Come out and play: Some stories of adventure and a union with nature
Marc Batard, the French alpinist and mountaineer, stands on top of K2, the second highest mountain in the world, and takes in his surroundings. He pans his camera across what looks like an expanse of snow and clouds, and then turns it on himself, as he breathes laboriously — oxygen is in short supply in high altitudes — flagging his presence on the spot, in a way. Screening this six-year old video at the third edition of Taj Safaris presents: The Outdoor Journal and Ibex Expeditions Adventure Stories, an older-looking Batard, with hair as white as the snow he loves, related stories and anecdotes (in French, being translated for the benefit of an Indian audience) from his many excursions through the Himalayas that he has undertaken since 1986. More specifically, he talked at length about his climb on Mt. Everest, that he completed in 22 hours and for which he holds a world record. “I had planned to go beyond and make it a longer trek, but I couldn’t because of the climate. I spent one night up there and it was so cold that my nose began to freeze and bleed. So I had to come back to the basecamp to get it treated,” he reminisced.
An earlier video shows him scaling rough terrain — smooth, vertical rocky formations, finding a foothold on which must be a mighty task. In the background, you can hear his son say, “Dad! Leave the mountains alone. They haven’t done anything to you!” Even as his audience laughed, perhaps a little in agreement with Batard’s son, an audience member asked him what kept him going. “I just love to do this; there is also a degree of social acceptance involved,” responded Batard, who has written numerous books on his journeys and whose “other passion” is painting.
Perhaps a simpler clue to this question could be found on the giant poster behind
Sure enough, there is a growing breed of people who are taking to adventure travel, and not just as a “hobby”. And they go about exploring the world by putting their bodies and minds to the test: they scale heights, run roughshod over difficult terrain, dive out of the sky and make jungles their homes.
the speakers. ‘The world is your playground’, it said in bold letters. Sure enough, there is a growing breed of people who are taking to adventure travel, and not just as a “hobby”. And they go about exploring the world by putting their bodies and minds to the test: they scale heights, run roughshod over difficult terrain, dive out of the sky and make jungles their homes.
Also among the speakers for this evening was American ultra-marathon runner Nikki Kimball, who holds the record for being the fastest runner on a 273 km-long trail in Vermont, Virginia, her home state. Talking about why she likes to run, she said, “The modern world shelters us from nature and physicality. We sit in front of our computers, in an artificial world. I run because it helps me gain a sense of selfaffirmation — now I can’t breathe or beat depression without running.”
She showed us a clip from the upcoming film Finding Traction that documented her Vermont run. As she runs across iced-over moss, splashes through brooks and negotiates with spiky rocks, you see that her chosen form of travel is more a challenge. The blisters on her feet were so big that they had to cut holes in her shoes; hunger and sleep-deprivation are just inevitably part of the deal. “There are the ultrastupids too — if you’ve run beyond 100 km, you’ve gone too far,” she joked.
On the other end of the spectrum was petite Ratna Menon, India’s first woman naturalist, who works with Taj Safaris as a guide. “It gives me a great feeling to be called that, or to be called a lady — because in the jungles, everyone just refers to me as ‘Sir’,” Menon quipped. “In the older days, they used to call people who gave up all materialistic things and headed to the jungles saints. Now they’re called naturalists.” When you head into the jungle, you clearly need humour and courage in your backpack. Menon’s always loved animals and nature, mostly because she grew up at the edge of the Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh. “What keeps me going on? I don’t know — there seems to be no other way for me to keep going,” she said, to much applause.
The initiative was started three years ago to with the intention of bridging the gap in Indian mindsets about adventure sports and travel. This is still a nascent, though growing market in India — and it is perhaps stories like these that will push us out of our comfortable, sedentary lifestyles to take on a brave new world.