Made it to the Gulmohar Hall, a bit late - lemme put it this way, that when I started climbing the Safdarjung flyover, these guys started climbing from Gangotri; when I was huffing past the decorated facade of the Islamic Cultural Center, these guys were huffing on some moderate slopes towards their Day 3 basecamp; when I made it into the hall, these guys were on Day 3. Quick them, quicker me. The hall was packed. I found the last unoccupied seat, backbencher as always.
Their presentation was in the form of a movie. The movie itself was a scrappy deal - all the while I was thinking of the shortfall in technicalities that could've been overcome. That aside, the presentation as a whole, put the route and the team in good perspective. The Basisi Glacier coming into view was breathtaking, the money shot, I'd say. A Q&A session followed, which seemed a worthy addition to the movie. One exhilarating aspect was how these guys used 'jugaad' of Google Earth for their route planning and map requirements - stitching together screenshots to make larger scale prints, and even capturing their marked route on camera before leaving. A surprising aspect of it was to learn the level of novice involved here, one even I felt I could match (imagine that one in their team was trekking after 8 years). What was sad was to see that their greatest skill in the whole project was gaining permissions from various SDMs and other departments, a lengthy and dirty process of recommendations through long chains of friendship.
Widget by Css Reflex | TutZone
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment