Dive into Obscurity

My first Sky dive...

My first Sky diving experience!!

Moments before you take leap into something, you remember various aspects of your life. Good, Bad, Ugly, Great and even random events fill the visions. We subconsciously make a lot of balloon shapes for various events from our lives and live on the periphery of those balloons with our decision making and perspective of looking at things. But all these shapes in the mind get obscure when you look at the world from 15000 feet above sea level. Those shapes of repressed memories look so small like the flora and fauna 15k feet below. And you just concentrate on the basic thing like breathing. You can hear your heart pound in the chest, Lungs dilated to the maximum to absorb more oxygen and the brain freeze. All peripheral things like education, jobs, responsibilities, etc hide into some corner of your brain. The only thing right now that is at peak is your adrenaline level and heartbeat. T-2 seconds to jump and above are the feelings that crowd into your mind.

  

Vehicle of Fear getting ready

It all started with planning the trip to Spain. Spanish food, scuba diving, snorkelling and SKY DIVING were the few activities planned to satiate the romantic consumerism (Sapiens book) in us. We drove to Sevilla in our very own Mini Cooper touching the speeds of 160km/hr and feeling like the character ‘Flash’.  We reached Sevilla in the evening and decided to do local sightseeing. The Flamenco dance is a dance form with vigorous leg movements. I realised during the dance that it was my heart beating faster which was in resonance with the dancer’s leg movements. Ants crawling in the oesophagus, butterflies fluttering in the tummy, caterpillars on the line of the intestines. Figment of the imagination to convey nervous energy for tomorrow’s sky dive. After the Flamenco dance, on the walk back to the hostel like a cynical human being I contemplated the things that could go wrong tomorrow. It rains and dive is cancelled (What a relief from this nervous havoc that I am having!!), Flight gets turbulence and we crash, Flight stops working and we crash, Parachute fails to open and we are absorbed by the Earth, my trainer separates from me mid-air and again absorbed. The brain has its own laws of permutations and combinations for ways to die. Sleep eludes for some time but the tiring car journey helps in making peace with the Sleep God.

Just before the dive..Nervous energy

T-3 hours to dive: We get ready and sign the forms. Basically, the form says that if I die or get injured, the diving school is not responsible. The form is not helping the mood. We drive passed yellow fields towards the diving school. As we approach the destination, we see bright dots of red, yellow and blue. They were the divers descending towards earth. The blinding sound of the aircraft and the typical wooden fences reminisce of English cowboy movies. We reach the counter and tell them about the appointment. Fill in the forms and wait for our instructor. Now taming the mind is still a remote possibility but taming the bladder is just not possible. Tension is in the air. I fidget with my shoes and hands. Permutations in the mind are still running like how machines run during manufacturing. There appears our instructor. He is a broad shouldered, huge built French guy with a perfect smile on his face. Now nervousness makes you view people in a different light. He seemed to be like the God Krishna who was there to protect me from any harm. He escorted us into a small room where he made us watch a 8 minute video on the safety aspects of sky diving. The person in the video made it look so easy that I was almost convinced that this dive will not be a big deal. The French instructor told us that we are due on the 2^nd flight and that it would take another 45 mins- 1 hour.

Superman to the rescue before the dive!!

T-1 hour: I wear the tandem suit and am ready to go for the kill. The strange part is that you visualise the entire process of the future events in your mind and yet as the time passes the number of variables in that equation keep increasing. The excel function of “What If” runs in infinite loop. So more than the death, it is the wait up to the death which kills you. And I can totally feel this in every cell of my body. We are all chatting but I know is only to slow the processor of “What ifs”. We even have a person with the Superman costume among st us. The laughs and smiles diffuse some tension but the inevitability of jumping from 15000 feet still sticks in the mind. At last Lord Krishna arrives and says that its time. With a deep breadth I silence the demons in my mind and enter the flight. I enter the flight first and in Computer terms its FILO (First in Last out). This is nature’s way of messing around with you. Going last means additional seconds of anxiety. We are airborne  and here starts the fun.

T-15 mins: We are sitting opposite to the direction of the flight which also causes discomfort. We gain altitude. This series of movements are already in the mind with the 100+ flights taken over the years. The only difference is you land down with the flight and here in this case you land on your own. The fields start looking smaller and the trees look like green dots. The run way starts looking like a thin grey strip and eventually disappears. Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, all your peripheral things take a back seat. Its just you and gravity. You realize your breathing, you realize your individuality as a human and you realize your living in that moment. Memories evaporate and the electrons of anxiety start moving around your body like electricity. We reach 15k feet and the person opens the door. Oh my god!! This is harder than I imagined. There is gravity, wind, height and the possibility of annihilation of every thought. One by one divers start jumping out. In the process, body stops producing Saliva in the mouth and produces panic in the mind. My instructor gives me last minute instructions

Trainer and me after the Dive

T-5 seconds: Now the walk from your place to the door is the most mind numbing experience. Your MBA, your job, your relations, your memories and yourself don’t matter in those 5 seconds. I view the horizon and its all yellow and green and obscure in my mind. Processing of information has got slower. I get into the kangaroo baby position with my instructor and wait for the inevitable descent into obscurity.

Lord Krishna and I finally take the leap and jump. The first 2-3 seconds are blank. You get sucked into this abyss of the earth’s gravity. The pull is so strong that your mind just cannot register anything for the first 2-3 seconds. After the 5^th second you feel alive. Mouth opens up and you scream. Air is going in your ears and mouth. You are been blown away. I try to scream but voice fails me. The wind is slapping my cheeks and creating ripples. Mind has shut itself from thinking and now its just reacting to the chain of events. The view is breath taking. The rays of sun at the horizontal and the yellow and green field in the vertical vision. I don’t even know whether I am breathing or not. All the panic and anxiety is not dissolving and going away. You feel free from bondages of life and live the moment that is right now. There is one poem that plays in my mind:

Pighlay neelam sa behta hua yeh samaan
Neeli neeli si khamoshiyaan
Na kahin hai zameen
Na kahin aasmaan
Sarsaraati huyi tehniyaan, pattiyaan
Keh rahi hain ki bas ek tum ho yahaan
Sirf main hoon meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein
Aisi gehraiyaan
Aisi tanhaiyaan
Aur main sirf main
Apne honay pe mujhko yaqeen aa gaya

With this playing in my mind I start crying. Its not tears of sorrow or happiness. It is the realisation of yourself.

The instructor pulls the button and the parachute opens up. There is a sharp jolt to reality and I start sensing the world around me. The speed has reduced which gives me time to look objectively at things below me. It’s a wonderful day and the fields are getting clearer. The entire horizon seems infinite yet is gives a feeling of affection and stability. I smile endlessly. Its my victory over my panic. Its my victory over my Over Analysing brain. Its my victory over myself. As we reach the ground, the landing is on the bum. It does not pain. In fact I am ecstatic. I thank Lord Krishna and start searching for my brother and hug him. Today we conquered ourselves!!

We got a certificate of courage. The What if and permutations stopped in the mind. Happiness and ecstasy occupied the mind. We called our families and spoke about the experience. We stayed at the air base for an hour more to soak in more of the positivity of the dive of other people as well. I smiled without reason. I smiled to glory. The stride in the step, the weightlessness of the mind and constant smile permeated positivity in the body. It was back to normal life but the experience made me more aware about myself as an individual.

“Everything that kills me makes me feel alive!!”