of continents and where India was in the Precambrian period. If the world’s highest mountains – the Himalaya – were formed after India drifted at a speed that is superfast by continental drift standards and smashed into the Eurasian plate, then the India of the Precambrian period hadn’t dreamt the Himalaya. India’s northward drift started only 140 million years ago. The Himalaya, the child of India’s collision with Eurasia, is much, much younger.

Simply put, the rock at Badami is OLD.

Badami and Hampi attract rock climbers.

Both places are in Karnataka, South India.

They are separated by 146 kilometres, small enough for climbers fuelled by passion, to cover for a taste of both worlds. Hampi is strongly identified with bouldering, the art of climbing boulders with little gear – just a pair of climbing shoes, crash pad to cushion one’s fall, chalk to keep the hands sweat-free and a friend to `spot’ you. Badami has bouldering plus a wealth of longer routes for sport climbing, which entails rope, pre-fixed bolts in the rock, more climbing gear than used in bouldering and definitely a second climber to `belay.’ Badami offers beautifully weathered sandstone (we call everything here sandstone but as geology shows, it is more complicated). Badami’s stone is kind on climbers’ fingers. Climbing in Hampi is done on granite. It shreds skin.

Badami has several popular climbing areas. From past visits, I remember crags named Indian Alley, Ganesh Plateau, Temple Area and Badami Deluxe. Today, at any one of these known climbing spots, you will see several bolted sport climbing routes. N. Ravi Kumar, who hails from Bangalore and is currently Director of NOLS India, was among the early climbers frequenting Badami. According to him those days, there was nothing on the approach to the Badami Deluxe and Temple Area crags, save a house and the small facility of the General Thimayya National Academy of Adventure (GETHNAA). Where several shops and houses now stand there was nothing. All the initial climbing was traditional (trad) in style, using removable protection as opposed to permanent protection. “ There were no bolts then,’’ he said. It changed with sport climbing’s ascent in India. One of the great attractions of sport climbing is that thanks to prefixed protection (expansion bolts), climbing lines are possible on rock faces otherwise devoid of adequate features to host trad gear (an overview of the various styles in climbing can be had from the September 2013 post Climbers in the Big Wall Mirror [Part Two]. It can be accessed either through the blog’s archives or simply click on this link: https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2013/09/).In turn, that makes moves in sport climbing pretty difficult because tackling potentially sketchy rock faces is built-in into the ethos of this discipline.

The rock face hosting Ganesha (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

In late January 2014, as I stood in Badami facing the orange glow of its sandstone rock walls, my attention was on a rock overhang far to the right near the Temple Area crag. Bit over one kilometre from the local bus depot, tucked into the curve of the rock was a sport climbing route called Ganesha, sometimes, Ganesh. In climbing, routes have names. Graded 8b+ in terms of climbing difficulty on the French scale, Ganesha was right then the toughest among known, graded sport climbing routes in India. Ganesha was bolted some years ago by Alex Chabot, a champion climber from France. Its first ascent happened probably in 2011; the credit went to French climber Gerome Pouvreau. In Rohit Chauhan’s guidebook to climbing in Hampi and Badami, Ganesha’s grade was speculated as 8c or 8c+. This publication was the first guidebook for this area. Rohit recalled it as a rather lonely endeavour. Encouragement and support came from just a handful of people. A few overseas friends and Delhi-based climber-businessman, Mohit Oberoi, backed him. At that time however, Ganesha was yet to be fully climbed. Rohit said in a recent email from Spain that he had to count on estimation by others familiar with the Ganesha project, for a sense of the new route’s grade. As often happens in climbing, there is a gap between the perception of a route in project stage, and reality. The right grade is a consensus among climbers who climbed the route fully. Multiple ascents over a period of time then lower the grade. 8b+ is what Ganesha earned after first ascent; it is what it still has for grade.

The rocky hill dominating Badami’s landscape is part of the ` Kaladgi Series’ stretching from Kaladgi to Gajendgragad – that’s what I gathered locally. The most ancient of the rocks in this region is probably the batch of sedimentary rock in the vicinity of Kuligeri Cross, a place that you pass by en route to Badami. For a lay person like me seeking to know Badami, the age of the rock is however only one half of the fascination. As climber, the Badami rocks are my favourite. Something about them matches the enjoyment from climbing and the engagement with rock, I seek. But I am no geologist. I don’t know how to distinguish a rock of recent origin from Precambrian. My perception as I climb is tactile; touch and feel. Badami’s rocks are like fine sandpaper yet firm. Plus, they are wonderfully eroded into all sorts of cuts, grooves, pockets and jug holds, not to mention – slippery smooth in some areas. In popular lore, the agent that caused all this – from sedimentation to sculpting – is said to be water with one theory being that this area was below water once. Today’s Badami is quite inland from the sea (it is approximately 250 kilometres by road from Goa on India’s west coast); it is also 1923 feet up from sea level. There is even a rock arch of sorts, the remains of powerful weathering, some say by water – you can see its scaled down model in the local archaeological museum. How and where do we position water in Badami’s geological history?

I contacted Dr Navin Shankar, a geologist now working as Research Specialist with Excelsoft Technologies Pvt Ltd, an e-learning company in Mysore. According to him the Badami rock formations date back to the Proterozoic era, around 1.6 billion to one billion years ago. Within the Precambrian (4.6 billion years ago to about 540 million years ago), this would qualify to be in the second half. The Proterozoic period is divided into three stages. The time of formation of the Badami rocks corresponds roughly to the middle stage – the Mesoproterozoic, noted as the first age from which a fairly reliable record of the Earth’s geological history survives. Wikipedia describes this period as still poorly understood despite critical changes to the chemistry of our seas, the sediments of the earth and the composition of air. It is also the dawn of life, the age of development of sexual reproduction in micro organisms, very important for complex life forms yet to come.  And if you thought ` life’ here means life as we know it, please note: oxygen levels of the time may have been about one per cent of today’s and slowly rising. It was a very different Earth.

Badami as seen from the top of the adjacent hill (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The north and north-eastern segments of peninsular India had witnessed mountain building activity in the Mesoproterozoic period. This involved subduction of the margins of plate boundaries complemented by intraplate extensional tectonics resulting in the formation of a series of intracratonic basins, namely the Kaladgi formation. As per information on the Internet, intracratonic basins are a type of sedimentary basin. They form within stable continental interiors. They are typically shallow, circular in shape and have long histories of relatively slow subsidence. Over time, the intracratonic basins were overlain by sedimentary rocks and sediments. “ The rocks from the Mesoproterozoic age in the Badami area have been categorized under the Kaladgi Supergroup, further classified into Badami and Bagalkot groups,’’ Dr Shankar said. The Badami group comprises horizontally bedded multiple sequence of arenite and shale with limestone in small amounts. These sedimentary rocks and sediments are found in a large area of horizontally bedded ferruginous arenites from the north-western tip of Raichur district to Bijapur, Belgaum and beyond into Maharashtra state. The Bagalkot group consists of two mega cycles of repeated sequence of argillite followed by chemogenic precipitates predominantly of sandstone and dolomite with quartzite and conglomerate forming the base.

Standing in today’s Badami, it is hard to visualize this geological story. It is flat all around with a few rocky hills. Where are the sedimentary basins? To notice the ancient basins, which can be several kilometres long and wide, we have to get a bird’s eye view; a topographic picture of the region. In that, Dr Shankar said, the basins emerge. Further, some basins are now below the layers accumulated on top. By nature basins are depressions and water collects in depressions. The basins may have held water in the ancient past contributing to the submersion story. However in the vast scale of geological time, water isn’t sole agent forming, compacting and sculpting sedimentary rocks. Theoretically, wind and glaciers also perform that function although glaciers had no role in Badami. Into this, mix a later development. Badami now stands on the Deccan plateau. This large plateau formed around 60-70 million years ago through volcanic eruptions lasting several thousand years, some say, when India drifted over the Reunion Hotspot. The Deccan is a massive feature, much younger than Badami’s rocks but one that adds to the geological influences a scientist must sift through to understand still older times.

(……TO BE CONTINUED)

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)

Tuhin in action (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

An early morning, I walked away from the Badami bus depot towards the local APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) office on the outskirts of town. From here a dusty road branched off to the left, through an archway, onto the nearby hill – it was the way to the Temple Area crag and Ganesha. A young man by the roadside saw me approach, backpack and all. “ Hello,’’ he said. I returned the greeting. “ You…climber?’’ he asked. What do you say, if you used to climb but haven’t done so for a long time? Besides, this whole business of defining climber and seeming one irritated me. I am sure the young man didn’t mean it so but I was already agitated with my thoughts. I smiled and shook my head. “ Climber – that word is for better others. I am simply in search of Ganesha,’’ I said. “ Oh, Ganesha project – it is right over there,’’ he said pointing to a rock face. It was a fine morning and the young man appeared a nice person to talk to. “ What do you do?’’ I asked. “ I am a climbing guide,’’ he said. That was new development for in none of my previous visits to Badami had anyone offered such an introduction. I met him a few more times later, at the crags, where he was with clients. He had been climbing for the past two years. Resident of Badami, he stayed in a house right where I met him, just inside the archway, close to the GETHNAA facility, not far from Ganesha. His name was Ganesh.

I was in Badami to learn more about another person, young like Ganesh.

Eighteen year-old Tuhin Satarkar from Pune, climbed Ganesha on December 14, 2013. He became the first Indian to complete an 8b+ route in India. He is the only climber supported by Red Bull yet in India. Internationally, Red Bull sponsors many athletes, among them climbers. “ Indian climbers have the strength and endurance required for demanding routes. What we lack is technique,’’ Tuhin said.

Tuhin Satarkar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Although climbing infrastructure has improved in India, a huge gap exists between here and overseas. For example, take artificial climbing holds (with rising urbanisation, climbing on artificial walls has become the popular entry for youngsters into rock climbing) – big volume holds, features etc are still only trickling into India. On the other hand, they are the stuff of new routes at world cups and world championships, Tuhin said. We were in the restaurant of a hotel in Badami. The young man’s laptop had a prominent Red Bull sticker; he also offered me a can of the drink. In retrospect, a Red Bull sponsored-trip to climb in Austria and Italy with well known Austrian climber Kilian Fischhuber, in November 2013, may have helped improve his climbing and equip him for the unexpected December-rendezvous with Ganesha. Until this trip, Tuhin’s hardest climb had been a sport route called `Jackpot’ (7b to 7b+) at Sinhagad in Pune. During the 15-20 days spent climbing in Europe, he did his first 8a, a route in Italy. The tryst with Ganesha materialized after Paige Classen, an American climber who became the first woman to climb Ganesha, sought his help for her climbing project. Otherwise, Ganesha hadn’t been on Tuhin’s mind. In 2012, he had attempted the route, climbing up to the fourth clip (bolt plus quick-draw placed for protection) before giving up.

On India’s climbing scene, Tuhin is unique. At the decade old-Girivihar Climbing Competition in Navi Mumbai, I have seen him climb when still a school kid, moving over the years from junior category to senior. His parents are climbers. His father Vikas is a noted rock climber in Pune. While many young Indian rock climbers struggle to explain what they do – not to mention, why they do what they do – to their family, Tuhin had the required ecosystem at hand. He started climbing from age seven, growing up in a house with a climbing wall. His first climbing competition was in 2002, an event on the Pimpri-Chinchwad climbing wall in Pune. In 2007, he finished second at the nationals in the under-14 category. That was when he decided to take up climbing seriously; not so much as career as to climb seriously. Somebody he looked up to those days was Vaibhav Mehta, then living in Mumbai and leading a pack of sport climbers, the first bunch of climbers from the region to treat climbing as the only thing they wanted to do. Improving over the years, Tuhin became part of India’s youth team visiting championships in Singapore (2011) and Iran (2012). The Red Bull-sponsorship happened thanks to his participation in the Girivihar Climbing Competition, in a year when the company was one of the sponsors. As Navin Fernandes, Red Bull’s Athletes Specialist based in Mumbai, pointed out – Tuhin fit in well with Red Bull’s approach of investing in athletes when still quite young. Support from Red Bull commenced in 2013. Currently Tuhin is what you could call a professional climber; he climbs just as someone else goes to work in an office. Climbing is what he does every day. In India, Badami is his favourite climbing spot. He also claims to have been a fan of Alex Chabot, watching his videos, much before the French climber visited India and bolted a route named Ganesha.

Badami: stone, temples and caves (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Less than a kilometre from Ganesha as the crow flies is Vidyanagar, a residential colony. Everyone remembers a teacher. I had no problem finding the house of Dr Sheelakant Pattar. Now retired, he used to teach at the local school and college. More important, although majored in science, he is a history buff who took his doctorate in studies pertaining to Badami. According to him the oldest reference to Badami lay in Ptolemy’s works, where the name ` Badamoi’ has been mentioned. This is however contested. Dr Padigar feels that while the reference may exist, there is no certainty yet that Badamoi is Badami. What we do know is that there was a settlement here preceding Badami’s ascent in history. Before we talk of that ascent, let’s shift firmly from Precambrian to the age of human civilization and imagine Badami as a settlement near a rock hill characterized by steep walls. It is the 6<sup>th</sup> century AD. The political landscape of the neighbourhood is authored by such local dynasties / kingdoms as Kadamba, Vishnukundit, Kadachuri, Maurya (not the Maurya of Ashoka) and Nala. Enter, the Chalukyas. Who they were and where they came from appears still a matter of debate, for I came across different views. But the ascent of Badami – then known as Vatapi – under the Chalukyas, owes much to a strategic vision that both Dr Pattar and Dr Padigar pointed out – available readymade in the steep rock walls of Badami was a natural fort. All you had to do was fill in the gaps, which the Chalukyas did; such forts are generically called `Giridurg’ in these parts. In 543 AD, Vatapi burst upon the scene as the capital of the Chalukyas, a dynasty that would eventually become very powerful and influential in the history of this region. Indeed, in present day Badami, many commercial establishments choose to sport ` Chalukya’ in their name; some others fancy ` Pulakeshin,’ that being the name of the dynasty’s greatest king. Dr Pattar provided a bird’s eye view of Badami’s fortification thus: not far from the town is the Malaprabha River, a tributary of the river Krishna (compared to the age of the rocks in Badami, this river originating from the Western Ghats is very young – studies show it is only 40,000 years old). An invading army would have had to first cross the river, then, they would have to tackle what would have been those days a stretch of forest from the river to the fort, before attacking the fort built on steep rock walls. Although the Pallavas, who competed with the Chalukyas for influence in the region, did seize Vatapi briefly and today’s climbers with their modern climbing gear can scale the walls, by the imagination of the 6^th century AD, the place must have seemed secure.

The blitz gang. From left – Madhu, Adarsh, Ajij, Gaurav, Tuhin and Sandeep (Photo: Vinay Potdar)

In mid January 2014, Vinay Potdar, friend and climber, reached Belapur in Navi Mumbai to assist at the annual Girivihar Climbing Competition (for more on the competition, please see earlier posts on this blog – 2014 Girivihar Climbing Competition / Daily Report, 2014 Girivihar Climbing Competition / Countdown and A Competition’s Solo Climb). He was coming straight from days spent climbing in Hampi. Vinay was intrigued by a certain development. Soon after Tuhin’s success on Ganesha and around the same time, in a blitz of sorts, across bouldering and sport climbing, across Hampi and Badami, a handful of young Indian climbers, ranging in age from sub-20 to early-20, cruised past the 8-mark. There was Guarav Kumar (from Delhi)  and Madhu C.R (Bangalore) polishing off Samsara (8a) in Badami, Ajij Shaikh (Pune) pulling off two 8a boulder problems – The Diamond and The Middle Way – in Hampi and Sandeep Maity (Delhi) doing the last two boulder problems plus Black Moon (8a) in Hampi. The Middle Way was made iconic by Chris Sharma of the US, who featured it in `Pilgrimage,’ a film on him climbing in Hampi. The question isn’t so much about who climbed what first or whether some of these routes were done before by others. Making a claim or telling the world of what you did is an option exercised by people in media ridden-world. It is not an expectation set by climbing. What interests more, therefore, is the spectre of a bunch of people, cracking a certain level of difficulty coincidentally around December 2013-January 2014. Mohit Oberoi who runs the Adventure 18 chain of shops that retail adventure gear has longstanding experience in both sport climbing and competition climbing. He attributed the emergent shift to greater availability of climbing infrastructure (artificial climbing walls) and properly graded routes in India. In the past, Mohit himself had climbed close to the 8-level but overseas. The critical element in the new development, he emphasised, is Indians breaching the 8-mark in India. Twenty years ago, the toughest graded climbs by Indians in India were in the early sevens. “ What we are seeing is a much awaited shift,’’ Mohit said.

(……TO BE CONTINUED)

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)