gorakhpur to gainesville...

its -2 degrees outside in gainesville Florida and sky is cast with clouds.. whoever said it doesnt gets cold in florida didnt had his facts straight... was born in gorakhpur a "not so big" town of hinterland of uttar pradesh, a place with existent rules and law but not a single soul who follows them.. truly in a wicked cool sort of way "a land of free".... so u understand why i laughed my ass off when i learned that pedestrians have "right of way" in this country.. i had to make very huge attitude changes once i landed here...

Indians dont get depressed, its because we always have company.. there you search for solitude, here u search for company... i was a loner in my teans and early twenties, and became a social animal by the time i hit mid twenties... i loved to just sit on the door steps alone for 52 hours of train ride in those days, with a peaceful serenity and solitude of the countryside passing by.. right nw if u will tell me to do that i will probably just throw myself outside of that moving train.. on a second thought may be not... gist of the matter-"people change."

this small time america is far from hustle and bustle of banglore where i lived for the last 8 years.. and when i think the number of people i have met and forgotten during those times, just humbles me down... sure this town has clubs and bars and all sort of entertainments for the young and vibrant, but i miss the laid back attitude of banglore.. i miss walking down the downtown on sunday afternoons to meet freinds for food, drinks and other stuffs.. there i always had people around, somebody was upto something always.. here u have to make plans and call people and check with them and they will probably open ther schedule books and then tell u "ooh, ya i can do that..

I miss that totally indian concept of just showing up.. i ment just show up to a friends place.. give a knock and see if anybody is in.. if they are, its just great.. if they are not find another door to knock.. no plans to make, no schedule to follow.. just pure fluidity of life without a plan... thats hw i use to live life and may be there is this tiny bit of spark of hope inside which tells me that i will get there again.. till that time, i will just have to deal with those dammed schedulers and date books...

Till the next time I start loosing my mind again.. :)

keep on rocking...

"When u stand at the edge of Cliff jump to FLY not to fall"... well I did FLY...

What did u to today? Was it the same mundane, routine day.. or was there a bit of excitement? Did u ace a test? Did a pretty girl smiled at you on the bus? Did u got into a fight? Did you purpose some body? :)... well I'm not collecting data for any survey foundations.. i was just building up a beginning..

What did i do last saturday? This is what I Did-

My alarm rang by 5:30 in the morning, but it didnt woke me up.. I was already up.. i have bean up for almost an hour.. took a shower and as was advised the night before, got into a pair of shorts and an easy t shirt.. apparently anything tighter would have hampered in my further proceedings during the day. It was still dark when i started walking towards the gas station almost a mile away. Although this is florida, it can still get as low as 8 degrees early in the morning..

Johnathan was waiting for me at the gas station in his car.. we took a ride to wallmart somewhere in the middle of the city... and from there continued on to this place known as "Palatka".. yeah thats a weird sounding name, but its a place where anybody in the 500 miles of radius of where i live goes to jump out of am aeroplain :D.. yeah this day was a dream come true.. i was finally going to skydive..

A weak before, when i saw the table for the "Falling gators" i knew i was gonna do it.. i decided not to do a tandem jump ( its where ur tied to an expert diver and just enjoy the fall, i also think its for pussies.. :) ).... i have decided to do an AFF-"Accelerated Free Fall" course. Its a 7 jump course where u learn to start jumping on your own.. and u jump on your own right from your firts jump... its a great feeling, letting go of your destiny and then regaining control over it somewhere around 13000 feet when ur dropping at close to 200 Km/hour...

The silent roads and rock music took us to our "Drop Zone".. we already had a 4 hour tarining in the body positions and emergency procedures the night before.. now we were given a on the ground annalysis of the drop zones with the wind directions.. it helps to plot your landing patern.. because you need that to land safely while flying your own parachute(yes another thing that u miss in the tandem, here you fly ur own parachute..)..

Next was turn to know what to do during various parachute malfunctions( this is about the time when it starts getting to you that u may be a little crazy to do this).. you are trained for another 2 hours in your exit counts and drop routine.. you dont just jump out of a plain, you need to show that ur aware and in your senses by doing some routines and practise touches to the chute ( i explain the routine to my instructor in the middle of the video..)...

Then we just practiced and practiced.. saw a couple of our group jump to.. lot of them were good and few of them just blacked out after going into the dive.. after all it is a "Sensory Overload" after u have jumped...
Around 4 P,m it was time for me to take the plunge... there is a video below for you to see for yourself.. when i sat down at the door of the plain, i was not worried abt the fall, i was worried abt my routine more... any hw i jumped and seriously i dont remember the first 3 secs of it.. my instructors shook me and thats when i woke up.. did my first routine and saw a thumbs-up sign(Thats hw we communicate in air.. by some 20 signs)from my instructor. Was done with my routine by 10,000 feet and just flew the rest of it till 5500 feet. it was the most awsome feeling in the world.. words cant describe it and frankly u have to go jump on your own to see whats it like..

once the chute opened i found myself meters off the base, with the wind in the opposing directions..
and there was no response on the radio.. quite frankly i prepared myself for a landing in the trees and a few broken bones if i was lucky.. self corrected my course but still was found myself just meters inside the boundary of the drop zone... finally i heard a sound on the radio "Sid give me a right turn..".. apparently they have forgotten the radio at the base and have to go back to get it... simply brilliant... next problem, i saw that i was gonna land on the runway and there was a freaking mother of god airplane on the same runway coming right in my directions.. got me worried for next 3 minutes till it turned and taxid away.. only thing i remember after that is myself screaming with joy.. the adrenaline has died down.. and i had made it.... and im going back for more thats for sure...

till the next time.. :D