I believe I can fly! Till last weekend, I thought this was just a wonderful, romantic song by R Kelly. And then... I discovered paragliding! Talk about dreams coming true. A stolen weekend, far from the madding crowd, in a little place called Kamsheth, just off Lonavala, Maharashtra, revealed that, yes indeed, I could fly. Soar 2,000 feet, up and away from the ground beneath my feet. Side by side with eagles and kites, who looked on curiously, wondering where this one had come from. I definitely didn't look like one of their tribe -- no grey feathers and orange eyes to behold. Only seen in ads and films so far, I never imagined that our very own lowly, local hill station Lonavala would offer the delights of flight without wings. The Nirvana Club, which comprises pretty ordinary people who dreamed of the extraordinary, started off making a living teaching people to paraglide. It isn't all that different from emulating birds, really. Childhood fantasies about flying like a bird never escaped me, probably just as it didn't other millions. The couple of times I tried flying off a roof or two didn't end well -- not for the rope tied to my ankle, not for me. As I grew up and learnt that the only way humans can fly is in a tin can, with a few seats and air-conditioning built in, the tiny seed of thought never left me -- what would it be like if I were sitting on the outside of the aeroplane instead of inside? Imagine the wind, the cold, riding the clouds, whizzing past birds.... Friends in the aviation industry, however, were quick to laugh me out of my notion. The 'tin can', I was informed, usually weighed a few tons and had the capacity to destroy everything that came within miles of its path. But still, a childhood dream is a difficult thing to shake off. And then, there I was. Nervous isn't quite the word I'd use. But then, there are no words to express the entire experience, right from the preparation of the trip down to the idea of sitting strapped on a nylon satchel mid-air and waving my arms about, just like a bird. It was like no experience I'd ever had before -- also unlikely to repeat itself. Used to the excessive marvels of machinery and mankind, it took me a while to comprehend that paragliding is one sport that relies solely on the moods of Mother Nature. If the wind is right, you fly. If it isn't, no cigar. All you have here is yards and yards of nylon, strategically stitched to resemble a bird's wing. Each endpoint in the glider is controlled by a nylon string. And when you want to change direction, rise, descend, do aerobatics, all you have to do is tug at the correct strings. It sounds too simple and uncomplicated to actually keep a 71-kilo me in the air, I tell the instructors. But they simply coax me out of my fears, probably used to all these jitters from first-timers. Soaring up is a surrealistic experience. It's almost as if invisible hands are gently lifting you up, up and away... There's an eerie silence that I experienced once when I had climbed a little hill in Gujarat, many years ago. As I stood at the top, alone, waiting for the others to catch up, the only sounds I heard were a slight wind, and the occasional voice drifting up. Suddenly, the sounds of silence made sense to me. Up in the air, screaming with excitement in the beginning, I subsided after I realised that once the heady rush was through, we were cruising comfortably. No wild wind, no cacophony, nothing. Just silence. And the occasional rustle of the huge 'wing'. And down below, the world seemed to be a series of tiny dots -- homes, people, farms and animals. After 20 minutes of communing with the kites and clouds, we decided to come down. And I felt strangely deflated. As if I'd come into another world, not back to the one I had left behind for mere minutes. And you know what? I wanted to go back. I still do. And Ruchi Sharma will... sooner than later. Tell us what you think of this diary
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