“Where Eagles Dare”- Narration From A Man Who Chases The Mountains

By: Dr. Aniruddha Babar

“Mountaineers climb because they love the mountains, yes; but they climb too because climbing prepares them boldly and tenaciously for death, then guides them faithfully to the edge of another world, a world I now recognize as the world of the dead, and there allows them to dance, mountain after mountain, year after year, as close to death as it is possible to dance; which is to say, within a single step.”- Robert Leonard Reid, “The Mountain of Love and Death”

…Spending days and nights in – 50 degree Celsius temperature with winds blasting up to 130 km/hr, in an environment of avalanches and crevasses, at extreme altitudes so high that each of your steps requires you to take ten breaths…!!!

I have been wandering in the mountains since childhood. Ever since I was introduced to the mountain range around my village in Maharashtra, I have been enchanted and mesmerized by the great mysteries of those tall and mighty peaks. There was no fort, no hill, no Peak in the great Sahyadri ranges of Maharashtra that remains untouched by my overwhelming desire to assault and win over them. As I grew a bit older, I started hearing the calls from far north and I responded with great passion and vigour with my attempts to explore the mighty Himalayas. Most of my solo Himalayan expeditions were unplanned. I never enjoyed planned expeditions as I knew for sure that in mountains no plan works except your tremendous mental strength, quick decision-making ability, desire to achieve the climbing objectives, and ability to withstand higher degrees of physical and psychological pressure in the most extreme terrain. However, whenever I took people along with me, I had to initiate proper planning. As someone from the mountaineering circle once said, “Planning & Organizing mostly done to make expedition team members psychologically assured and to bury their worries about the ‘unknown’”. People love plans, they like to be part of a design, a system that may protect them and help them to achieve what they desire without any or little discomfort. However, things are never like what they seem. Once we enter their jurisdiction, Mountains “rapes and reaps” our soul and there is no way to escape such an assault of great power and force except having a choice at our disposal to battle it with a counter-attack.

In the mountains and mountaineering world, all the ideals of democracy end up losing their meaning. The ‘Sirdar of the Expedition’ is the most powerful person. He is the emperor. He is required to be venerated, respected, and followed blindly because the Life and Death of the members of the Expedition rest in his hands. Sirdar is the one who is capable to penetrate the soul of the mountains and therefore earned a rare honour to have an audience with them. He is the one who understands the language of the mountains and takes decisions according to what he perceives in the best interest of the ‘Expedition’. Disobeying the orders/decisions of the Sirdar is an invitation to death. It has always been like this; it will continue to be like this whether we like it or not. Mountaineering is a battle of spirits and souls- human, and inhuman.

During childhood my father used to bring books-many of them had stories of great valour and adventures, stories of robust warriors, dreamers-treasure hunters-lonely inventors & scientists; I would often wonder what is that these people in stories seek. I found answers as I transform myself. I think adventure is a spiritual path. Mountaineering is a great meditation. Whenever the danger is very close, the mind stops. The mind can think only when you are not in danger; it has no say in danger. Danger makes one spontaneous and, in that spontaneity, you suddenly recognize that you are not really what you think you are, but you are something ‘else’- far superior, superhuman than you could ever realize.

I am of the firm belief that mountaineering is a stoic sport. The pain, the uncomfortable feelings, the discomfort and dangers of high altitude, the deprivation of sleep, and the cold that one is forced to digest are compensated by the goal. In other words, while climbing, all these negative factors are absorbed by the climber’s determination to make it to the summit. For a handful of men with drive, this is a natural urge, for as human beings we tend to be drawn toward challenges as we understand that they make us grow. They are part of life itself and the struggle that life itself represents.

In climbing, there is a term used to describe the hardest, most risky move of the route – the Crux. Moving past the point of retreat (the crux), the climber transcends. Is the fun of climbing worth the risk to life and limb? Can a climber justify his or her actions when a mistake on the mountain will require rescuers to face equally perilous risks?  And, what about those who are left behind when a climbing accident results in death? Is there something about human nature or human society that draws many toward risk-taking activities? While the risks associated with climbing lead to ethical concerns and considerations, there are also questions about human nature and a coddling, risk-averse society that may explain and justify what climbers do. I think Man has always been having a spirit of an explorer. Our ancestors courageously stepped out of their comfort in AFRICA around Seventy-Five Thousand years ago in search of unknown lands. There is something in genes that could probably have been staying dormant in humans of the modern world but in a handful of us it is active-live-kicking and that ‘something’ is a primary booster that drags the person out of his/her material comforts and throws them at the mercy of ‘cruel nature.

I could be the only non-Naga (except soldiers of Assam Rifles) who have explored the most challenging jungles and the mountains of the Nagaland located in deep, almost inaccessible regions of the Indo-Myanmar Border. I led the first-ever mountain expedition (in the history of Nagaland) of my college Mountaineering team to hoist “Tiranga” on top of Mt. Saramati in monsoon season (the climb becomes most deadly during this time) on the 15^th of August, 2022 to honour our nation on 75^th Independence Day. I led the first-ever mountain expedition in March 2022 consisted of a team of 46 strong climbers to explore the alternate, uncharted route to Mt. Saramati through Border Pillars 136, 137, and 138. I was also a part of the Mt. Khulioh (Khelia) Expedition organized by a team of teachers at Christian High School, Noklak. Also, I led an Mt. Japfu Expedition consisting of ‘spirited’ members of my college mountaineering team in November 2022 that successfully climbed one of the most challenging mountains in the Barail Range, Kohima in blitzkrieg style through a midnight ascent in a record time.

Leading college Mountaineering Teams is not a joke. We follow the Military pattern of leadership and command structure while planning, organizing, and conducting various Mountaineering and Trekking Expeditions.  Moreover, at the primary level, firstly you will have to convince the college management, then the parents. Our Indian society in general is a risk aversion society. We normally don’t allow our kids to play with their life and prefer to keep them under the comfortable wings of family’s love, affection, comfort, and security which often makes them generally weak, emotionally delicate, physically diaphanous, and permanently dependent. However, I feel proud to say that my ‘Mountain Warriors’ are of a different breed altogether. First of all, Mountains do not call any Tom, Dick & Harry, and those who are called to the Mountains they are born with a different mindset – which means- you need to have IT in you to become a mountaineer, as your wealth, power, social status, material resources, emotional desires cannot make you one. I train my mountaineers well, make them bleed in training, and then teach them to play and toss their life into thin air on the mountain top and they did well. This is certainly not magic but a systematic awakening of DNA which had kept the desire to challenge nature in a dormant state in nucleotides. Mountains are channels of energy and also the portals of spiritual transformation. They are life givers to those who can open themselves before them. I use great mountains as a tool to construct great Men and Women from ordinary girls and boys.

In today’s modern world people who are willing to lead a life differently are truly a handful. History of mankind witnessed the great ages of the Sea, Mountains, and Polar Expeditions. There have been several incidents when people had to sacrifice their wealth and relationships to give justice to their inner callings. Several oceanic and mountain expeditions of the past were financed by the Captains and the MEN themselves from their savings and pockets in absence of sponsors. So many of them got bankrupt, suffered heavy financial losses, and died in poverty but lived in glory. We do not know their names, what we know are their deeds. Great men are known for their failures than successes. Today’s modern explorers, now a handful of them have survived the madness of materialism, are carrying forward the legacy of those great men who dared to venture into the unknown in the past. Those men were not professionals; most of them were amateurs from different civil professions who loved to play with life for higher gain.

So, what do the Mountains, Oceans, Sky, and great jungles teaches us? I think they teach us about freedom. Freedom is primarily a spiritual concept, not a political one. Freedom, Liberation has remained the primary quest of mankind- everything that man has ever done throughout his evolutionary process-all those inventions and adventures has been done in quest of freedom. Therefore, what today’s teachers and professors have to demonstrate and teach their student is nothing but ‘Freedom’. Once Freedom is taught, everything gets streamlined. Only freedom can ignite intelligence and courage to seek knowledge, only freedom can facilitate critical thinking, and only freedom can take a student to success at various stages in life.

In schools and colleges, we ‘chain’ students in the name of marks and compulsory classroom attendance. We ‘sinfully’ deprived them of the greatest lessons that academic institutions are capable to impart. We do not teach them to use their brain but teach them how to memorize. We celebrate success of toppers, we give them false hopes that the grades; marks and top ranks in examination will bring them sure success in their life, we do not teach our students to value their own emotions, we do not teach them about ‘contentment’, we do not teach them that the ‘Money, Wealth, Power and Beauty has never ever been the solution to the human misery and the classic tragedy of Human Existence’, we never teach them about the ‘illusionary nature of ‘fear’, we teach our students about careers, jobs, business but we never teach them about ‘what to do when salary and profits starts pouring into the pockets’, we teach young students to see dreams, but we never teach them as to what to do next when the dreams are achieved and success is gained, we teach poor students about wealth, teach them an art to become rich, but we never teach them as to what to do after becoming rich, we teach our students about power and politics, we encourage them to become an IAS, IPS, Advocates, Judges, Politicians but we never teach them as to what to do after becoming one, we teach them about life but we never teach them ‘an art of dying’, we never teach them ‘anything’ that will be useful to them to successfully swim through the inevitable, indestructible, perilous oceans of materialism and blind desires.

A child studying in an air-conditioned classroom, with five-star facilities and a Ready-to-Inject vial of knowledge, will never understand the deepest mysteries of human existence but remain stuck in the illusions of the material world and die in ignorance. Mountaineering and all those activities that introduce us to risk and death helps us to break this curtain of illusions and introduces us to our true nature and the final meaning of life.  Nature plays an important role in the evolution of mankind; however, to understand its manifestation, one needs to come out of their comfort zones.

Mountains, Oceans, Deserts, and Jungles have been given spiritual importance. In various sacred texts of all religions, we find mention of the spiritual importance of these entities. In the rat race to become rich, powerful, and modern we ignore the ‘life force’ that sustained us throughout eons. Several mountains around the world are considered sacred. Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva, is of special significance to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and native Tibetans. Likewise, Mount Fuji is believed to be the incarnation of the Earth’s spirit and home to Goddess Sengen Sema. In Christianity and Islam too, mountains hold a special place by their being the site of revelations and miracles. Mount Tabor was where Jesus was revealed to be the son of God while Mohammed is said to have received his first revelation on Mount Hira. As for mountains being witness to miracles, Mount Carmel was where a little cloud rose, grew, and replenished the land with copious rain after a prolonged drought and when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, a ram was providentially substituted by divine intervention. Mountains have always attracted the seekers-the fallen and pure both.

Climbing mountains is a journey of self-exploration. I think it is all about knowing the godly essence in us. In my Himalayan exploration, I encountered many extraordinary souls. An old, veteran British climber I met in Salleri (Solukhumbu region) many years ago gave me a kind of talisman to me through his words. He must have been at least 80 years old then. He said, “Lad, if you are born on plains; climb hills, if you are born in hills; climb mountains, if you are born in the mountains; keep going higher- and higher, keep going up, let the hypoxic altitude tear you apart, let all the masks be melted, let all the shadows be disappeared, then you will be a newborn-a new man with a renewed soul. Charge a mountain; baptize yourself with the tears of your spirit”. These ‘mystical’ words continue to guide me in my life. Mountains make you a real human – An exact figure the God Almighty – Our Creator wanted us to be. (The author is an Academician in the Department of Political Science, Tetso College, Nagaland & a Legal Consultant too. He can be reached at aniruddha@tetsocollege.org)