My heartbeat started acting funny from the moment I read the board "Himalayan Mountaineering Institute"
Vignesh said, "This is it!"
Sharvani said, "The moment of truth"!
After we registered our names, we were allotted our room. Room No. 8 on 2nd floor. We were given a spoon, a cup and a thick (mattress looking) blanket. I laid it on my bed like a mattress carefully, until another girl laughed at me and told me it was a blanket!
When put in an unfamiliar environment, the first thing any person would do is find something familiar and stick to it! Sharvani and I were by each other so I wasn't alone, but our strength grew to four when we met Akshata and Madhura from Mumbai. Yes we Goans are very comfortable with Maharashtrians, next state as it is! Neighbours! But that wasn't the only reason. We soon found out that all 4 of us spoke some version of Konkani and belonged to the same community! Quickly a circle of trust was formed.
Some time later entered another girl with a huge backpack. We looked at her suspiciously. She walked in confidently, and smiled at us. "Hi I am Deepa from Mumbai!"
"Great!" all of us were relieved. We introduced ourselves, and "Chamatkaar" , she also was a konkani and belonged to the same community!
Now I know what most of you may be thinking. That we are racist, typical, orthodox! Actually none of us really care about our community, or the language for that matter.The reason we bonded was because:
We DID NOT BITCH about each other!
And we DID NOT PRETEND we were something else!
Anyway, there were only 11 girls in a batch of 64!
You can imagine the kind of attention we girls enjoyed!
Apart from the konkani clan (5), there was the Ladakhi Squad : made up of 3 strong, sweet and warm young girls who I absolutely adored! One Bengali, 1 beautiful Kashmiri poet and a senior woman from Mumbai.
Konkani clan & the compatibility:
To say the least the konkani clan and the bengali woman had issues every single day! We just couldn't get along. It's not necessary that one should get along with everyone....right? This was one of those cases. I know it is unfair to pitch one girl against 5! But she managed to give all 5 of us quite a tough time!
The Kashmiri woman was quiet and clever. I got along with her because we both wrote and searched for time and place where we could be left alone with our book and pen. I think she is what we all imagine Kashmiri women to be and more! She is beautiful of course and strong! Physically , mentally and emotionally! And for a young woman ( I won't disclose her age, but she is much younger to me), the qualities that she displayed were extra ordinary!
The senior woman was a source of inspiration and many times her endurance put us to shame!
I feel ,We as Konkani's are politically smart. We weren't that strong physically, but we learnt the tricks of the trade that could help us survive.
I think Bengali's are extremely competitive.
Ladakhi's are truly genuine.
And Kashmiri's are clever!
Day 1:
While all these groups were being formed in the backdrop, the other course activities kept rolling. One of them was an appointment with the Medical Officer (MO) who checked our blood pressure.
I was doubtful of my ability to cope up with this course right from the beginning, I just didn't expect it to show up on the machine! (Tension version 1.0)
My pressure was horribly high and was noted down in red along with 13 others.
I was told I would be kept under observation for the next few days and if the blood pressure doesn't come down to normal , would be asked to leave and go home! ( Tension version 2.0)
"Being sent home because you cannot cope up" is at least better because you know you tried.
But going back home without getting a chance to try , was a heartbreaking thought!
Day 2 : Rock Climbing
 |
| ( I was stuck on this surface for 20 minutes during jumaring. I couldn't pull myself up and since this was during the later half of the course, the instructor refused to help me. Me & Robin sir had a funny conversation here with me trying to convince him to pull me up and he telling me that he would leave me like that the whole night!) |
I realized I had fears I wasn't aware of. I had attempted rock climbing back in school and never feared heights. But this time when I had to climb, I was shit scared! I couldn't trust my strength, or trust the fact that the ropes would hold me when I fall, or trust the Instructors who were experts in their field, or trust my shoes to give me enough support!
The first day at rock climbing site was filled with me dangling in uncomfortable positions on the rocks, hitting different parts of my body against rough edgy surfaces. I was bruised and in pain, and wondering whether being sent home would be a blessing in disguise. End of that day I had to report to the MO again to check the pressure! " It's still quite high! Come back again tomorrow!" (Tension version 3.0)
This was torture!
Here on whatever I was doing, I could feel the tension building up consistently. I could no longer crack a joke, or laugh at one or mingle with people. I was desperate to find a way to cool down. I listened to music, wrote my diary, but no!
Day 3: Equipment Introduction class
The only thing I remember hearing in that class was, "You will carry 16 kgs of backpack!!!!!!!" ----> tension version 4.0
[Alert ! Danger! Danger!]
I could literally feel my entire system go into an emergency mode!
Wasn't I aware of this when I signed up for the course?
No! I hadn't done my research.
Wasn't I aware of this after I signed up for the course?
Yes! Different people told me different stories about BMC and HMI. They said you get perfect training to be porters! They said it was hard, very hard! I was painfully aware of the uphill task I had voluntarily signed up for. That is why I was so scared, but I couldn't back out without trying.
That evening when I went to check my pressure, I met the Nursing Assistant (NA). I opened up to him and told him I am horribly tensed because I was scared! He asked me to calm down, gave me time to sit in the medical room and get comfortable with it and then checked my pressure. It had come down a bit! But not much. I still had to report to him the next day.
By then I didn't know what version of tension I was on. The only thing I knew was I couldn't handle it anymore! On the way back from the medical room I met Mr. Puri, our course senior. He would always come to give moral support to the 13 of us who had to make rounds to the MO. The moment he asked "what was it?" I started to cry. There is this thing about me and tears. I cry and I cannot control that urge.
Until then I knew Mr. Puri only as our course senior. After this incident and the way he calmed me down and stood by me for the rest of the course, we became good friends. I could go to him with any issue and he never dismissed the smallest of the complaints as being trivial.
These type of courses really show you what sort of a person you are! Usually people say that these courses show you what others are. But why should I be bothered more about strangers I meet at a course than knowing myself better?
A man and a woman being good friends never goes down well with anybody. So was the case with me and Puri. I needed him and I am not amongst those to back out because of what others feel. This was a mixed course, and we girls were being paired up with the guys we were seen with. It felt like we were back to college. I enjoyed every moment of this. Yes it really freaked me out sometimes , especially because there were other worries. But otherwise, this people gossiping about us thing never bothered me much.
Since he is a Navy officer, and some others knew him, they came and told me stories of him. Bad stories of course, stories that would make any girl back off from such a horrible man! But I hadn't gone to HMI to find a "Husband" for myself, or to fall in love. [ These things are the side effects of such courses] but not the aim. I told Puri what was being told to me and we discussed the situation and both of us were of the opinion that it is best to ignore such talk.
The day the blood pressure finally came down:
Day 4 was an "outing day" for us. So first, I got myself a nice relaxing head massage and then got myself checked by a beautiful physician in Darjeeling town. Maybe it was her beauty , I don't know but my pressure was perfectly normal - 120/80. I made her to sign it on her letterhead, just as a proof if my pressure was still showing high at the Institute.
That evening when the pressure was checked, it was normal!
I could finally breathe!
All except 1 person was sent home because his pressure did not come down.
Now I knew for sure I would be trekking to the Base camp which was at 14,600 ft.
Level 1 of the course was cracked with a lot of difficulty.
I decided I would take one day at a time. And I set my aims for the course:
1. No falling sick: So do the following properly: eat, sleep , poop and drink loads of fluids!
2. No matter how you feel every single morning, get up, dress up, show up and never give up!
In my next post:
How I cracked Level 1 of the course, Getting to know your Rope, and Lectures at HMI
Please Note: I have noted the regional differences in personalities of participants as I observed during the course. It is not my intention to generalize about them. I may be wrong about the traits. But this is what makes India so diverse and difficult to comprehend! It is because people were so different that the experience was so rewarding. It was fun to observe the little fights and the little love stories!
I am not claiming that I am perfect ( I dislike perfection of any sort ), nor am I claiming that we konkani's did the right thing. We had our weaknesses, and the other's had their strength's. The fun was in watching all these different qualities clash against each other , and all of us put there in the midst of extreme weather and terrain......perfect combination for real life drama!
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