Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

I have posted updates in our Nanda Devi East Expedition blog. You can follow our story by clicking on the link below: Prelude Part II http://nanda-devi-east.blogspot.in/2013/04/prelude-to-nanda-devi-east-expedition_6.html Prelude Part III http://nainitalgoddess.blogspot.in/2012/11/the-rightful-recognition-of-nanda-devi.html

The Award It was late March and it was yet another hot and humid evening in the suburb of Belur Math in West Bengal. The heat, along with the smoke and dust was in their prohibitive best. On top of that, the humidity was making sure that it takes away enough juice out of me, without wasting any time. A slow, poisonous spell of lethargy was spreading all around. What a climate to live in! To think in an extremely healthy sense of humour, I could wink and say, well, at least, we don’t need to visit a sauna or pay for a steam bath you see! No wonder Bengalis are born intellectuals! Though I personally think it has made us more subnormal than sublime. I was born here by the river Ganga, a name which the British with their stiff upper lips could never rightly pronounce. I mean, how could they call it ‘Ganges’ for God’s sake? I understand making ‘Kolkata’ sound like ‘Calcutta’; but ‘Ganges’? Come On! The Ganga. I took my first swimming lessons in it, played soccer by i...

Good Bye 2012…it has been a great year! This year I finally learned to surrender, to accept and to move on without giving up ever. This year I felt blessed to be alive, each day, by the minute. I am thankful for this life, all the kindness around me and this path I have taken. I am ready for 2013. 2013! Mountaineers will climb many more summits this year. New routes, first ascents, daring stuff! Yet they will return to that same damp, dark, complicated web some call society. Will they take up the task of climbing the many 'mordors' and 'mount doom' s around them? Or would they rather be heading back for the wilderness? Yet again? Prayers for a better, stronger, safer, happier new year to all my friends around the globe!

[A solo bicycle journey from the Equator to Tropic of Capricorn and from East Coast (Indian Ocean) to West Coast (Atlantic Ocean) through the African continent]  H.W.Tilman’s journey across Africa along the equator on a bicycle back in 1932-33; inspired me to get out there and begin my very own Trans African  bicycle adventure. Instead of retracing or repeating Tilman’s route I however preferred a route of my own. I would start from the Equator in Kenya and finish near the Tropic of Capricorn. Instead of heading down south in a straight line (as the road network would permit of course); I decided to touch the east coast of the African continent in Dar Es Salam. By doing so my route got an added value of East Coast to West Coast traverse along with the primary goal of Equator to Capricorn journey. My route would take me through the Kenyan Highlands, Great Rift Valley, the Masaai Steppe, Foothills of Mt Kenya, Mt Meru and Mt Kilimanjaro, The Usambara Mounta...

It has taken me six (though very short) web logs to write something close to a prologue about my plans to undertake a long journey in Africa. Through them I have also tried to justify why I have this pathological need to experience Africa on a bicycle, alone. It was always in there, in me, this bohemian ‘me’, always wanting, craving to wander. And partly it is Mr. Tilman to blame, I guess. My heart is full of excitement. I am excited in anticipation of the vastness of the unknown factors that lay ahead. Factors that will govern and dictate the fate of my journey. Factors that I cannot possibly imagine may be! And that is what making me alive, again. In this episode I would like to mention my friends without whom my dream for this African journey would not have turned into a reality. People without whose support the stalemate of the mundane would have carried on and on. First of all, it is, Mr. Sabyasachi Talukdar, the CEO and Editor, of Uttarbanga Sambad ( www.uttarbangasambad.c...

A break from ‘my’ known and ‘my’ obvious “ ...does your enthusiasm hold good only for mountaineering?’ ‘By and large I do everything with enthusiasm, as long as it doesn’t concern bureaucracy, which I hate like the plague.’ Is there another climb to come?’ ‘I would like to travel to Tibet, to South America, I would like to experience so many countries, get to know so many areas..." The above conversation takes place somewhere in Cologne, Germany in 1979. Questions asked by anonymous public, answers given by none other than Reinhold Messner. (Source: Crystal Horizon, Reinhold Messner, p.60) Today mountaineering is the only activity I can put to practice and use it to earn bread for my family. But it is not just livelihood. It was never just about work. I am passionate about it. That is why I had left a job in the Pharmaceutical Industry in the first place. 8 hectic years in pharmaceutical marketing was enough to suffocate and slow poison me. I had quit without even ...

When mountains become a mundane monotony In the last episode of my blog (Prologue to Africa Part IV: Blanks on the map) I had talked about the exploratory trips that I had undertaken in 2011. But surely there were more to 2011 than just those three. In July 2011, my old friend Martin Muecke and I dreamt of climbing Mount Satopanth (7075m). Michael Kohler joined in and the team became threesome. Together with our Sherpa support team we were only 6 people ( Martin, Michael, Thendup, Lakpa, Mingma and myself) trying to get our way up the summit of Satopanth in a lightweight style and everything went well till the summit day. After pitching our base camp in Vasuki Tal; we had set up an ABC and two further and higher camps putting us strategically located for the summit bid. On the summit day heavy smog engulfed us and the forecast ahead was of long, heavy snow days. We decided to turn back within 100m of the summit with not so happy faces. Sato...