Satish Gujaran (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Most people reach Shirdi by road or rail.

Some choose to walk.

Sanjay Shankar Shinde, the founder of the running club Ramesh Nair trained with walked every year to the temple town from Mumbai. It is a distance of close to 250km as per the Internet. Curious, Ramesh, an engineer turned businessman, walked to Shirdi with Sanjay’s group in 2012. He did so again in 2013. Thinking of a repeat in 2015, he shared the idea with Satish Gujaran. The two lived close by in Mulund. They hadn’t met before, till running put them in touch. Satish had been training largely alone and mostly on the city’s Eastern Express Highway. What amazed Ramesh was the mileage he piled on daily and the dedication he showed to running. When Satish heard of Shirdi and the walk on Ramesh’s mind, he suggested: why not run from Mumbai to Shirdi?

July 25, 2015, 6AM; three runners – Ramesh, Satish and Nilesh Doshi – supported by a car stocked with essentials and driven by Sanjay Gawade, a driver whose many outings with runners has made him adept at the task, set off for Shirdi from Mumbai. Nilesh elected to return on the second day. He had some work to attend to; he also felt his body temperature was rising unreasonably. Satish and Ramesh pushed on; the former, a bachelor and experienced ultra marathon runner, the latter, a family man, regular runner of marathons and someone who prefers to run respecting the boundaries of well being. “ I run within my comfort zone,’’ Ramesh said. Satish seemed a runner moulded by exploration and experience. Ramesh reposed faith in systems and research. For both runners, it was their first multi-day run. In his mind, Ramesh had studied the distance to Shirdi and worked out how much he should run daily based on his experience at marathons and the annual Mumbai Ultra, a 12 hour-endurance run. He had it all chalked out. Satish was battling a private worry; the classical Indian worry – leave of absence from office. They had started on a Saturday. He had to report for work Wednesday morning. Will they reach Shirdi before that?

Satish (left) and Ramesh during the Mumbai-Shirdi run (Photo: courtesy Ramesh Nair)

“ Satish can keep on going. He is a frugal runner whose needs are few. I am not, ’’ Ramesh said. In tune with their experience in distance running and differing styles, a gap opened up between the two. And proportionate to the widening gap on the road, Satish’s worry about Wednesday grew. Ramesh recalled the situation. “ The car was supposed to halt every three kilometres or so. I was running slowly. After I had reached the car and hydrated, Satish would tell the driver to proceed and wait after the next three kilometres. Then I noticed – he was saying three and indicating four with his fingers!’’ Ramesh said laughing. In the end, it all worked out well. Around 2.30PM on Tuesday, July 28, the two runners reached Shirdi. After a quick visit to the Sai Baba temple, they returned to Mumbai. Satish was back at work, Wednesday morning.

Exactly 100 years before from the day the duo reached Shirdi, an event occurred in Europe that would leave its mark on the world of running as well. On July 28, 1914, a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, officially commencing the First World War. The cascading events that followed sank Europe into one of the bloodiest conflicts of human history. In four years of fighting, more people would die than in the wars of the preceding 100 years. Almost 70 million military personnel were mobilised; of them, over 8 million died. The survivors bore scars in the mind. Happening in the age of empire, the theatre of war exceeded Europe; those fighting and getting killed included many from outside Europe. Among people caught in the tentacles of empire and therefore pushed to fight, were the South Africans. They fought on the side of the Allied forces, in Africa and Europe. The war in Africa, a long distance from the trenches of Europe, was triggered by the German plan to keep the Allied force’s Africa based-military assets engaged in Africa itself.

Vic Clapham was one of the South Africans who saw action and survived. He was born in London on 16 November 1886 and immigrated to the Cape Colony in South Africa with his parents. When the Anglo-Boer war broke out, Vic aged 13, worked in an ambulance team. Later he moved to Natal and worked as an engine driver with the South African Railways. During the First World War, he signed up with the 8^th South African infantry, fighting and marching long distances through the savannah of eastern Africa. The hardships he and his friends endured left a lasting impression. Above all, he remembered their camaraderie. As peace returned in 1918, he sought a memorial to commemorate the South African soldiers who had died; a memorial that highlighted human endurance.

Illustration: Shyam G Menon

Clapham’s home town was Pietermaritzburg. He visualized a foot race from there to Durban. If soldiers could cover vast distances and endure it as they did in the war, Clapham averred, trained athletes should be able to do the same. This in mind, he approached the athletics administration in Natal for support. They declined. Then he approached The League of Comrades of the Great War, a body representing ex-service persons. Initially turned down, Clapham persisted. In 1921, the league yielded. It gave its assent. Clapham founded The Comrades, the world’s oldest ultra marathon race and now it’s biggest. First run on May 24, 1921, the route links Pietermaritzburg in the mountains with Durban on the coast. Forty eight runners enrolled for the inaugural race. Of that, 34 set off; 16 finished. Many of these runners were earlier infantrymen who had fought in Africa. At present, nearly 20,000 people run this ultra marathon every year. They come from different countries. The race alternates every year between uphill and downhill with the former measuring 87km and the latter, 89km. Founded as a war memorial, over time, The Comrades has acquired the reputation of being a fantastic event, remembered for the bonhomie, crowd support and cheering.

Satish never expected his life to get mixed up with The Comrades. He was born at Udipi in southern India on March 27, 1963, pretty close to the May-June period hosting South Africa’s iconic race (throughout its history The Comrades has been run in either May or June). Coincidentally in May 1963, a record was set at The Comrades. South African runner Jackie Mekler, who at five wins overall is tied with three others for the second highest number of wins at The Comrades in the male category, set a new record (5:51:20) in the ` down’ version of the run. With that he became the first runner since 1954 to hold the record for both the `up’ and `down’ versions. In 1960, Mekler had run the `up’ in 5:56:32. Those days there was no ultra marathon in India, likely no awareness about The Comrades. South Africa existed in the shadow of its apartheid policies. For many years, resultant sanctions denied the country participation in international sporting events. Sanctions prevented other countries from touring South Africa. In cricket crazy-India, once in a while the press published a photo or carried an article about South African cricketers. The names of Barry Richards, Mike Procter and Kepler Wessels floated around. Once in a while, the media mentioned Zola Budd, the legendary runner. Else, compared to what South Africa is in sports today, little was known of sports from Africa’s southern tip. Anything South Africa was usually about its politics. The country however featured prominently in Indian awareness. There was an Indian community in South Africa and the names of South African cities and towns had featured in history text books at Indian schools, especially in the context of Mahatma Gandhi and India’s freedom struggle. Pietermaritzburg was where, in June 1893, Gandhiji was forced off a train; an incident that made him determined to fight the racial discrimination against Indians and played a major role in shaping his future thoughts. Today, long after India’s independence and the end of South Africa’s apartheid laden-policies, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi stands on Church Street in Pietermaritzburg.

Satish (centre) with Dereck Mahadoo and his wife Shereen (Photo: courtesy Satish Gujaran)

Far away from South Africa and The Comrades, in India, school for Satish was 3-4km distant from home. Neither the distance to school nor the walking conspired to craft the outline for a future story in running. On the other hand, the youngster was more interested in games than running and athletics. Of his three sisters, two played badminton at the district and state level. The years went by largely nondescript. It was a regular life. Satish attended college in Bengaluru (Bangalore) graduating in commerce. “ There was nothing significant in my life, concerning sports then,’’ he said. The eldest child in the family and thereby expected to work, Satish travelled to Mumbai seeking employment. He did odd jobs for a while. Then, still no runner and given to smoking heavily, he moved to South Africa.

The person, who made this shift possible, was a friend – Dereck Mahadoo. He owned a construction company in South Africa and was looking for a supervisor. In due course, Satish joined Dereck’s company. He stayed with Dereck and his family in Durban, one of the two end points linked by The Comrades route. The new supervisor from Mumbai smoked like a chimney. The boss on the other hand, was a runner. Dereck had already run The Comrades six times. “ One day, he asked me to go along and walk with him while he ran. That became my first attempt at running,’’ Satish said. It was difficult. To start with, he hadn’t run before in his life, definitely not with a view to be runner. To complicate matters, he had spoilt his chances of enjoying a run through becoming a chain smoker. The duo persisted. Helping them was the local environment; South Africa had plenty of running events. There was a race every weekend, including several distances in the link category that helped those newly into running, nudge up their ability to cover distances. The year was 2004. Forty one year-old Satish picked up running pretty fast. Encouraged by the progress, he entered for his first formal half marathon. It ended up a DNF – Did Not Finish. “ By the twelfth or thirteenth kilometre, my knees were in utterly bad shape. An ambulance drove up and a lady said: get in, you have your whole life to run,’’ Satish recalled. That DNF was a lesson. It brought home an immediate war to declare in his journey to distance running – Satish had to confront his habit of smoking. “ It was tough giving that up,’’ he said. Dereck it appears, left an impression on Satish. According to Ramesh, when he was struggling on the uphill at Kasara en route to Shirdi, Satish stepped in to help. He broke down the ascent into smaller goals marked by sign boards along the road. “ From here to there, you walk. Then from there to there, you run. So on. When he broke the challenging section into small portions it helped me greatly. Apparently that is something he learnt from Dereck,’’ Ramesh said. Satish’s stint in South Africa also included some crazy contests, which may explain the reservoir of energy, others say, he digs into. For instance, he won a competition that challenged people not to sleep. He didn’t sleep for a few days.

In 2006, Satish returned to Mumbai. The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon (SCMM) was by then a couple of years old. The spirit of running was catching on in the city. For two to three years, Satish ran the SCMM; he did no other major runs. On the average, he could run a full marathon in about 3 hours 40 minutes. Then in 2009, he picked up talk in Mumbai’s running circles, of The Comrades. Along with his affection for South Africa and memories of good times had there, the idea of running the famous ultra marathon tempted. But he was still a smoker. Between smoking and lessons from the old DNF, smoking had prevailed. The war was far from over. Satish nevertheless registered for the 2010 Comrades. There was a small group of people going. They heard of each other and met up. To train for The Comrades, they followed training regimens found on the Internet. Training started some time after February 2010. In addition to running in Mumbai, they ran in Lonavala, the popular hill station on the way to Pune. As part of preparations, they did two 56km-runs, a full marathon and one run of 65km. Each was apart by 20 days. Some of the runs commenced early; the 65km-run used to start at 2 or 3AM. A car with driver provided support. Satish’s first Comrades in South Africa, was the ` down’ version from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Around the 65-70km mark, Satish suffered cramps in his calf muscles. He managed to handle it but the problem kept repeating. Life was forcing a decision on him. It was clearer than ever – you run healthy or you don’t run at all. Back in India, following The Comrades, Satish joined the `Inner Engineering Course’ offered by Isha Foundation. “ There I stopped smoking. By November-December 2010, I was free of the habit,’’ he said.

Satish (far right) with fellow Indian runners at the 2015 edition of The Comrades (Photo: courtesy Satish Gujaran)

Since 2010, Satish hasn’t missed a single edition of The Comrades. Every year he flies to South Africa to run the race. Running in 2011, on the heels of his debut at the 2010 edition, he qualified for an additional medal given to those who do two Comrades back-to-back. By October 2015, he had run and finished the iconic race six times becoming in all likelihood, the runner from Mumbai with the most number of finishes at The Comrades. Satish plans to run The Comrades at least 10 times. “ If you run it 10 times, you will get a green number, a bib number that is permanently yours. It is given by that year’s race winner,’’ he said. Satish explained why he loves The Comrades so much. “ The atmosphere is electrifying. The crowd support is fantastic and runners come from everywhere. The event is well organized. It is like a carnival. The route is challenging, it engages the runner. Finally, Durban has a sizable population of Indians and people of Indian origin. Indian runners get cheered,’’ he said. According to him, completing an ultra marathon like The Comrades is as much about strategy as it is about training. He spoke of veterans who have been running the race for years, taking it slow and keeping their energy in reserve for the course’s strenuous sections. “ Planning is important for good timing at The Comrades. To run slowly, you need courage. It comes only with experience and maturity,’’ Satish said. Over time, his training style also changed. In years gone by, he used to train 5-6 days a week. Now he trains 3-4 days. “ Quality matters more than quantity,’’ he said. Ramesh highlighted one more angle – discipline. Each night during the Mumbai-Shirdi run, while Ramesh took his time to get over the day’s exhaustion, Satish would clean up and finish his chores like clockwork.

Satish (right) with Arun Bhardwaj, India’s best known ultra marathon runner and a pioneer in the genre for the country (Photo: courtesy Satish Gujaran) 

Although he has run The Comrades six times, until the Mumbai-Shirdi run with Ramesh, Satish hadn’t run an ultra marathon in India except the annual Mumbai Ultra and those long training runs for The Comrades. One reason for this was work and the commitments at work, which accompany life as employee. The Indian environment, arguably, has two prominent drawbacks. First, the pressure of high population and rat race is such that appreciation of human existence has narrowed to self worth by position and possessions. In this, sport is easily dismissed as irrelevant unless a person’s position in the sports pecking order is such that he is supremely successful. Life is all about success. Second, growing economies gift busy lifestyles to their citizens. Over the past six decades as various Asian economies gathered momentum, this shift has been documented in their respective populations. In India, the shift has occurred within a matrix already rendered crushing by other factors. The business of survival is too tiring at Indian cities to attempt anything else. “ I don’t think I have exploited my full potential,’’ Satish said, explaining his predicament. He sounded a bit sad. Yet at 52 years of age, he toys with the idea of shifting full time to running. He wonders if he will find supportive sponsors; somebody who would both ensure a certain income for sustenance and back his running. Indian youngsters are beginning to articulate such plans; they are getting support from sponsors eyeing the Indian market qualified by the high dose of young people shaping it. But therein lay another challenge – being middle aged and pursuing one’s dream in an India that is now overwhelmingly young, is no easy task. The old – particularly the old and eccentric as distance runners tend to be – are not a priority for commercial support.

Satish (back row, near centre, in yellow T-shirt) with fellow runners who pitched in to support during the Mumbai-Surat run (Photo: courtesy Satish Gujaran)

Satish however finds a way. In September 2015, a marathon was held in Surat. Satish approached the organizers with an idea – as an expression of support for the event, why not have him run from Mumbai to Surat? They agreed and provided the required infrastructural assistance. Early morning September 10, with a vehicle carrying essentials trailing him and periodically met up en route by fellow runners, Satish set off for Surat. He reached his destination – the event venue – by the end of the third day, having run an estimated 264km. On the day of the event, he polished off his effort by participating in the half marathon. Now he thinks of a Mumbai-Pune run. Also slated for the future, hopefully with the support of the Isha Foundation, is a run from Mumbai to Coimbatore.

It takes a zone of discomfort to make us aware of our capacity for endurance. Limits explored and the self spent, all is peaceful. Imagined differently, you can keep the peace if you remember to engage and exhaust yourself every once in a while, which is what opportunities to run and ultra marathons are all about.  It is about finding peace. “ Running is now a part of me. If I don’t do it, I feel uncomfortable,’’ Satish said.

Update: At the 2015 Vasai-Virar Mayor’s Marathon held in November, Satish finished third in his age category in the full marathon with a timing of 3:49:00.

(The authors, Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent journalists based in Mumbai. The story of Vic Clapham and the early history of The Comrades have been collated from various sites on the Internet including the ultra marathon’s official website, Wikipedia and http://www.unogwaja.com/ For more on Arun Bhardwaj, please try this link: https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/the-connoisseur-of-distances/)

Dr Kaustubh Radkar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

We were at the PYC Gymkhana on Pune’s Bhandarkar Road.

Our mutual introduction and subsequent conversation had one shared quality – Dr Kaustubh Radkar spoke to the point. Except in places, he didn’t seem one for long sentences or the sort for whom, one sentence leads to many. You gauged pretty early, a penchant for brevity in the interviewee; the likely legacy of having been for long a competitive swimmer and after that, Ironman.

Kaustubh was born May 1982 in Pune, coincidentally the year Julie Moss fired popular imagination in the US with the mantra that finishing an Ironman is as good as victory. Moss, a college student then, had collapsed near the finish line. She crawled the rest of the way to complete her race. She didn’t give up. The incident was widely telecast in the US. It is unlikely anyone in India would have seen that telecast, now available on YouTube. In 1982, India was still a government monopoly in television broadcast and colour television commenced only that year, thanks to the New Delhi Asian Games. Ironman was probably unheard of. Indeed, according to the website of the Indian Triathlon Federation (ITF), the first triathlon in the country was held eight years later, in 1990.

The Radkars were a family of four; besides Kaustubh, there was his father, Sunil, who was a lawyer, mother, Nilima, a trained violinist and PhD in music and a sister, Deepti, three years elder to him, who was into swimming. She was a good swimmer who used to win medals at swimming competitions. At seven years of age, the boy followed his sister into swimming. It wasn’t a move with any aim in mind. He just followed. Nevertheless two years later, he was competing at swimming competitions and by the age of 11-12, he was winning medals at Pune level.

From Kaustubh’s early days in the pool (Photo: by arrangement)

We met Deepti at a cafe in suburban Mumbai. According to her, Sunil Radkar was a keen sportsman, particularly interested in baseball. He encouraged his children to take up sports. The family stayed not far from Pune’s iconic Tilak Tank. That is where Deepti and Kaustubh were introduced to swimming. Those days Tilak Tank was completely fed by subterranean springs, `L’ shaped and at 100 yards on its longer side, slightly less than double the length of an Olympic-sized pool. Today it is a modern swimming complex with only a portion retaining spring water, the old way. The siblings had diverse tastes in swimming – Deepti preferred the breast stroke and longer distances; Kaustubh took to freestyle and sprint. She recalled two coaches in particular – S.N. Karandikar and Srinidhi Sakharikar. Karandikar also organized swimming camps during the holidays. A day at one of these camps typically entailed a hill run, a few hours of swimming in the pool and lectures by sportspersons, nutritionists and motivational speakers. This was the environment in which Kaustubh’s swimming evolved. In 1995, at the national level school swimming championships held in Kolkata (Calcutta), he secured gold. Then based on his performance at the open nationals, where he was in the 15-17 age-group, in 1997 he got his first chance to represent India for races at the Asia-Pacific level. Speaking about the progression, Kaustubh said, “ initially I did not like swimming. It is a solitary pursuit, anti-social in a way and I wasn’t winning any medals. It was often serious practice, long practice sessions and few results to show. I was working as hard as any of the other kids and not getting anything. But at 13 years of age or so, the difference between talent and hard work started to show. That is when I started getting results and began enjoying it.’’

Finishing Ironman South Africa (Photo: by arrangement)

Apart by 150km, Mumbai and Pune are cities with different character and in sport, arguably different trajectories. Set by the sea, mercantile and open to the world, Mumbai was first off the mark in sporting greatness. Up and over the hills, located on the high Deccan Plateau and regarded as a sentinel of local culture, Pune took time catching up. Nowadays, Mumbai is the laggard in sports and adventure activity. In swimming, Kaustubh recalled, his years in the pool at school and university level, was the period Pune emerged from the shadow of Mumbai, Maharashtra’s erstwhile powerhouse in swimming. “ We were not afraid anymore,’’ Kaustubh said. Representing Pune University at the national university meet in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), he won six gold medals; one silver and a bronze in swimming. “ I was a specialist in the 100m, 200m and 400m-freestyle events,’’ he said. The Radkars were a family of lawyers. Although she made it to the nationals at university level, Deepti progressively found her calling in the arts and slowly veered off swimming. Kaustubh’s future, the family realized, may be in sport. “ The two of us not becoming lawyers was a major departure,’’ Deepti said.

Things weren’t rosy in India for a career in competitive swimming. Characteristic of Indian sports, there was much politics in swimming. Kaustubh started looking for opportunities to study and train overseas.  He wrote to American universities seeking to represent them in swimming. He was accepted at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, initially with 50 per cent scholarship. Later, after seeing his performance, another 10 per cent was added to the scholarship component and he was included in the Dean’s List. His chosen line of academics was: BSc in Exercise Science & Pre-medicine. Deepti felt that there was an experiential link between the solitary progression of the competitive swimmer and Kaustubh’s academic journey. Several colleges in the US have a sizable Indian student population. But as a student with strength in sports and seeking to grow in it, Kaustubh was at colleges overseas that didn’t always have a large Indian student population. He became more independent; his circle of friends was diverse. “ He is an excellent cook,’’ she said.

Judy and John Collins, at their induction into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame in 2014. Triathletes from California, they introduced the triathlon to Hawaii on February 18, 1978 by creating and staging the first endurance triathlon, The Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, a swim/bike/run course that circled the island of Oahu. The Ironman course linked the minimum 2.4mile Waikiki Roughwater Swim, an estimated 112 miles of the 115 mile Round Oahu Bike Course and the 26.2 mile Honolulu Marathon. This is how Ironman started. (Photo: courtesy Judy and John Collins)

Training in the US was a remarkably different experience. The Indian approach to being a better swimmer was to swim, swim and keep on swimming. The coach postured as a know-it-all. In the US, approach to sport was a convergence of different streams ranging from practising the sport to strength training and nutrition. There were separate teachers for each stream and none posed as a know-it-all. “ If you compare it hours for hours, you probably spend fewer hours in the pool there. But the recovery time is productively used for a lot of related training,’’ Kaustubh said. Another major difference was – the Indian approach focussed on the individual; training in the US focussed on teams. The entire team travelled together, trained together and cheered each other. Every weekend there was a swimming meet where Kaustubh’s university competed with some other university from the region. The daily training spanned 6AM to 8AM and 3.30PM to 6PM. There was only one session on Saturday. After two years of such training, he was either the best or second best swimmer on the team. He finished his programme by May 2003. “ I was pretty burnt out from swimming by then,’’ he said.

Kaustubh joined the University of Wisconsin to do his Masters in Cardiovascular Physiology with specialization in rehabilitation of people with heart and lung disease. This was an intense course with hospital-internship; it lasted till December 2005. During this period, he swam little. But he began running. Although from the same stable of endurance, swimming and running are two entirely different animals. Running is a high impact sport; swimming is not. One is partial to upper body-engagement; the other is wholly lower body-engagement. “ The transition from swimming to running was challenging initially. The good thing was I already had the required endurance,’’ Kaustubh said. Starting with 5km and 10km runs, he slowly graduated to distance running.  In 2006, he ran the New York City Marathon. His participation at this prized event was a matter of luck. The daughter of one of his patients worked with the Road Runners Club. They gave him a slot to run the marathon.

In 2007, Kaustubh shifted to Boulder, Colorado. He was now in the outdoor capital of the US. As he put it – in other cities people talk of which party they went to on a weekend; here they talked of the running, cycling or climbing they did. While in Boulder, he joined a Masters Swimming Programme, marking a return to swimming. By 2008, he had placed fourth in the US Masters Swimming Championship in the 200 and 400 yards freestyle events. He also took part in the Denver Marathon of 2007. His swimming coach at the Masters Programme was a triathlete; almost 90 per cent of the trainees at the programme were triathletes. It wasn’t long before curiosity set in. His friends mentioned Ironman. It seemed like a good challenge. Started in Hawaii in 1978 and since staged at various locations worldwide, the Ironman is essentially an extended triathlon. The full Ironman entailed 3.8km of swimming, 180km of cycling and 42km of running, all of it back-to-back. According to Kaustubh, full Ironman races in America have 17 hours as overall cut-off time. Within 17 hours, 2 hours 30 minutes is cut-off time for the swim, 8:10 for cycling and 6:30 for running. In comparison, the Olympic format of the triathlon features a 1.5km-swim, 40km of cycling and a 10km-run. He signed up for his first Ironman – a full Ironman – due in Arizona in six month’s time. As part of training, in 2008 June, Kaustubh did a half Ironman in Lubbock, Texas. He finished in 5 hours 59 minutes.

Kaustubh finishing the 3.8 km-swim at Ironman Brazil (Photo: by arrangement)

“ Arizona was really nice. The water was cold and I had to borrow a wet suit for the day. I had the fastest time in the swim segment at 47 minutes and 37 seconds. The cycling was okay. I had two punctures, the first at 120km and the second at 170km. I fixed both myself as you lose time waiting for the mechanics. The run went as planned. Overall I finished in 11 hours, 41 minutes. I was very happy,’’ Kaustubh said. He had overcome the main challenges – training the lower body for the strength and endurance demanded by running and cycling and surmounting the mental barrier in cycling, the sport – among triathlon’s three – he felt least connected to. The outcome at Arizona was also despite the fact that he was working full time. “ Kaustubh’s shift to the triathlon was completely unexpected. The Ironman was a surprise for us. It was only when he shared the timing he had in Ironman and details like you are doing the three disciplines back to back, that the enormity of it hit us,’’ Deepti said. In December 2008, Kaustubh moved to the East Coast, to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins, where he commenced work at the hospital’s cardiology department. Between 2008 and 2013, he did four full Ironman races. This included races in Canada (2009), Lake Placid, New York (2010 & 2012) and Idaho (2011). “ I was doing an Ironman every year,’’ he said. Amid this, he enrolled for a MBA programme in Health Care at Johns Hopkins and then halfway into the MBA, added a PhD programme also to the list. These commitments were among reasons that kept his participation at Ironman to one race per year.

In 2013, with a few Ironman races now in his kitty, he designed a goal for himself – do a full Ironman in every continent. “ It was just something I came up with. Two other people had done it till then and it seemed a nice thing to aspire for,’’ Kaustubh said. The new goal entailed some specific challenges. Different locations come with different peculiarities, most important being difference in weather conditions. Then there is the issue of resident weather condition at one’s base – how much training one can do and how much training in those conditions may be relevant to the location you are planning to go. His new pursuit in the Ironman fold started off in May 2013, with the race in Port Macquarie, Australia. This was followed up with a full Ironman in Wisconsin, where he registered his personal best – 11:03 hours. That year – 2013 – also became the first year in which he did two full Ironman races. In December 2013, Kaustubh returned to India. He had always wanted to start something of his own in his line of work.

Cycling at Ironman Zurich (Photo: by arrangement)

Meanwhile his pet project continued. In July 2014, he went for the Ironman in Frankfurt completing it in 12:11. In September, he was at Langkawi, Malaysia, finishing the event there in 13:24. In November, he did the Ironman at Fortaleza, Brazil in 13:49. If in 2013, he did two Ironman races, he ended 2014 with three races done in a year. In March 2015, went to Port Elizabeth, South Africa for the Ironman there, completing it in 13.22. With that Kaustubh had done an Ironman event on all the six continents it is held. In July 2015, he raced at Zurich, Switzerland, finishing the race there in 12:32. It was the first time he coached four others to participate; two did, the others couldn’t get visas in time and so hoped to do an Ironman later in Malaysia. Two weeks after Zurich, Kaustubh completed the Ironman in Boulder, Colorado in 12:31. “ I don’t advise that,’’ he said pointing to both the need for time to recover between races and that fact that Boulder is at an elevation of over 5000ft. He now has a new goal coming up. After you have finished 12 Ironman races, you gain entry into the Legacy Programme. Under this provision, you get a slot for the Ironman World Championship held annually at Kona, Hawaii. Kaustubh has so far participated in and completed 13 Ironman races. He hopes that his slot for the World Championship will come in 2017. “ The World Championship is always a big dream for anyone who has done an Ironman. That’s the birthplace of Ironman,’’ he said.

In the years since he returned to India, Kaustubh began Radrx, a clinic that attends to people with heart and lung diseases, cancer and also deals with sports medicine. Additionally, he is associated with two hospitals (going on to three) in Pune. Of direct relevance to sport, he started Radstrong Coaching which specializes in coaching for running and triathlon. In January 2015, he got married; his wife, Madhuvanti, is a PhD in Pharmacology. He estimates that around 20-25 people from India have so far finished the full Ironman. He has set a goal for Radstrong: coach 100 Indians to finish an Ironman by 2020. At some point, he would also like to bring Ironman to India. This is not an easy task for multiple reasons.

With others at a triathlon training camp (Photo: by arrangement)

Most locations hosting the Ironman have a sizable resident community already into the triathlon. This is crucial because an event cannot survive by banking wholly on foreign visitors. India’s triathlon-community is yet small. At present, the Indian hotspot in terms of people interested in the Ironman is Bengaluru (Bangalore). Pune, Mumbai and Delhi are catching up. In Chennai and Hyderabad, local clubs have organized races sporting Ironman-distances. But there is a long way to go. Then there are India’s infrastructural challenges. The Ironman event requires the portion of road used for running and cycling to be closed for the whole duration of the event. That means a road being closed to traffic for 17 hours. Ironman events happen outdoors. The swimming segment needs a suitable water body and while the water body can be a river, lake or a portion of sea, it could be a challenge finding a water body in India that is presentable at the international level. “ For now, Goa looks promising,’’ Kaustubh said. There is also another angle to India’s relation with water. While abroad, swimmers turned triathletes are common, in India those moving to the triathlon are mostly from running and cycling. As in sailing, the country’s engagement with swimming smacks of reluctance despite its shores graced by major seas and water bodies available inland (for an idea of India’s evolving relation with sailing, please see the series on Sagar Parikrama at this link: https://shyamgopan.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/sagar-parikrama-part-one/).

The question plays on the lips of the curious: will there be an Ironman race in India?

(The authors, Latha Venkatraman and Shyam G Menon, are independent journalists based in Mumbai. Where photo credit says ` by arrangement,’ the photo concerned has been sourced from Dr Kaustubh Radkar. The authors would like to thank Judy and John Collins for allowing the use of their photograph.)    

Kaza (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The story of the first Indian to climb six 8000m-peaks.

Sometime in the concluding portion of the bus ride from Reckong Peo, the Spiti valley assumes shape and begins to impress by its dimension. After much distance covered in the valley’s folds, the wait for Kaza melds into a small township in the distance, on the banks of the river which gave the valley its name. The bus passed through a gateway next to premises operated by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) and a while later rolled to a halt at the local bus depot.

I was in Kaza, Spiti; eastern part (tad north too) of Himachal Pradesh. The terrain was quite similar to that of better known Ladakh. Except – Leh is at 11,500ft; Kaza is close to 12,000ft up. The Ladakh link shouldn’t surprise for both Ladakh and Spiti share the same Buddhist culture and in times gone by, the two provinces were administratively linked. Kaza felt like a quieter version of Leh, an older version of its northern sibling before the world arrived and made Leh the Leh of today. The world hasn’t poured as much into Spiti, yet.

Getting off the bus I pulled out my cell phone. There was a story to do. We – my subject and I – had promised to connect as soon as I reached Kaza. Too lazy to hunt for my specs, I held the phone away from my eyes and checked its screen. One stick; two sticks….? There was zero connectivity on my Mumbai-phone. I had thought the bigger operator I shifted to, would deliver network in Kaza. Damn! I looked around for somebody who could be the person I was looking for. There was no anticipation on anyone’s face. A few people calmly conversed. Some others went about their daily work. A monk stood sipping tea before a teashop; quintessentially monk, alive to the moment, to the sip. Nobody seemed to be expecting anyone. On the other hand, it was becoming increasingly clear from my nervousness that I was looking for somebody. From the depth of a beedi or a cup of tea being enjoyed, eyebrows rose casually to survey my presence.

“ Excuse me,’’ I said, stopping a person passing by. I explained my predicament and sought the use of his phone. “ Sure,’’ he said extending me his phone. I dialled the number and introduced myself. “ You have reached? Give me five minutes, I will be there,’’ the voice at the other end said. I returned the phone, said thank you. The evening was slowly fading to dusk. It suddenly occurred to me that I had given no clue regarding how I looked or the colour of T-shirt I wore. I wondered how two people who had not seen each other before would meet in Kaza’s bus depot. A few minutes went by. A middle aged stocky man of short to medium height with a day pack slung on his shoulder, appeared. “ Mr Shyam?’’ he asked loudly to nobody in particular. It was like a query to the winds; rather befitting, I thought, given surrounding geography of mountains and passes with the wind as timeless spectator. We shook hands. I had found the school teacher. Next morning, in a classroom overlooking the school and beyond that, the town, the teacher narrated his story.

Bodh, on the summit of Phabrang, his first expedition (Photo: by arrangement)

Bodh on Longstaff Col; seen behind is Nanda Devi main summit (Photo: by arrangement)

Chhering Norbu Bodh was born in May 1969 in the village of Lalung, a cluster of about a dozen houses then, not far from Kaza. The fourth child of his parents they were in all two brothers and four sisters; now only Bodh and a sister remain. With his father sadly caught in a dispute over family property, life was a struggle. His early school education was at Rama village and Lalung. In 1976, the family shifted to Chobrang, a village roughly six kilometres away from Lalung. After the fifth standard, he shifted to Kaza’s high school, 20km away. He stayed at the government hostel. He was good at his studies. In 1985, the uncle who bore the expenses of his education, died. A year later Bodh cleared the tenth standard. But he had none to fund onward studies. He was now an angry young man earning a livelihood doing odd jobs. Around this time, he worked for about two to three months at the local branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) as a ` water carrier.’ His responsibilities included cleaning the office premises and fetching water.

Courtesy the region’s severe winter, the pattern of life in Spiti was six months of work followed by six month of rest. Although of late climate change has been making its presence felt here too, traditionally Spiti winters have been harsh. In this remote mountain scenario with premium on usable land, the person who owned land and cultivable fields was affluent. That was the old order. Over time, as links to the outside world became more, government jobs became an alternative option for survival. In 1988, Bodh recalled, at a public function in Kaza, an official of the Indian Army’s Himachal Scouts (part of the Dogra Regiment) informed that recruitment was due to happen.  Bodh had no idea what a career as soldier entailed. He nevertheless joined the army. He trained for nine months during which time he was adjudged best student in weapons training. In 1993, he volunteered to train at the army’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg, Kashmir. It was on his return from HAWS that he got called for his first mountaineering expedition – an army expedition to climb Phabrang (6172m) in Himachal Pradesh. Losing his goggles after reaching the summit, the trip gifted the young climber his first taste of snow blindness.

In 1994, he was part of the army expedition to Kabru (7412m), located on the Indo-Nepal border. A year later, Bodh was in Kumaon, attempting Nanda Devi East (7434m) with an international army expedition. Their objective was to traverse the ridge linking Nanda Devi’s twin summits. But following an accident after gaining the east summit, the traverse was called off. Being part of the second summit team, Bodh didn’t get a chance to climb the peak. Following this expedition, Bodh travelled with his regimental team to climb Gya (6794m). Gya has a reputation for foxing climbers, directing them to a false summit. That turned out to be the case on this expedition; the team climbed Gya Gaar. In 1998, Bodh did his advanced training at HAWS (he was best student); he also did his basic and advanced courses in skiing (best student again). He secured instructor grading. From 1999 onward, he was posted in Kashmir. A year before this, in 1998, he was part of an expedition by the cadets of the National Defence Academy (NDA) to Kedar Dome (6940m). Twenty cadets reached the summit on that expedition, he said.

On Everest, south east ridge as seen from near the Hillary Step (Photo: by arrangement)

In 2000, Bodh was a Lance Naik posted at HAWS as instructor. That year in June, he was in Kaza on leave, when he got the call to report for selection to climb Everest. The selection was done on Mana Peak (7274m). Bodh couldn’t summit owing to dehydration. However he made it into the Everest team after some others, who had been selected, dropped out. Selection done, the team proceeded to Manali for winter training. In March 2001, the team was flagged off by the then Chief of Army Staff, General S. Padmanabhan. The army was returning to Everest after tragedy and death on a previous 1984 expedition to the peak, when five team members had died. Bodh was tasked with overseeing the 2001 expedition’s equipment. On May 24, 2001, Kaza’s future school teacher reached the top of Everest (8850m). As on Nanda Devi, he had been part of the second summit. “ Almost always, I have been part of the second summit team,’’ Bodh said. Soon after the Everest expedition, talk began of attempting Annapurna (8091m). In 2002, the army team proceeded for Annapurna. Yet again, part of the second summit team, Bodh had descended to Advance Base Camp on the mountain when he was informed of the first summit team’s failure. On May 6, 2002, Bodh reached the summit of Annapurna.

According to Bodh, on his way down from the summit, he met the British climber, Alan Hinkes, who was going up. Hinkes would become one of the people to climb all the fourteen 8000m peaks. As of August 2015 Wikipedia still listed his claim as ` disputed’ owing to lack of clarity on his ascent of Cho Oyu.  The world’s fourteen 8000m peaks are Everest (8850m), K2 (8611m), Kanchenjunga (8586m), Lhotse (8516m), Makalu (8485m), Cho Oyu (8201m), Dhaulagiri 1 (8167m), Manaslu (8163m), Nanga Parbat (8126m), Annapurna I (8091m), Gasherbrum  I (8080m), Broad Peak (8051m), Gasherbrum  II (8035m) and Sishapangma (8027m). Climbing all the fourteen 8000m peaks is prized in mountaineering. The first person to do so was Reinhold Messner, who hails from South Tyrol in Italy.  The second person to do so was the legendary Polish climber Jerzy Kukuczka. As of August 2015, on Wikipedia, there were 33 verified ascents of all the fourteen 8000m peaks and five disputed ones. No Indian mountaineer featured on the list. One reason for this is that five of these high peaks lay in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, territory illegally occupied by Pakistan. From South Asia, home to the Himalaya, only Mingma Sherpa and Chhang Dawa Sherpa of Nepal, figured on the list. Unknown to Bodh, while Hinkes proceeded for the summit on Annapurna, Kaza’s would be school teacher, returning from Annapurna’s summit, was commencing a new journey.

On Kangchenjunga (Photo: by arrangement)

After Annapurna, Bodh was due to leave HAWS for his unit, when he got a message directing him to report to Delhi. There was to be a joint Indo-Nepal expedition to Everest to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest. Of interest to Bodh was that the agenda included an attempt of Lhotse. The selection was held on the Gangotri group of peaks in Garhwal. The eventual team was a big one, Bodh said. It was drawn from the armies of both India and Nepal. The Lhotse climb was a smooth affair with not much of the up and down shunting that typically happened on expeditions. In all, 12 people including Bodh reached the summit in May 2003, he said. With it, Bodh became the first Indian to summit three 8000m peaks. He didn’t go to attempt Everest on this expedition because he had already climbed the peak once. Celebrations were muted for the joint team suffered the loss of one member from a crevasse-fall. In December 2003, Bodh was in Delhi in connection with the army tableaux for the Republic Day parade, when he was informed of an upcoming expedition to Kangchenjunga by the Dogra Regiment. In May-June 2004, he underwent selection procedures at Beas Kund near Manali. Asked why he consistently reported for selection despite rising stature as mountaineer, Bodh replied, “ when a man thinks he is too big for his shoes, he becomes a problem for his team.’’

The Kangchenjunga expedition was set for the post-monsoon phase, a cold period. The ascent of the 8586m-high peak happened in cold conditions. At 10AM on October 10, 2004, Bodh reached the summit of Kangchenjunga after a steady climb of twelve hours. For the Indian Army, it was its second ascent of the peak. On return, Bodh enjoyed a brief holiday and was then posted to Srinagar. Just when he got to the transit camp in Jammu, he got a call from Delhi; he had been deputed to go to Everest as part of the support team for the army women’s expedition. On that trip, which put four climbers on the summit, Bodh once again oversaw the management of the expedition’s gear. Back in Delhi from this expedition, he was told to join the team going to Nyegi Kangtsang (6983m) in Arunachal Pradesh. The expedition failed. The approach was very difficult; the weather was bad, there was heavy rain. As it turned out, the trip served as selection process for an upcoming expedition to Cho Oyu. Bodh became part of the 2006 army expedition to Cho Oyu. Not a very technical peak, all 12 team members reached the summit of Cho Oyu. Bodh’s tally of 8000m peaks climbed was now at five. He spent the next few months on UN peace keeping duty in Lebanon, attached to 15th Punjab, also known in the army as First Patiala.

Tackling Saser Kangri I (Photo: by arrangement)

Bodh got back to India from Lebanon, in July 2007. He was home on holiday when he got instructions to report to Delhi in a few days time. He was deputed to a joint Indo-Australian army expedition attempting Mt Shivling (6543m), among the most beautiful peaks in the Himalaya. It is also quite technical. Up on the mountain, the team had just finished fixing ropes, when a big ice wall broke. Additionally weather turned bad; it was bad weather across much of the surrounding Himalaya. Despite the conditions, four climbers reached the summit in that expedition. Bodh wasn’t one of them. Returning to Delhi, he was dispatched to Siachen Glacier becoming part of the team that helped raise the Army Mountaineering Institute. The institute has played an important role in commencing civilian treks to the glacier. Meanwhile, the 8000m-story continued.

In 2008, the selection process for an expedition to Dhaulagiri was done on a trip to Saser Kangri I (7672m). While the Saser Kangri climb had to be aborted midway owing to avalanche (there was one from nearby Plateau Peak that rolled in close to camp) and bad weather, Bodh reluctantly got included in the Dhaulagiri team. He wasn’t keen on going as he had much work to do at his given posting. In April 2009, the team reached Dhaulagiri Base Camp. That day, a Polish climber died in a crevasse-fall between Camp 1 and 2. The lower part of the mountain is heavily crevassed. The team leader put Bodh in the second summit team. The first summit team returned from Camp 2 as it snowed hard. The second summit team went forth. Between Camp 2 and 3, it was mostly blue ice. The newly dumped snow, helped in the climb. Bodh set out for the summit from Camp 3 at 8PM. He climbed through heavy snow. At 11.30AM on May 8, 2009, he reached the summit of Dhaulagiri, sixth 8000m peak in the bag. By the time he got back to Camp 3, he had been out on the mountain for 23 hours at a stretch. A second summit attempt by the first team was called off due to persistent bad weather.

From Dhaulagiri (Photo: by arrangement)

Bodh considers all the mountains he climbed as challenging in their own way. But he remembers especially the descent from Dhaulagiri in a raging storm. He feels he would have died that day and was saved by the grace of God. The storm began when the team was on the summit and kept hammering periodically all the way back to Camp 3. “ Due to the storm, there was much electricity in the atmosphere on top of the peak,’’ Bodh said.

In November 2009, Bodh was promoted to Subedar Major. In the period following the promotion, he helped train an army women’s team heading to Indira Col at the apex of the Siachen Glacier; did a stint with the National Cadet Corps (NCC), was posted back to HAWS, was part of an army delegation to Alaska and was part of a Dogra Regiment trek through Zanskar following the old campaign route of the famous Dogra general, Zorawar Singh. In January 2013, Bodh was made an Honorary Lieutenant and in August that same year, he was made Honorary Captain. On September 30, 2013, he retired from the army. Bodh’s awards include a Shaurya Chakra, the Tenzing Norgay National Award for Adventure in 2006 and the gold medal of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) in 2012. Besides being thankful to his battalion for the support he received, Bodh remembered three individuals as important to his journey. They were his spiritual guru the 19th T.K. Lochen Tulku Rinpoche, head of the Kye monastery, Colonel S.C. Sharma (Retd) of the Dogra Regiment and Brigadier K. Kumar (Retd) of the Madras Regiment, both of them mountaineers.

Retirement is tough on the army man if he has nothing to do. It wasn’t long before Bodh reached that stage in Kaza. Luckily for him, the state government had begun vocational education courses at its schools and there was a module on security related studies at the local school. The ex-army man became a teacher. A devout Buddhist, Bodh now splits his time between work at school and prayers. Whenever we met in the evening, he had his prayer beads with him and arrived at my door wrapped in a cocoon of soft chanting. Mostly staying in Kaza, he visited family in Chobrang, once in a long while. Aside from knowledge that he worked in the army, he does not think his parents knew anything of his mountaineering or how far he reached in the field.

C.N. Bodh, June 2015, Kaza (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

At six 8000m peaks climbed, Bodh is the Indian with the most number of 8000m peaks to his credit. He recalled two other army men, close on his heels. There was Neelchand of the Dogra Regiment, who joined the army and retired from it on the same day as Bodh. Neelchand climbed five 8000m peaks. Then there was Rajinder Singh of the Kumaon Regiment, who was still serving when I met Bodh. Theoretically, keeping aside the peaks in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, three other 8000m peaks – Shishapangma, Makalu and Manaslu – could have been attempted by Bodh. That is three peaks, critical for an Indian to reach the nine peaks tally when chasing 8000m peaks. Bodh revealed a hint of lingering regret. As against the three peaks he did not climb, he was thrice on Everest expeditions and climbed the peak only once. Having climbed it once, he wasn’t interested in attempting Everest again. On one occasion (as mentioned earlier in this story) he went on an expedition trying both Everest and Lhotse and climbed Lhotse. If only one of those Everest expeditions had been to any of the said other three peaks. Maybe one more 8000m peak would have been in the bag?

The army is a massive organization; it is a world in itself. One thing about retiring from the army is that the soldier – particularly soldier-mountaineer – leaves supportive ecosystem behind. Bodh knew that his days of back to back expeditions ended when he left the army. Born in 1969 and already retired, he was yet middle aged when I met him in July 2015. For a climber, the forties are still within his / her mountaineering-years. Bodh’s retirement happened in tune with army regulations. Having got his promotions well in time and reached as far as he can in the ranks, there was only so much time he could serve. Retired and now civilian, will he go for a Shishapangma, Manaslu or Makalu if resources and sponsors are available?  “ Why not? It is worth thinking about,’’ he said, a smile on his face as the subject returned to mountains and mountaineering.

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This article is based on interviews with the subject. Where photo credit has been mentioned as `by arrangement,’ the photo concerned has been sourced from C.N. Bodh.)