The trip to Bir-Billing

This is the story of how I died and discovered life

 

Today i finally decided that I will give the idea of putting down my thoughts and ideas into words with the stories of what I have lived with.

I do not claim to be a great writer nor am I a poet or someone of import, I am a man who has certain experiences that helped me grow in a certain way and would love to share them with some people and hope that it may lead to a conversation that would help in making me grow further ahead.

This particular point of my life started with a guy who was going through the motions, step by step, work, read and be a normal man as per society growth, a refugee who is trying to find some meaning to his existence in a country not of his own, I admit that I used to not think much of life, I had been on a couple of backpacking trips that each gave me a new perspective and a single new idea to help me into the man that was (and still is) growing.

One day I was sitting down and just randomly scrolling through the internet and a passing thought came into my mind, I have always seen paragliding and skydiving as something i would never experience and yet always dream about, so I went on the hunt to see if it was possible in India, and to my surprise I discovered that in the quaint village of Bir billing, it did exist, that it was considered the number one paragliding spot in all of Asia, and second in the world.

That lead to me suddenly getting the ticket and just a week later I was on the bus heading there, after the grueling 14 hours ride, I reached the city and went into the hostel I had booked, in the place that I knew nothing about.

This particular story is not about the paragliding or sharing a smoke with a CEO of a major company or getting chased by a rabid dog in the palace of the Dalai lama, no no, this is the story of the best point in my life, of when I experienced LIFE.

On the first day I had a lot of time to spend and nothing to spend it on, so on seeing a place to rent a bicycle I immediately jumped on the chance to do it, took the cycle and went to Sherabiling monastery, a distance of 7 km to go and a beautiful scenic route to take, and many people to speak with on the road.

On the road I met a wonderful photographer from Spain, who I spoke with few Spanish words that I knew, danced with a Russian lady who knew not a single word of English yet the music was enough of a conversation for us to share.

The most important part of it was meeting a group of thrill seekers from Kashmir being lead by a wonderful person from Delhi that became one of my inspiration in life, striking a conversation with them lead me to join them on a ride to the monastery, a beautiful group of people and Prem, (the unofficial guide) told us so many stories of the place that I didn’t notice the time rush by.

I had started from the village at 3 pm, and by the time we started to think about returning it had already become 6:30 and the dusky color of the sky started to take over.

We split into two groups with the first heading out first while Prem and another guy joined me to grab my cycle from where I had left it, where we ran into the first hurdle of me forgetting the combination of my cycle lock, and by the time I had called the owner and got the combination from him, the sky had already became pitch black.

On heading back uphill from the monastery I was quite dreadful of the challenge ahead, even though I tried to hide it my friends noticed that I was tense of the ride in that route in the dark and did their best to distract me with a bit of conversation.

To go ahead with the story, let me paint the scene for you, a road of uphill and downhill filled with potholes and sharp turns thrown all about, with a narrow route and an invisible ledge that would lead to a fall that non would notice and a certain death.

We started to roll down from uphill, with the darkness as our companion and nothing to act as a guide but the sound of my friends along side me.

At the start of the second section uphill we met with the second group and the second hurdle of the day, it had started to rain, the clouds covering the sky taking away the comforting light of the moon and stars.

But that sense of rush had already filled me and I had stopped to care and let go of the worry, with the pitter-patter of the rain as music for the journey and the crystal sharp drops of ice cold rain hitting me, I was soon rushing and racing the group while howling and screaming to the wind, and the only occasional lightning strike that lit our world and gave us that precious part of a second of light to see the road, and with every pot hole I hit I jumped up in the air and had only part of a second to adjust myself so that I wouldn’t fall.

In that moment when lightning struck and I could see everything ever so clear, the entire world suddenly became so small yet so large to me, I could think clearer than ever, everything suddenly started to make sense, and my entire world was revolving around this sentence “you are only alive when you are dead”

At that very moment I experienced my happiest moment in life, and knew riding a cycle was the one thing that will forevermore give me happiness, and suddenly that flash of lightning went and the pitch dark came back, and it was at that very moment just as fleeting as that strike of light I also went along it and was reborn, with that drop of water from the sky I kept moving ahead and racing alongside the rest of the guys till we reached back into the village.

And while all of that adventure only lasted for an hour, its impact on me stayed for me till now.

With many times since then I remember that day and simply think to myself, life has much more of a meaning than what I had learned, that the life that was lived means nothing if not lived to the fullest.

And even though I went paragliding the next day, that remains the best thrill I have ever experienced.

And to this day whenever I go on a ride on my bicycle, and feel myself too tired to continue, with that sense of what's the point of pushing ahead, I remember that night and a sudden smile breaks through and I know that the feeling that I would get is worth far more than the energy spent.

You may ask what was the point of all of this, and I say why must there be a point, it’s a long story that may mean nothing to you, or it may inspire you to go on an adventure for life, I do not know, yet I know that the feelings that I had had to be placed into words, so that one day someone may read it and feel something of it.

This is my journey, and that was one of it’s steps.