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Adventure
AT a time when almost all the young men of the hill state of Uttaranchal in northern India dream of clinching white-collar desk jobs, a few girls have dared to break convention and take to the skies. Situated at an altitude of about 6000 feet, the Himalayan Para Gliding Institute (HPGI) in Pauri has several young girls as its trainees. Its most famous students-turned-trainers are Kanchan Bahuguna and Deeksha Jugran, who took to paragliding two years ago when they were selected for a short course. They topped the paragliding course, surpassing all the boys in the programme. Thereafter, they became the obvious choice for the job of flight instructors at the HPGI. Paragliding involves gliding in the air while strapped to a parachute. It requires guts, intelligence and capacity to retain one’s wits when faced with an adverse situation—-qualities that the two girls have in abundance. "My dream is to start my own adventure company which will cover all activities for schoolchildren," says 21-year-old Bahuguna. The turning point in her life came when she was made to fly from a high slope and was forced to face her acrophobia. "After the 100-metre launch, I discovered that I was no longer afraid of heights!" Jugran (22) is already a
mini legend with seasoned gliders. She works for More Adventures, a
Dehra Dun-based trekking company, and has incredible stamina. This Pauri-bred
girl aspires to scale all the peaks above 8000 metres. "After I
attain this goal, I want to start a company to attract mountaineers to
Uttaranchal and its peaks." |
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Both Bahuguna and Jugran are graduates from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi, and are currently pursuing diplomas in tourism. As part-time instructors at the HPGI, they teach the basics of mountain rescue and rock climbing to trainees. Since its inception in 1996, the HPGI has trained over 600 pilots, say its co-directors Manish Joshi and Raghuveer Khanna. The two hold the record for being the youngest (barely 14) in the world to have designed and constructed an aircraft in 1985 which could carry one person. They claim that the HPGI is the first paragliding school in north India. "More and more girls are taking to this sport and some even want to pursue it as a career," says Joshi. The institute’s chief flying instructor, Mukesh Rudola, goes a step further by saying that the girls excel over boys in this sport. "As they are constantly aware of the obvious physical disadvantages compared to boys, they work twice as hard," he remarks. Pooja Negi was just 17 when she successfully completed the course at the HPGI. Her interest was a form of rebellion. She wanted to break free from the stranglehold of tradition which offers only marriage and domestic chores to girls in her hamlet. This gutsy girl is today prepared to overcome any parental opposition to pursue her dream of sports tourism. For Shilpa Singh, a first year student from the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee, paragliding is as an aggressive way to work out. It involves carrying an 8-kg bag containing the paraglider canopy up the slope and then floating down the slope, controlling the parachute with your arms. Others like Itisha Tyagi, a student of the University of Roorkee, believes a paragliding certificate would go a long way in helping her make a mark in the sports tourism industry. At 14, Shivani Gusain became the youngest paraglider in the country when she took to the skies in 2001. Despite her age, Gusain is actively involved in the HPGI’s programme. Joshi and Khanna see this new trend as a gateway to opportunities. A majority of the tourism companies and commercial ventures are run by non-Uttaranchalis, they point out. But now, seeing the young people of Uttaranchal pursue such interests, they hope many locals can get absorbed in the tourism industry. The young girls of Uttaranchal have already got off to a flying start. WFS |
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