Jogging Towards The Abyss

More of my authorized translation from the Arabic of the late Omani poet Mohammed Al Harthi's Travelogue of the Himalaya

The standard paraglider is equipped with two lightweight seats: One for the pilot, who to control the aircraft relies on cords threaded through metal loops affixed to the cloth canopy. The second seat is for the passenger, which is connected by yet more ropes to the pilot’s seat.  Damu sat in the pilot’s seat and fastened his safety belt.  I had to stand in front of him as my backside was attached to the front of his seat.

Damu’s assistants unfolded the parachute canopy behind us, as he explained to me that I had to jog in front of him up to the very edge of the mountain, with my seat fastened upright to my rear.

“The seat will get more comfortable once we run off the cliff,” he said -- with a straight face, I noted.

“Now,” Damu said, “the weight of our bodies has two functions.  First, it helps fill the parachute with air. Second, it saves us from falling further.”

“Don’t be afraid Mohammed. You’ll experience about five seconds of sheer panic, undoubtedly, but then you will feel us rising together toward the sky, away from the abyss.”

“Very comforting way of putting it,” I thought to myself.

I paced in front of Damu, but only after he had assured me multiple times that the cords were all fastened securely through the correct loops. Damu spoke with his crew as they grabbed and then spread the edges of the parachute on the grass.

Damu gave the ‘all go’ signal for take-off.

The precipice wasn’t more than ten meters away.  That was the only thing I had to do was to run towards it, with Damu behind me, and his helpers behind him.  So I ran.  Damu suggested a trick to reduce my anxiety, that is, that I close my eyes at the moment of takeoff so that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the abyss. 

But I didn’t close my eyes. I wanted to squeeze whatever feeling I could from this experience, without missing a single moment. 

Just as Damu had predicted, when my feet arrived at the precipice we fell for a few seconds towards the valley below. I barely felt it, for as soon as I was conscious of the fall, the parachute did its work, protecting us from the fall and unfolding like a rectangular fan above us, as it filled with God’s pure air. 

After takeoff Damu alerted me to take my flying position, seated on the platform attached to my rear with a safety belt.  But I was deaf and oblivious to his order, and continued as if I were standing, gesticulating wildly in the air. My brain thought that I was still running on the edge of the mountain whose jagged edge we’d already cleared. 

We were airborne.  Once he sat down himself, Damu was positioned above and behind me. I became like a child whose mother carries him in a burnoose. Damu pressed on my shoulder, directing me to scootch my rear back toward the seat.

“Relax!” he shouted. “And sit on your seat!  Keep your legs pointed down!” 

I did what I was told. He was right, I was far more comfortable sitting down. I felt a wave of relief. It was a very simple thing to do, but still I was afraid to do it in case it caused me to fall. 

And then, I became aware that I had realized my dream of free flight. Over the next five minutes, I tried to adapt myself to my new circumstance, as we rose higher and higher above the summit of Sarnagkot.  

“When I was standing on my balcony at the inn, I noticed that the gliders rose above the summit, but that they kept on going, above the cell phone towers. Why is that?”, I asked Damu. 

“A keen observation!” Damu said, his voice rising above the noise made by the wind.

“This is due to the cold temperature of the air at the higher altitudes and the speed of the wind.   From the moment of takeoff we will rise five to eight hundred meters above the summit--maybe more, depending on the exact wind speed and air temperature, the weight of the passengers and other factors.”

Damu explained that the dramatic lift is possible because the control ropes at both ends of the aircraft create an arched canopy that captures the air and, in a manner of speaking, makes us weightless relative to the force of the upward draft. 

“That -- that is the joy of paragliding, my dear Mohammed.  Enjoy it while you can!”   

Despite the racket made by the wind, I could still communicate with Damu, initially preoccupied with moving what I called the ‘magic cords’ to get us to the maximum altitude the atmospheric conditions permitted. 

As I scanned the horizon, I couldn’t see Pokhara, but I could make out the two villages behind it.  Damu pointed to what looked to me like a black thread hanging in space.  

“Look there -- that’s the road on which we returned from Bini on the trek we made in 2005, when that ancient Datsun almost overturned on us. “ 

I listened to the whistle of the wind flowing inside the parachute as Damu drew its edges closer and closer together with his steering ropes, trapping the air and enabling us to rise, and rise again. 

Damu asked me if the fall in air pressure and the whipping wind were bothering me.

“how long can you remain in the air?,” I shouted.

“It depends on the height of the point of takeoff. Sarangkut is not a high peak, so we will have to descend after half an hour or forty-five minutes… but in other areas gliders can stay aloft between two and three hours, as they move laterally for about 20 kilometers.

When I looked to the other side of the glider, I saw the city of Bukhara and Fewa Lake in all their glory, looking like reefs fed by fresh water trickling down from on high. 

 From the ground It wasn’t possible to appreciate the vast dimensions of the lake, or the panoramic beauty of Bukhara or the magnificence of the surrounding snow-capped peaks, whose sides melt during the summer to fill the rivers that connect China, India,  Bangladesh and other countries.  

The summit of Sarangkut, our launching point, looked very small from where we were then.    

I asked Damu how high we were.  He looked at his watch, which had an altimeter built into it.

“We are now at a height of 2176 meters above sea level, I will try get us up another hundred meters, then we will begin the descent.  Agreed?”

“You’re the pilot,” I said. “I do what you tell me.” 

Our bodies were leaning under the parachute, sometimes approaching a 90 degree angle to the horizon.  

Up there, the laws of gravity are different.  It felt like we weighed not more than a feather, as we soared and circled like eagles above the summit of Sarangkut.  We spent about a quarter of an hour enjoying the view from this height. Then Damu told me we would begin our descent. He grabbed a metal stick, that one could extend and shorten.  At the end of it was a camera taking still photographs and videos.

When we got closer to Sarangkut, I watched as the metal rod containing the small camera extended in front of my face, with Pokhara and Lake Fewa in the background.  This reminded me a bit of watching video of astronauts on the moon, embroidered with cameras and navigational equipment, as they hopped on the surface. For a moment I imagined I too was an astronaut, blessed with otherworldly experiences unknown to most other humans. Briefly, I reentered my childhood imagination, a place in which I was the star.

Next up: “The Banknote That Didn’t Land on the Lake”