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Imagine sitting in a small airplane that taxis down a grass runway, takes off, and slowly climbs to 12,000 feet.  You are sitting on the floor of the plane in a full bodysuit, wearing a harness, a hat and a pair of goggles, and are strapped to a complete stranger with a few metal hooks.  Your buddy (you become friends quickly when you realize his life is in your hands) has already done this a few times earlier in the day and is joking around like its no big deal.  You rehearse the dive motions with him that you learned in training earlier in the day as he checks the hooks to make sure they are secure.  As the plane levels off you put your goggles on. The door is opened, and you scoot towards it, with some persuasion from your buddy who swears he’s done this a million times and it’ll be fun.  Soon enough, you are sitting on the edge of the doorway, with your feet dangling below.  You can hear the roar of the engines and feel the cool crisp air on your face.  You look down, and you see the ground, which at this point looks like a patchwork of green and gold and you ask yourself "What the hell am I doing??"  Then you let go, well, actually, your buddy does, and you just go with him as the two of you freefall at 120 miles per hour towards the earth.  The air rushes at your body, your arms are legs are outstretched, and after spinning for a few short seconds, you catch the horizon.  After another few seconds the chute opens up, and instead of hurtling, you are suddenly gliding very slowly, suspended above the fields, with the only noise the slight rustle of the wind and the sound of your heartbeat.  The sight of miles and miles of land below is unbelievable, breathtaking.  You feel high from the adrenaline rush and scream all the lines from the Titanic at the top of your lungs (oh come on, admit it, you would if you found yourself having just jumped out of a plane and still alive).  The trip down is much slower, and it feels like a while before the ground starts to look bigger.  Your buddy is able to spin the chute around with the toggles he’s holding in either hand, and you get the 360 view of the landscape unfolding beneath you. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and visibility is as good as it’ll ever get.  As you get closer, the see the outline of the airfield from which you just flew, nearby farms, trees, the town center and miles and miles of open land that is the beautiful English countryside.  Given your Texan tendencies, you teach your British buddy how to yeehaw, and the two of you find yourselves doing this the rest of the way down.  The ground comes at your much faster than you realize, and you assume the landing position and touch down in a seated position.  Then you start jumping around and screaming because you just did something you never thought you would do…and you lived to tell the tale! 

Yes, I finally went skydiving yesterday after trying to go for months.  We originally intended to go in March but had to reschedule twice due to bad weather.  We couldn’t have picked a better day to go though, as it was a clear sunny 78 degrees day, which is just so rare here in England!   We had to get up at 5:30AM to drive up to the airfield, which was in Cambridgeshire, about an hour and a half drive out of the city.  We were there by 7:30AM, checked in, went through the training and waited for our turn to go.  I could feel the butterflies in my stomach as they called our names.  We went into the hanger, put on our gear, and met our diving partners.  Mine (who’s name I can’t remember) made me feel at ease right away as I’m sure he saw the nervousness on my face!  As we started walking out toward the plane he decided to start singing a song with my name in it, and I started laughing.  We taxied for a while, slowly picked up speed and took off towards the sky.  As I saw the ground getting smaller and smaller, I thought, ok, that’s high enough for me!  Luckily my attention was diverted by my buddy as we started talking about our lives and where we were from.  The rest of the story you read above.  I was still feeling the euphoria for hours afterwards, and still trying to convince myself that I had just jumped out of a plane.  It was an incredible experience though, I’m ready to go again!

Here’s my brother’s perspective on the recent flooding in Mumbai. Interesting reading, I’d be curious to hear your comments.

Mother Nature, it is said, is the great equalizer.  Human achievement, wealth, and society pales in the face of her fury, for she is at the controls; with either too much of water, our lifeblood, or a lack of it, civilizations that have taken thousands of years for us to construct live or die.

This axiom proved itself in Mumbai last week, as all strata in this class-conscious society were affected by the floods. Slum-dwellers and millionaires saw the water wash away their belongings; water seeped into the bungalows of famous film stars, forcing them out on the streets with the rest of this teeming metropolis. Not even the chief minister of Maharashtra, the state of which Mumbai is the capital, had electricity or running water in his house (and had to be evacuated by the Indian navy).

Mother India has had the misfortune to have a double dose of nature’s fury in the last year; once in December 2004 during the tsunami calamity, and again last week when the clouds above Mumbai burst forth, pouring an unimaginable 36 inches of rain into antiquated 150-year old drainage system in the span of 24 hours. Three feet of water in 24 hours. In Houston, when it pours all day, we used to get maybe five to six inches of rain in a day – and that would be the worst day in a year. This was the highest recorded rainfall ever in India and the brunt of it fell on the country’s economic engine.

The water proved to be worse than any other beast nature could have dreamed up and more adept at spotting the weaknesses of humankind. It seeped through car windows and doors, causing people to drown while stuck in traffic jams; burst forth from rivers, raising water levels in instants; leaked through roofs, permanently tarnishing cherished belongings. Last week was a sobering week for all us who are related in someway to Mumbai, for it was a chilling reminder of minuteness of human aspiration in the face of nature’s abilities. This is a city which was dreaming of becoming the next Shanghai or Dubai; which aspired to be the financial and commercial hub of a country that is quickly arriving on the international scene. Over forty-eight hours, it was transformed into the watery grave of a thousand souls and the source of misery for the millions they left behind. Food packets had to be air-dropped into districts to stave off hunger; some clamored on top of trucks to stay above the torrent, while others waded through neck-high waters, passing floating carcasses, to get home.

On a personal level, I was far less affected than most Mumbaikars (as residents of Mumbai are referred to) since I was on a field visit in the northwest state of Rajasthan most of last week.  My colleagues however were forced to spend 36 hours in the office, unable to get home to anxious family and friends. Cellphone networks were down, air, train and bus links completely shut. The city was brought to a complete standstill, perhaps giving us all pause to reflect on the frailty of our humanity and the fallacy of our priorities. We concentrate on earning more money, producing more efficiently, creating greater value, in an endless pursuit of what we have deemed to be success. In doing so, have we left behind the most basic learnings that humans of centuries ago have taught us? Learnings, for example, which focus on sustainable building, flood planning, and drainage systems? Is life so cheap that apartments, shops and offices must be built anywhere at any cost, for that is what constitutes development?

In the aftermath of the monsoons the fingers have dried out and started to point. It’s the municipal corporation, some say, they should have enforced existing city regulations. It’s the emergency services, others say, where were they when we needed them the most? But I say it’s all of us. We are the ones who want the new roads, shopping malls, luxurious flats and office complexes. We are the ones who put pressure on the government to let go of environmental regulations which curtail the city’s growth. We are all at fault for losing our place in the ecosystem that is our universe. As humans, we have an incredible tendency to move forward and forget that foundations our civilizations were built on. Perhaps mother nature is reminding us of the fundamental need to respect our surroundings and rethink our definition of progress.

Wow, I didn’t realize it had been almost a month since I had updated my blog, how time flies.  So, I’ll share my stories in sections.  Here’s the first installment…

The weekend of July 23rd

After the copycat attacks on Thursday, I was feeling an overwhelming urge to get out of the city for a weekend.  So, after dragging Parul to an Indian singles party on Friday night (which was surprisingly a lot of fun and yes, digits were exchanged, but we’ll get into that later) we decided to go to Nottingham on Saturday morning to visit Sonia, another friend from my Norway days.  It was my first trip to the English countryside and I was really looking forward to being away from the hustle and bustle of London for a bit.  We caught a train from St. Pancras, and made it up there in about 3 hours.  Within twenty minutes it felt like we were a million miles from the city and at the time, I didn’t really mind.

Nottingham reminds me of Stavanger.  It’s a relatively small town ( I suppose any town with a population of less that a half a million is considered small these days).  The town center is nice, and it doesn’t take long to walk from one end to the other, through the cobblestone streets.  We decided to have dinner at one of the local Indian restaurants, which was really good.  We made our way to a pub afterwards called Pitcher and Piano, which was situated in in an old converted church.  I was feeling a bit strange ordering a vodka and coke with a pulpit to my right, but I got over it as the night went on.  Blame it on the alcohol.  ;-)  We found a table to one side to sit and chat.  After about 30 minutes I thought we may leave given that everyone was a bit tired.  Of course, we then decided to hit the dance floor and that’s where we ended up staying until they kicked us out at closing time!  It helped that we ran into a bunch of guys who were there for a stag do (bachelor party) and ended up dancing the night away with them.  You would think we’d want to go home after that, nope, we walked around looking for another club and found one fairly quickly.  After finishing the night off there, we found a cabbie to take us home.  It’s a good thing he wasn’t one of those old stodgy types because we made him turn up the music and started dancing in the car and rolled down the windows to wave at random people walking by at 3AM.  Yes, I know, 4 thirtysomethings acting like teenagers.  Hey, you only live once!

The next day was the Nottingham Mela, which is an annual Indian festival with booths set up selling everything from religious texts, food, jewelry, clothes, and basically anything looking remotely ethnic.  Sonia was performing in the afternoon with her dance class.  She’s been studying kathak for the past several years, it’s one of the major classical Indian forms of dance that is by no means easy to learn!  Unfortunately the weather was horrible…windy, rainy, and cold.  Typical English weather but completely unsuitable for outdoor events!  The show went on anyway, and after their performance the dance teacher ended up pulling some of us from the audience onto the stage to dance.  That was definitely the fun part.  :-)  In the evening we made our way back to the train station to head back to London, but I felt rejuvenated, ready to face the city again.