Adventure and Thrill

I got this in my mail box just now and got me thinking.  So here, I am typing.  The contents of the mail is just another rant, but it does have an interesting question about Bungee Jumping being an Adventure Sport!!!

Really, I do not think Bungee Jumping is an Adventure Sport? I am an adventurer. I have  explored little visited parts of India and have attempted organizing a trip over land from Europe to India.  Recently, a couple of years ago, Lakshmi and I trekked from Lachen to Green Lake.  We waded past our national bureaucracy, hostile terrain, with a failing stove, and returned in a raging storm, crossing a serious landslide, after eight days. Of course, we had the support of Sangay Bhutia and Mari Bhutia. Sangay is a tough guest instructor from HMI, Darjeeling, and Mari is an awesome cook from Yuksam in Sikkim.  Sangay was Lakshmi’s friend and instructor, and we requested him to guide us.  During this trip, we walked along the Zema-Chu to the lateral moraine of the Zemu glacier, and got a real close view of  the mighty Kanchenjunga, the smaller needle-peak Sinuolchu, and also dreams of the next trek across the lake into the Dzongri area.  We walked past and chatted with laborers who were laying the track for pretty much no-one to walk on.  It is one of the remotest parts of Sikkim.

I wish to think that I was George Mallory in a my previous birth. Mallory died in 1922 bigh up on Everest, dressed in layers of cotton and wool, and with a 2kg Ice Axe, Oxygen cylinder weighing nearly 15kgs, and rope ventured summit-wards and never came back.  He wasn’t seeking thrill in an oxygen thin atmosphere at 8000m MSL.  He was on an Ad-hoc Venture to see what the world looked like from the Summit of Everest, the highest point above water on Earth.  he was found dead in 1999, and I believe that he was reborn in 1969.  Mallory was the adventurer whose famous quote is “Because it is there”.

Need I draw attention to the gut-wrenching story of Scott’s race to get to the South Pole, and the resulting annihilation of his whole team?  They dragged rations on sledges, got to the Pole, and found that Amundsen had got there earlier, and gave up their lives in the fight against natures forces.   Oh, that brings me to Shackleton’s epic survival!!!

Aah, my mind fails to see the adventure in Bungee Jumping that my dear friend below alludes to, and she (presumably) has pointed to my limited cerebral powers as the reason.   I still go with my first thought- bungee jumping is a thrilling activity (sport?- that is for another thought), guaranteed by the presence of experts who could make the base, by experts and standards organizations that guarantee the load that the equipment can take, for the thrill of a few minutes (from getting on to the platform, the jump, and back).    Mere Thrill.

And purely for academic reasons, I must agree that “make out” does not fall into the same category as Bungee Jumping.  However, that is in conversation among friends that is now being beaten dry in public.  I definitely use poetic liberties in my arguments.

Your turn.

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From: P*** M**** <*********@gmail.com>

Subject: Bungee Jumping

Dear Sir,I saw your chain of mails, the one that got leaked recently, and made you quite famous (infamous should I say? ) within the IIT students/alumni community. I have two simple questions to ask.

1. You are a professor in IIT-M, which will make people believe you are an educated man. What most people don’t realize is that having a degree, even doctorate does not make a person educated or learned. It’s ones thinking that makes a person educated, and your thinking is retarded. You are the part of that mentally sick society which tries to force their irrational views on others in the name of Indian culture, having zero idea about it. What next, joining shiv sena? propagating honor killing?

2. What genius part of your brain made you put bungee jumping among the likes of “smoke grass, “make-out”, drink alcohol”. Not that there is anything wrong with the later ones, but you got to be really really retarded, to put bungee jumping, an adventure sport, in the list. Unless of course you meant something else with bungee jumping. (Google: Urban Dictionary)

It makes me giggle, to think about what your children will go through if you impose all the conditions you mentioned in the mail on them.

Get well soon!

Yours sincerely,

An IITian

And if you haven’t figured out yet that this is a fake profile, you might want to reconsider your views about your intelligence!