Taming the Heights...!!!

Did you ever feel the urge to fly like a Bird? Overcome your deepest fear of jumping from a dare devil height and Test the power of Gravity? To be virtually on Top of the World (at least for some moments)? To tame the heights? Well, I am penning down (rather keyboarding) this write up right after experiencing one of the most adventurous thing I have ever done in my life… And it did really make me feel on top of the world..!!!

It all started with an impromptu discussion with one of my room mates, Sriram, about whether we can try out this experience. Wasting no time further, I did a quick Googling to found out the sky diving activity organizers in Houston and I got a couple of them. But fish… their work hours for Friday was done and no one was left to answer us on the phone. This motivated me to wake me up early on a Saturday morning, rather unusual, considering the day begins around noon on normal weekends. I called up one of the numbers… and uff… they were booked for all slots during this weekend. Really dampened up me for a moment. But Never Say die… I called up the other number and wow… they had slots available from noon… and there we go… a quick breakfast, googling for the directions and we rush in our car to a destination named ‘SkyDive Houston’.

The place seemed to be in the midst of huge farms and the narrow roads with lush green farms around made me virtually feel like driving in India. And there we reach and we had to fill out a lot of pages in a form which basically relieved the organizers from any liability arising out of any mishap during the adventure. Yes, we had to sign it where it clearly mentioned that we wont even get a penny for any loss/damage to us even if its their fault. But who cares after you have come up with something else saturating your mind!!!

After the 2 hours of wait and other procedures, Sriram finally gets called by his instructor and off he goes. But where is my instructor Dave? I search every corner of the arena but in vain. And the support staff there was too obliged not to take the pain to find him out. Time was running out since my batch was to board the plane in 10 min. If I don’t make it in it, I will have to wait for at least another hour which would have definitely made me bring out my fire on to the receptionist out there. But God saved her and there landed Dave in front of me from nowhere and apologizing to me giving some crap reasons. But I was too excited for something else than listen to it or argue with him and I got into the astronautal clothes in no time. He got me tied with the harness which will be hooked to him during the dive and I had a short introductorial video shot at the same time.

Each one of were getting a 20 minute instruction and dos and donts from their instructors but woops…!! Where did mine go away again? Everyone was almost boarding onto the plane and I landed up with another surprise (when I least wanted anything like that at this point of time). The instructor found the entire kit which includes the parachute missing from the arena. He was running helter and skelter and my temper was reaching out almost to him. Suddenly I heard a voice…’Dave, do damn with your kit, here’s mine. Take this and Go. You are making others wait out there.’ I did not take the pain of checking who it was but I was ramped up that’s finally I am going out right there… “Jet Set Go…!!”, I said to myself.

We boarded the place which had 10 divers like me, their instructors and the individual cameramen. All in all as much packed that even a small pup will have to fight it out to find a place. And there the propeller rotates its engine in full throttle and up it goes. I politely ask my instructor about the instructions and all he tells me is ‘Just to the Arch and leave the rest to me!’ For all of you there, Arch is a specific position which we were expected to be in after the instructor taps us as soon as we do the jump and are in the free fall. It sounded simple words to me but what a damn… here I do my first jump and I don’t know what I am supposed to do, except for the Arch. But that’s the way it was.

As we reached the designated height for the jump, My harness got tied up to the instructor and there… Yes, I could feel my heart beating faster with bigger Thumps… I was just visualizing the moment where I can see the ground 13000 feet below me and I surrendering myself to the gravity and keeping faith that the instructor who just created all sorts of unwanted surprises till now. But all this scare just blanked off once the doors of the propeller opened up and we could feel the rush of air coming in from outside. It was definitely cool compared to the hot and humid one down there on the earth. And there goes the first diver with his instructor in a flash. One by one everyone takes turn and I could see the speed in which Sriram zoomed down as soon as his feet were off the plane. He was out of visible range in seconds and now I stand here to do the ultimate. I moved forward to the door. And after a couple of seconds, I could feel something slipping away from beneath my feet. Well, I am still wondering, whether it was my courage to do the jump or the instructor took away me with him and I feel it will always remain a mystery.

But here I was, traveling at the speed of 120 mph(roughly 200 kmph) towards the earth without the worry of the traffic police coming up on me with a speeding ticket. And whooooo… that is an experience which I would find difficult to put in words. And I had opted for the luxury of capturing every fraction of this moment to be captured on video and yippie.. there I see the camera guy right in front of me, shooting me in the frames while he himself being in the free fall. The winds lashing your face all across and the air pressure virtually making you momentarily deaf. And the feeling of falling free which no roller coaster can provide. I had finally done what I had dreamt to do of… yes… fly like a bird in the air… So after about a minute of free fall, the instructor pulls up a cord and it changes our position from horizontal to vertical and the speed of the fall reduces suddenly to a more leisurely stroll in the air now. And this provides you another great experience where you can feel rested back and feel yourself sway in the air like the paper airplanes which we used to make and fly in our child hood.

Now I could see us heading towards the mud runway from where our plane had took off and this time we were on the way to landing on our God gifted wheels (legs) right across the runway. And I could see the camera guy waving at me indicating that he is already down there to shoot my landing which we did it in style with me managing to land there on my 2 legs in the first go. Poor Sriram had a free fall there too with him landing flat on his back.

And now I was left wondering whether it could have lasted a bit more for Yeh Dil Always Maange More of such great experience. And a wish, if we humans could have wings, yes, you got it right… to fly like a bird… to tame the heights!!!

2nd August, 2008, 9.07 pm CST
Houston, TX. USA

Click Here for the video capturing each and every thrilling moment of this adventure. Keep note that the screen is blank for the first 10 seconds of streaming.