Some things are just worth the trouble

15 secs of exhilaration for 15 days of hard work

Funny days are here again …. the twists and turns of life … when the ears hear something and the eyes detect something else …. When the mind goes bonkers trying to figure out the “gap” that it perceives in what it hears and what it sees/feels …. Overworked imagination hahn! … well, could be …. Can one help it … nope! … But yeah it is moments like these … the thrill, the challenge, the uncertainty which bring out the person that you really are … which define what you stand for … the USPs for the product “YOU” …

It is at moments like these that I am taken back in time …. When I dust my memory to extract that one instance when resolve triumphed all odds, when persistence paid off, when realization struck that no matter how tough the journey, the summit is always worth it …

I thus go back to my trekking days … when I set out to romance "Darwa Top, Garhwal Himalayas" standing at 13500 ft above mean sea level …

Uttarkashi is where we set up base camp … it was called the “acclimatization camp” – we were getting used to the “ice-cold water”, the regimen of waking up @ 5:00 in the morning at the shrill shriek of a whistle, adroitly relieving ourselves in the jungle/bushes/shrubs/anyplace-to-keep-compromising-modesty-to-acceptable-limits….

After the week long acclimatization regimen viz. all of the above and treks to the nearby hills with full gear and rock climbing routies, we set out on “The Journey” one fine morning … The whole group was quite enthusiastic and gung-ho … Thus is began ..

We had to trek for 15 straight days walking 28-30 kms everyday, starting from “Camp Zero” .... carrying 25-30 kgs of weight (we had to carry everything ... food ... change of clothes ... first aid kit ... survival kit, camping gear, extra shoes etc.) ...

Everyday there were varying amounts of incline ... sometimes 65-70 degrees ... it was a tough job ... it could break a man's will several times each day .... Everyday I used to think "Why the hell am I torturing myself?" .... The urge to turn back was very powerful .... I still pushed myself further everyday ....

After 15 days when we reached the peak .... just as I was able to drag myself to the peak and touch the stone there [dutifully it had "sapna + rajesh" scrawled upon itself; No rock or wall worth its salt goes without graffiti :-)] ... the weather turned .. one moment it was bright and sunny ... the next it was dark and snowing ... people scampered ... visibility was ‘1 foot’ and it was bone-chilling ... somewhere in the mad scramble I lost my footing .... I fell down and went rolling down the hill for what seemed like eternity … I thought I’d die there and be buried in the snow .... a cold, unforgiving, anonymous death …. But I managed to roll down and hit the track again when it wound its way around the peak ....

I waited to catch my breath and steeled myself and kept moving till I reached the summit base camp..... I have never enjoyed hot maggi more in my life ... neither have I ever seen a sight more beautiful and breathtaking like the one from beside the "sapna + rajesh" rock ... nor have I ever felt the rush of being "on top of the world" like I did there (albeit for 10 secs) ....

It taught me quite a few things in life

1) It takes 15 days of hard trekking to reach a point of bliss which lasts for 15 secs.

2) Those 15 secs were definitely worth the trouble

3) What we think is our ‘limit of endurance’ is just a state of mind .... our endurance is limitless

4) Maggi and all the other small things in life really taste ‘out of this world’ ... if we learn to appreciate them by using the proper ‘measurement scale’

5) Honesty and basic human values keep improving dramatically as we keep going further up ... needs keep decreasing....

6) Rajesh reached there before I did .... and he thought of Sapna when he saw paradise ......

7) Maybe sapna reached there [but she'd have written "Rajesh + Sapna" :-)] .... maybe they both did ....

Soul Soufflé: Psychobabble

The other day I was had a pretty interesting conversation which got me thinking and it really took on a wild mental roller-coaster, an intellectual bungee-jump with its attendant descent, the breaking of the fall and the reverse tug accompanied by apprehension, fear, exhilaration, and exultation.

A friend of mine SMS’ed me a question – Does fate decide everything for us or do we make our own fate?

I thought about it and something which came to me straight away was that the answer when posed to anyone would depend on his current state of mind. A person going through good times and enjoying a stint of relatively good fortune was bound to respond with an answer that we make our own fate while the same person when going through relatively difficult times would likely respond that everything is decided by fate. I have seen this happen enough and more number of times with different kinds of people.

So I really thought long and hard about it and I still don’t have a very convincing answer. But I tried to put my thoughts down. The way I see it: Fate ultimately is a result of the choices we make as we go along. There are zillions of permutations and combinations which take us on a certain path. Every moment we have multiple options and choices and the choices that we make affect the options that are made available to us in future which loosely can be described as fate.

Which means that fate is made of choices that we make today and it manifests itself in the quality and quantity of future options/choices made available to us. But what about timing? What about “when” those choices present themselves? It is extremely important when certain choices present themselves to us. There are options/choices which when presented to us when are in a certain frame of mind are no-brainers – but in the long term they wouldn’t probably be the most prudent options to opt for. Which leads to the question: What is it that drives us to make choices and decisions? We mostly are guided by short-term gains; by visibility of advantages in the short term.

Aren’t our judgments clouded by the visible, by what’s on the surface, by what we stand to gain “now’ rather than after “t” time? I have seen most people going the short term way. And I have realized that for all our education and purported intelligence we are still guided by “instincts”, “gut feel”, “today, now” and when our decisions are guided by instincts they tend to present the best possible state in the near present as the most optimal choice. So we are more dependent on survival, immediate satisfaction and gratification as the guiding principles of decision making.

It would seem that in this day and age of “instant karma”, “fast food” and “immediate communication” it is more than apt ….