Diving Through My Fears

My spiritual journey began when I got the call to adventure. Awakening of that part happened when I first trekked the mighty Himalaya, and it had become clear to me then that all fears are overcome only by facing them. Being in this conscious state of mind, I had incepted the thought that 'I am fearless' as all I thought I had to do was put on a brave face. I started to plunge head first into unknown territories without wanting to know how terrified I am. To put it simply, I believed that I am greater than my fears. Years passed, and plunging head first had become second nature to me. With such a mindset I embarked upon a journey to explore the world of Aquaman through Scuba Diving.

My vacation(also read: solo honeymoon) to the Maldives was brought to life when I decided to try all the water activities I could because the initial glimpse of hundreds of couples honeymooning around me left me desolated. Scuba Diving was an obvious entry to my list as Maldives, with its colorful coral reefs and rich aquatic life, is easily among the top 10 places to Scuba in the world! Although expensive, the experience of swimming along with shoals of colorful fishes, sea turtles and blacktip reef sharks was a must have on my bucket list.

Before the dive, an elaborate class on equipment, dos & don'ts and hand gestures is given. A test is conducted and the scuba gear is not handed out until we pass the test. Excited to hit the water soon, fellow divers and I suited up quickly and went to the diving area. We were asked to put on our masks(not the covid ones) and practice breathing through the device. I was embarrassingly surprised by the amount of time and effort it took me to get used to breathing through my mouth for extended periods of time. I was beginning to get nervous as once I go underwater I wouldn't have the luxury of taking off my mask to breathe normally. Fear creeped in but I held brave and showed no signs of it. Taking a giant leap of faith, I jumped into the water within touching distance of my instructor. The moment I hit the water, I was simultaneously awed by the experience of scuba fins and terrified at the fact that I could not breathe(even though I was still breathing). It wasn't just fear, it was also an uncomfortable feeling that something was not right; we are not genetically compatible to breathe underwater. This fear instantly consumed me into a vacuum of terror, and the immediate response was to avoid it. I started to panic. Distressing thoughts took control over my mind: 'What if I struggle to breathe with the device underwater?' 'What if I lose the breathing device from my mouth?' 'What if water seeped in through my mask?' There was no end to these thoughts running haywire in my head as I kept flapping my limbs hastily. I wrestled my instructor who was trying to calm me down, and I tried to swim towards nowhere. 

Others had left for their dive and I was now running out of time. My instructor who was extremely patient until then held my hands and gave me a hard stare. I felt sheepish at that moment and only then did I realize why I was actually there, out of my comfort zone, instead of chillin' by the beach with a beer in my hand. I was there for new experiences. I was there to overcome my fears. I was there to prove to myself that I am greater than my fears. I then decided to trust him and follow every instruction of his blindly. He gently took me underwater and before my hysteric thoughts took shape again, he asked me to look him into his calm eyes. There's something about looking into a fellow human's eyes; it puts your mind at ease, the fears hidden beneath fade away. It is reassuring, and calms you down. He gestured to take a few deep breaths and that was it. With every breath I took, I grew more in confidence. All I had to do was breathe. The serenity I found in being under the surface without the need to go up for air was "breathtakingly" mesmerizing!

Seeing that I was getting comfortable, my instructor deflated my jacket completely as we had to go deeper into the ocean. For the first time in my life, there was neither Earth below nor sky above. What I witnessed then was magical. Firstly, the simple revelatory fact that I was able to move in three-dimensions brought goosebumps all over. Secondly, when I looked around, I was blown away by the colorful coral reefs, the vastness of the ocean and a whole universe of marine life. The world outside water seemed irrelevant when different species of fish swam next to me while a few of them gently kissed my outstretched palms. My perception of time was slowing down. Time paused when I watched a shoal of orange colored tiny fishes swimming in a coordinated manner above me. 

The water kept getting colder and the pressure kept getting higher as we swam deeper into the ocean. However, there was a fixed line for support that we followed to navigate and stay secure. I ensured that I was always within touching distance from it. We dived 12 meters deep by combating the rise in pressure through techniques taught by the instructor during our training session. 

It was starting to get dark due to lack of penetration of sunlight when our instructor, who was also taking my photos, signaled to turn around to start our ascent. I was crestfallen as it felt like we were just getting started. How did an hour pass by in what felt like five minutes? Melancholy struck as I didn't want to turn around; I wanted to explore the depths of the ocean further while enjoying the tranquility I can't seem to find in the human world. It was at that moment that I promised myself to get a PADI certification and scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

Isn't it surprising that I took excessive pleasure in something which I dreaded to start and almost gave up at the beginning? I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to be a certified diver by the end of an hour's session. In life too, I thought, there's going to be fears and a lot of discomfort when we start something new. The hardest part is the beginning. We must accustom ourselves to push through it, breathe and believe in ourselves; because unless we keep pushing our boundaries constantly, we aren't becoming greater than who we were yesterday.

I would like to end this post by dedicating a quote that was born from my life experiences:
"A person who is resistant to change is a person who is unwilling to grow" - Praneeth Nadella

 

How professional is my posture? 

Practicing breathing in shallow waters

Instructor clicked a ton of these photos but none of the beautiful marine life

Cuz selfies are the way to commemorate experiences

My first onesie outfit

The one in which I battled myself

 If I've decided to write and share something after a gap of three and half years, then that's a story I'm passionate to tell. This story albeit different from the rest is one such story that has more lows than highs and has re-shaped my approach towards life. Before you get excited to read ahead, I must warn you that the theme of this story aligns with the theme of the morbid two years we as a generation have seen.

 

Let me dive into the central idea of what your next four minutes will look like, provided you don't get a social media notification and jump right off to that. Mental health. This is not a post that gives you gyan about mental health but walks you through my journey along with my learnings from it. It's my story.

 

The best way to start this is probably with a question. Did you ever wonder what you're doing with your life and why you are doing the things that you're doing? Be honest, at least as a passing thought you did. Or did you ever reach a point in your life when you felt that you're stuck, have no idea of how you've reached this point, and are clueless of the future? You are lucky if the answer is no. Allow me to elaborate using an analogy of a simple task- driving a car. For all my life I thought I was driving my own car but only recently I realized that the steering wasn't in my control. It was in autopilot mode. Responding to the realization, I hurried to gain control of the steering but got clueless about the direction I wanted to steer in. Not just that, there was another overwhelming realization that the point at which I am right now is not where I belong. There are other beautiful routes that I wish I had taken. This broke me down completely as I started to look back and question every turn I took; trying to pinpoint a "wrong" turn which led me to the wrong(current) destination. Though the car was in autopilot, I blamed myself for this as the steering was right there for me to control yet I didn't. While I was in this tangled state of mind, looking back to find where I went wrong, I lost track of the road ahead of me. Fear demons sought their moment and creeped into my consciousness. I was afraid of moving forward because I lost faith in myself. I doubted if I had the skills to handle the steering on my own. Heck the steering, I doubted if I was capable to drive the car anymore. Confidence was on a downward spiral and sleep was the only escape from reality. The fact that I was looking back at my life in search for the "wrong turn" pushed me down the spiral faster. I was focusing only on the failures and suddenly my entire life looked like one GIANT failure. The constant fear I had of moving forward made me anxious and the constant anxiety led to resentment which translated to excessive sleeping. I created my own little reality in my sleep, a parallel world where I didn't have to stress about driving my car. I constantly felt tired, sad and guilty of something which I couldn't comprehend.

 

As it was beyond my capabilities to comprehend, I reached out for help by going to a therapist. I was diagnosed with extreme depression, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. To be honest, I was happy that I got diagnosed with something, because suddenly there was hope that I could be better. However I still didn't know what they were or how I was going to get better. The first and the most difficult step of getting better is to identify that you have a problem; for which I needed professional's help. Without help there is no way I could have predicted what I was going through as my awareness on Depression or Anxiety disorders is non-existent. They were neither taught in school nor presented during my induction as an employee. Not only me, but also most of my friends and family to whom I've tried to talk were unaware of the symptoms. This is one compelling reason for me to write my story as I want you to get knowledgeable about mental health and all the disorders modern lifestyle has made us prone to. One, like me, should not be spending the better part of two years just to understand that their state of mental health is bad.

 

During this journey, I lost myself and along with that, my routine. Having a routine is the most under-rated benefit for one's mental health. I needed one, and the loss of routine meant I could build one along with the help of my therapist. Yoga, meditation, journaling and cold showers are all by-products of my new routine and have been with me since. However, I had to start from scratch and each day I failed to follow it, I would be too hard on myself and fall back into that slump again. After repeated and multiple falls, I understood that the secret to be better is to just do the best I can without judging myself or my progress. I remembered the famous dialogue from my favorite superhero film, "Why do we fall, Master Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." I understood that there will be occasional blemishes or maybe even more but none of them should break my hope. Hope is one trusted ally that is always with us, and more often than not, the only ally we have. Once we lose hope, we are at risk of losing ourselves.

 

Are you wondering what made me look back and evaluate my life in such a critical way? One short and simple answer to that might be time. Since I was a young kid I always had a vision of being someone by a certain age, and when I was suddenly at that age it felt like time took all my dreams away. I didn't know how and when I grew up but I did, which led me to ask myself the questions I asked you at the beginning. I was as clueless as I was when I was a little kid. I still am. But it's okay. There was a false notion within me that "adults" have their life figured out and it freaked me out because I hadn't.

 

This journey redefined my core beliefs to the extent where I was broken completely and then slowly started to stitch myself back up. For the first time I experienced true pain but it was not physical. The broken pieces were calling me out because they wanted to heal, and I continue to heal.

 

To sum up my journey and all the learnings from it, if there's one advice I would give to my past self, it is this: there is no rush to accomplish anything by a certain age. Each person has their own path and their own journey, don't fall into the unhealthy habit of comparing timelines with your peers. The most important thing is to be at peace with yourself and the decisions you take, even if those decisions are bad, they will help you at some point in life. And if you connect with my story and feel the same somedays or everyday- you should know that you are not alone.

 

....and that is the message I want to pass on to everybody else.

 

Life is best when you go with the flow; don't try to control what you cannot but trust and BELIEVE that that's the best for you!

The Parasitic Conundrum

I had witnessed one of the most surreal views during my trek to the Himalaya. The night sky. The first time I looked up to the sky from an altitude of 18000 feet+, I gasped and couldn’t breathe for a second. The view was such, with countless stars and the entire milkyway galaxy in view.

Took this picture from the internet as normal cameras such as mine could not capture this view. But this was absolutely how the sky looked. 

I just lay there listening to songs and gazing at the sky trying to fathom what I was witnessing. Just then the song 'One more light' by Linkin Park started to play in which the lyric goes:

"Who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars? It flickers, flickers.

Who cares if someone's time runs out if a moment is all we are? Or quicker, quicker."

The above lines resonated instantly with me and I started to dive deep. In the astrophysics context of time, our entire existence is indeed nothing more than a blink of an eye. I wondered if the gross population - the population that ever lived on Earth - can ever match the number of stars in this "moment". Everything in nature has a start point and an end point. What if the stars and planets are all living creatures too? They live, breathe and die just like we do.

A video of the Earth potentially breathing. The same must be happening for every planet/star. 

In this scenario, given our almost non-existential life span in comparison to the life span of the Earth, we might as well be an infectious disease that slowly spread itself throughout the planet, multiplying in numbers just as bacteria does on our body. 

Thinking deeper, I reasoned that our behaviour is similar to that of a parasite, an organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. Earth was the first to be infected by “our” disease. Just think about it, we/all-living-beings fall sick whenever foreign bodies enter, grow and spread itself as a disease in our body causing a rise in our body temperatures. The same way for Earth - we entered, derived our food from the Earth, spread ourselves throughout while causing a rise in the Earth’s temperature. As time is relative, a hundred years for us might just be a 100 seconds for the Earth. Just as a parasite moves from one host to another, we are spreading ourselves, slowly but hopefully, from Earth to Mars.

Are we nothing but an infection in the grand scheme of things? A sophisticated parasite that lives by values, traditions, principles, and that divides itself on race, class, religion and nationality. 

However ridiculous this theory(thought) might sound, the nature is far too oblivious for us to disregard anything.

cYcling to the top of the world

Everybody leads their lives according to his/her terms, or at least they try to; if not, they should. For me, when satisfaction seems like a distant memory, I head to the mountains.

A glimpse of what to expect 

Ever ask a biker what his dream road trip is? More often than not, the answer you hear will be a bike ride to Leh-Ladakh. Given the crazy being I am, I needed to be a step above the rest; therefore cycling(mountain biking). The cycling expedition was from Manali to Leh to Khardung la and back to Leh, covering close to 600 kms over a period of 12 days.

Our route. We further went to khardung la as well.

The journey to Manali was a pleasant one. At one point we cross a dam on Beas river where it had a layer of clouds kissing the water, and the early morning haze along with the lush green mountains in the background made it a sight to behold. I reached the base camp which was 15 kms before Manali and finished the reporting formalities before feeding myself with parathas. The next two days were dedicated to acclimatize and get used to the cycle. We had two practice rides to a place called Naggar castle in Kullu, one on each day in which the gradient was darn high. Though only 6 kms, the first test ride took me 3 hours to finish and it gave me reasons to worry. I was skeptical about the route to Leh being equally steep and exhausting, and if 6 kms made me feel this way, imagine how 600 kms would cause a sense of panic within me. These apprehensions were laid to rest when the camp leader announced that nowhere on the route to Leh will the roads be this steep. They will be tough but not as tough as this one. This came in as a blessing as it gave me the confidence to pull off the impossible. We had people across all ages and walks of life. Looking at people at least two decades older to me who are brevets, Super Randonneurs, marathon runners and triathletes has given me a perspective that being fit is not a destination but a way of life.

The family

To be honest, I did not expect this route to be as highly regarded as the cyclists perceive it to be. I was pretty casual about it until I learnt that a few cyclists consider this route to be the Everest of cycling. The magnitude of what I was about to achieve began to sink in when our field director announced that if completed successfully, this feat would find its place in the Limca book of records. The overwhelming realization that I'm here to do something huge gave me the adrenaline rush that fueled the entire journey.

The start of our expedition

Hamare tent 4 wale, tent ke saath :D

We started our expedition on the fourth day of reporting at the base camp. A festival atmosphere prevailed at our campsite during the flag-off. Fellow cyclists were going Facebook Live and a few VIPs were invited of course. The first day is supposed to be the toughest in terms of gradient and everybody had this etched in their minds to be mentally prepared. The route lived up to the expectations but the landscape to which we were riding often had us lost admiring its serenity. As we kept going higher towards Rohtang pass, into the clouds with every pedal, the weather started to get rough and foggy. The visibility got so low that we could hardly see anything more than 10 metres away. To no one's surprise, it started to rain and made things even tougher. The ascent to Rohtang pass was among the toughest rides throughout the journey given all these circumstances. There's a famous saying that goes, "the best views come after the hardest climb", but we didn't have any view after reaching Rohtang - all thanks to the foggy weather. We gained around 5000 feet covering a distance of 38 kms. The first day gave us a preview of what to expect for the rest of the days. We got into our camps with hot soups waiting for us along with snacks. The nights get pretty chilly as we got into our sleeping bags and played bluff and mafia which became the main stays of our tent for the days to follow.

Weather clearing up just a few meters after Rohtang

The details about the route - distance covered, gain in altitude, terrain, difficulty level - for a day were given on the previous night itself. Each day would start by waking up at 5 AM, even early for people who preferred to poop in the dark. Tea would be served by 6, breakfast by 7, and we would start our journey by 8. Riding along to picturesque backdrops had become a routine; along with it, cycling uphill.  A fellow cyclist once dropped his hat while cycling downhill, and instead of riding back up, he parked his cycle to the left and went walking uphill to pick up his hat. One gets vexed with riding uphill but never with the pleasing landscapes. The most exhausting ride for me was the day we crossed Gata loops. Gata loops is a name known to everyone who has traveled on this highway, mostly for the difficult ascent and for a ghost that resides in the loops. It is a series of 21 hairpin bends that take you to the third high altitude pass on the highway, Nakeela, at an altitude of 15,547 feet. I took around 4 hours to ascend the loops but the uphill steep didn't end at the loops. It continued for a further 8 kms and this made it exhausting as I was unprepared for it. One loses the enjoyment in the ride once you start focusing on the destination and all I did after the Gata loops was look for the destination which never seemed to come.

ONE loop

10% of Gata loops

The relief after reaching nakeela

Through this journey I realized that each cyclist has his/her own journey - own cycle and legs to pedal besides their own stamina, endurance levels, mental strength, preparation levels and physical fitness. All of these put together corresponds to their journey. In any physical sport, one cannot compete during the race itself but the actual competition lies in building all the other aspects leading to the race. Similarly, in life too, there will be people who started their journey with you and might have achieved the goals before you do; this is not a sign for you to give up, but instead a motivator to make you believe that you can do it too. One has to pedal his own cycle to reach to the top. Yes, true that in between at many points you feel tired, exhausted and there will be challenges that you will have to overcome. But if you show grit, persevere and sit through the challenges, the sweetness of success will have an aura of confidence around you that will give you the courage to accomplish anything in life. There will be a visible change in yourself that nobody can ever take it away from you.

Had our lunch here sitting on the shores of the lake

An incident took place with my fellow cyclist which I got to witness. Tanglangla is the world's second highest motorable pass at 17500 feet. The ascent to this place is steep and difficult, like any other high altitude pass, but here the Oxygen levels in the air are pretty low. One struggles to breathe and while cycling we keep panting for air every few meters. Overcoming all these struggles, we reached Tanglangla; once we had reached, we put our cycles aside and were soaking in the moment. It was a momentous feeling of joy and only the ones who have experienced the same will empathize. A tourist who just got out of his taxi, comes to us and borrows my fellow cyclists cycle to click pictures along with it. My friend blatantly asks the tourist to put the cycle away as he does not deserve a picture with the cycle. He said, "If you want a picture with the cycle, you've got to earn it. Take this cycle, pedal up to this point and then I will let you take a picture with it." It might sound rude, but that is how it is. The tourist is oblivious to the pain/risk/hardwork/determination/fighting against the odds we've been through to reach that place.

Crossing a river stream

At Tanglangla

The best of the rides was on day 9; we covered from Pang to Debring which is 51 kms, out of which 40 kms are the More (Pronounced Mo-ray) Plains. Imagine a 40 km flat land at an altitude of 15,000 feet, a kind of plateau that none of the geography books were written to teach. Breathtakingly beautiful. The clouds and sun play hide and seek yielding the most amazing photographs even with the basic cameras. A place where landscape photographers would wish to have their bodies buried. Cycling on these roads after 8 days of uphill roads was a stress-busting gift from nature. Almost everybody I spoke to had their most beautiful moments on this stretch. Another stretch from Rhumtse to Leh was equally breathtaking with red soiled mountains surrounding the road from all sides. The rock formations were all so natural, that they looked man-made.

Everything seems to be inclined to the left

Want to be reminded that you don't matter in the bigger perspective? Spot the two cars to the right side of the image.

AKA Leh Gate. This marks the entry into Leh

How did these end up here? Looks natural to you?

I have the sharpest peak competition

The effort of the support staff has to be appreciated. Support vehicles(two wheelers) running up and down every day trying to help every cyclist who had had a problem. The problems varied from tire punctures, gear problems, break issues, health issues, and the most important of them all- supplying water. Our effort for the day ended when we reached the campsite for the day, but the support team's day ended only after all the 100 odd cyclists entered the campsite. 

The entire stok range from one of our campsite's

With the help of the support staff, we covered a total of 5 high altitude passes before getting to the king of them all, Khardung la, at 18,380 feet claiming to be the highest motorable pass in the world. Unfortunately, only 52 of the 107 people completed the ride until Khardung la. The ride didn't seem difficult considering the passes we have passed before. The final 11 kms to Khardung la alone was challenging because there was no road and we had to cycle on sand and gravel. This, along with the taxi's pushing us off to the sides made this ride a little taxing. In the end, once you reach the destination, all the hardships seem worth it, and if not for the challenges thrown at us, the achievement would have been far less sweeter than it actually is. 

At the top! Yayy!

One quote I would dedicate to the people stuck in the vicious cycle of the contemporary corporate life, "Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it." 

Sandakphu - A place for Cloudgasms

If I ever fall through a magical rabbit hole into a fantasy world, I would want to fall into a place called Sandakphu. This place is a wonderland for trekkers as it offers the most surreal views taking ones breath away just as Alice does when she discovers 'wonderland'. Though the major part of the mountain is in Nepal, the peak at an altitude of 11,929ft falls in Darjeeling district, West Bengal, making it the highest peak in this region. In case one is wondering why trekkers from all over the world are fanatic about this place, the answer lies in the fact that one can witness four of the five highest peaks in the world including Mt. Everest, Makalu, Lhotse, and a pristine view of the entire Kanchanjunga range throughout the trek.

Kanchanjunga range just as you start trekking

Me trying to get creative

The moment I reached Darjeeling, the base camp, I was taken aback by the surrounding. A sight filled with foggy weather and snow capped mountains all around. Coming out of the railway station, I see the most majestic mountain yet, shaped like a person who has just gone to rest; the locals aptly calling the mountain as the "Sleeping Buddha". I took a deep breath while finding myself at peace looking at the snow capped sleeping Buddha only to realize that this is just the beginning of what there is to follow. Right from the base camp to the peak, the view of Kanchanjunga keeps getting better with every step taken. Along with it, as we keep going higher, the sunrise and the sunset views keep taking our breath away. To me, watching a sunrise brings hope for the new day and watching a sunset brings peace into the long night. One will be surprised to find what a sunrise/sunset can do to oneself both mentally and physically. With it, the colours of the mountains keep changing too. It is a sight to behold.

The colours of kanchanjunga at different times of the day

Sunset

Sunrise

The trek comparatively is an easy one by Himalayan standards and ideal for people trekking the Himalayas for the first time. The trek can be done without the help of a guide as well. The trekking path and the gravel road merge at several places and become common for both trekkers and vehicles. However the trek route passes through forested areas for several parts where it could be at times boulder pathway, natural muddy pathway, or even long concrete stairways through the mountains offering short cuts.

Ice - Just before the snowing season

The camping sites are all homestays with proper washrooms, cooked meals, beds and blankets; I would call them a luxury while trekking.

Sunset

We could see the dew drops freezing

Sunrise

A river/water stream flowing in between