Paragliding in the interiors of Maharashtra, India

Who would have thought that a place that lies hundred kilometres away from Mumbai, off the Mumbai-Pune Expressway would be a hub of adrenaline rush, with regulars frequenting this place every now and then to get their fill of endorphin!

It was the beginning of 2014, and instead of attempting to take a New Year Resolution, my plan for 2014 was to go for new experiences wherever possible. The first opportunity of experiencing something new came right at the start of the year, when a conversation with a friend led to the realization that he is heading to Kamshet on a weekend which happened to be on the dates when I would be visiting Mumbai. Without thinking too much, I asked to be a part of the trip that would involve camping under the stars on the first night, followed by paragliding on the second day! I was hooked.

We left from Mumbai at 9 pm on Thursday evening, weaving our way through the traffic till we hit the wide roads of the Mumbai-Pune expressway. We drove for almost two hours till we reached the town of Kamshet. After a quick stop over for a hot cup of tea, we drove up the hill to reach one of the points from paragliders take off during the day time. The top of the hill was isolated at this time of the hour. We pitched our tents and set up a fire. The idea was to cook food under the stars and feel as close to nature as possible. The chilly winds were playing spoilsport and it took quite a while to get the fire started. After a great meal, we finally called it a night at 3 am with the stars giving us great company. 

At 7 am, the chirping of the birds and bright sunlight wading through the tent woke us up. As soon as I stepped out of the tent, I witnessed the most beautiful sunrise ever! We packed up and drove down as it was time to head to the Indus Paragliding School, from where we would head out to the hills along with other paragliders. Since I was doing this for the first time, I would be flying tandem, whereas the other experienced guys would be flying solo. Since the wind was blowing in a different direction, we went to a different hill from the one where we spent the night. There was a total of 20 of us who would take to the skies soon. I decided to go after three other people. When my turn came, I was told to run forward for about 50m and then jump off the cliff. There was a bit of excitement as well as fear when I was asked to do that. But this was an opportunity that I did not want to miss and I went ahead and jumped! Two seconds later, I was soaring up, up and up and all the fear vanished. There was a feeling of triumph, a feeling of freedom and pure adrenaline. After getting comfortable in the skies, my coach took me further up from where I could see many wind mills below and the view all around me was something that we never get to enjoy while on the ground. 

After being in the sky for half an hour, I came down and waited for the other paragliders who were cruising in the air for much more time. Seeing so many of them in the sky was a sight worth witnessing!

After a long and tiring day, we all headed back to the Indus Paragliding School where we had hot lunch awaiting us. After a great lunch, we headed to our rooms for a well-deserved nap. By the time we woke up, it was early evening and we decided to sit by the lake and enjoy the serene nature that lay in front of us. The lake with the mountains behind it had such a soothing effect and gave us a break from seeing concrete structures daily. 

As the evening descended and gave way to the night, all of us got together at the verandah along with the hosts and shared our stories and our experiences over drinks and food. This was a perfect way to end the day. 

These two days were an experience that I will cherish throughout my life, and if I get a chance I would go for it again.

Party Hard! No One is Listening.

Imagine being invited to a party, where you’re told:

“Come and enjoy the party, where the music will be loud, the party will go on till the wee hours of 

morning, and no neighbors will complain about the noise.”

It is very unlikely to expect someone to say something like this. In fact, you would give a doubting look to the person who says something like this. But I got to witness all of this in Cully.

Cully is a small town in Switzerland, situated on Lake Geneva. Despite a very low population of just 1,750 people, Cully is known for the Cully Jazz Festival, where people from across Switzerland come to enjoy the festival. 

I was visiting Switzerland for a workshop, and all the participants decided to visit the Cully Jazz Festival, which had thousands of people. It seemed as if the entire population of Cully had come to this festival. 

Obviously, that wasn’t true and the festival had people from many other places. 

After checking out a few jazz performances ourselves, we headed to the lake. Right by the lake, there 

was a huge, transparent canopy with hundreds of people dancing inside. Surprisingly, we couldn’t hear any music. That’s when; a member of our group noticed the board on top of the canopy that read ‘Silent Party’. 

What’s a party without music? Even the religious ceremonies in India have loudspeakers blaring the 

latest Hindi blockbuster and here was a board that said Silent Party. It seemed difficult to imagine a concept like that. Curious, we decided to check it out. Before entering, all of us were handed head phones. We put on our head phones and joined the revellers inside. What we saw inside was very exciting! There were hundreds of people dancing, with their heads bobbing with the head phones and yet there was not a single beat of music. To amuse myself, I took off my head phones for some time and tried to soak in the atmosphere. It seemed as if people were in a trance or a telepathic session and they were not realizing what they were doing, while I was watching them move. 

A few minutes later, I noticed that I was dancing in a different manner to a beat, whereas a few others from the group were dancing differently. I pointed this out to one of my friends who was not following the beat, but that’s when I was told that he was dancing to a different DJ and I was dancing to another one!

I turned around and looked at the stage and there were three DJs, playing their music live with a different number mentioned on the board behind each DJ: 1, 2 and 3.

That’s when I realized that our head phones had the option of changing from one DJ to other by changing the number that represented a particular DJ. Within the same premises, people could listen and dance to different music and everyone could enjoy their own genre. This made the party even cooler than I had thought.

After that, our entire group would signal a particular number and all of us would switch our head phones to that DJ, so that all of us would be dancing to a similar beat and enjoying each other’s steps.

What was beautiful was that we were all dancing near the lake, under the stars and yet Cully was as 

silent as any other night. 

I just wished that night that it would be so great to have Silent Parties in India. A country like ours, 

where noise pollution is always at its peak, a Silent Party is the need of the hour. Maybe Goa can take the lead and come up with something like this and I would book my tickets for such an event right away!

Readers, if you get an invitation to a Silent Party, then please go for it and enjoy a unique experience.

Have You Paid the Trolls at the Troll Plaza?

As you get onto the social media highway and start gaining social media currency, along with becoming something/someone more meaningful in the offline world, chances are - that you would have gained significant clout and there would be people following you/your fans who would want to hear what you got to say and see what you got to show.

Let me break the bubble by saying that this social media highway is not a smooth cruise! You will encounter a number of speed breakers in the form of troll plazas that will try to halt you, slow you down, and deter you from your path so that your ride to your destiny and destination is filled with pitfalls. 

And if you happen to be a celebrity of any sort in any field, then the payment to the trolls will be much higher! So the two questions that come to mind are:

1. Why and where are these troll plazas?
2. What is the payment that they seek, that will allow you to pass through them and what payment should never be given to them?

But before that, let us first be clear on who or what is a troll? You never know, the symptoms and behavior that you display would indicate that you could be a troll yourself!

A troll is a person on the online world, who doesn’t know you personally but yet believes that he knows you, your personality and your life very well. He feels that it is his prerogative to point out what you are doing wrong in life, how pathetic your choices and actions are, how stupid your looks, your knowledge or your fashion sense is, etc… Basically, this person will find a flaw in something or the other in you, and make it his agenda to not only point it out to you but also to the entire world as that is the only way he can make a mark of himself in the social world. Quite often, these trolls are hidden behind fake identities and if not, then they feel powerful behind their online profiles, sitting in the comfort of their room and blurting out their unwanted and unsolicited advice and views. 

Coming back to the question that I raised ‘Why and where are these troll plazas?’. The reasons troll plazas exist is because of multiple reasons:

         i. Some trolls feel terrible about their own life as they haven’t achieved anything and for them, pulling down others who are doing well is a way of coming to peace with their own misery. 

       ii. Sometimes, they do not like your face and are unable to fathom the reason for your success and hence they will find every opportunity to point out your flaw.

      iii. Jealousy is another big emotion that drives a lot of trolls because sometimes when they see people who were lucky enough to get the chances that they got by either being at the right place at the right time or by being born to parents who had achieved immense success (sons and daughters of celebrities), they feel that life has been unfair to them and the only way to get even with life is by being vindictive and vicious to people who had better stars in their favour. 

       iv. Sometimes trolls wear the cloak of moral police and according to them, people are supposed to behave, act and dress up as per the standards and norms that seems correct to the trolls and when one doesn’t follow those codes, the trolls are not able to bear it. 

      v. Hero worship is another reason why trolls exist. They are so blindly in love or adulation of their heroes that if someone has a different point of view or someone says something against their hero, they feel that it is their duty to come forward and protect their hero, who may not even care or notice what the other person has to say about them. 

      vi. Intolerance to another point of view or a different religious philosophy is another reason why a plethora of trolls float around the stratosphere of social media, with their weapon of trash talk ready in their minds that just makes way the minute the fingertips type it out and bring it alive. 

These trolls can be found on each and every platform that exists, which is accessible to the public at large. So one could encounter these troll plazas on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, blog, websites and the list can go on and on. 

This brings me to the second question of ‘what do these trolls at the troll plazas want?’ 

The biggest high for any troll is to get noticed, get talked about, get a reply from the person being attacked, get likes or retweets on his comment that proves to him that people have really enjoyed what he has to say. All of this emboldens him to do more of such things. 

If a troll has attacked you for the first time, the best way to move forward is to ignore the person and not even acknowledge him. Some of the trolls may realize the futility of attacking you and may back off. If the troll continues to attack you further, a witty and smart reply can be a tactic that can be deployed. If you are a celebrity with a strong following, chances are that your fans will latch onto your reply and share it with others and you will have the upper hand while a troll will fall flat on his face. If the troll continues his attack and is getting vicious in his language, you can either block him, report him or share his comment/tweet with your friends and fans so that they can tackle him because a troll is like a bully, who can attack a single person, but when he is faced with a huge crowd going after him, he will quickly get into his shell. 

If you are the one who is being attacked, and you decide to stop and get into a verbal argument with the troll, the task of the troll has been achieved and he has been able to derail you from your track. That is a heavy payment to be made from your side. It is not worth it. This is the route to be avoided. This is the payment that shouldn’t be made at any troll plaza, irrespective of how angry or frustrated you feel. 

What are your suggestions and ways to pay the trolls at these troll plazas? I would love to know from you.