A lady who opted for adventure
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Sakuntala Narasimhan
THE occasion was her daughter's wedding. In her nine-metre Kancheepuram silk sari, worn the traditional way, Vasumathi Srinivasan looked a typical middle-aged south Indian housewife. But give her a pair of crampons or the metal spiked boots worn for walking on ice or a jummar harness for climbing on a rock-face, and she accomplishes feats that go into the book of records.
Bangalore-based Vasumathi created a world record last year by leading the first ever all-woman desert safari expedition, riding a camel for 35 days across the Thar desert and the Rann of Kutch. She was in the first team of women to step into the Siachen region with Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to climb to the top of the Everest. She also led the first army women's expedition to 21,500 feet Kullu Pumori peak in Himachal Pradesh in 1996, and has already been to the Everest base camp, which is above 18,000 ft, five times. This intrepid woman is now looking forward to the "historic moment" some time next month, when the Women's Adventure Network of India (WANI) will be registered, with Bachendri Pal as president, to promote adventure sports - trekking, surfing, rock climbing, rappelling and cycling - among Indian women of all age groups. "Not just for breaking records, but also for staying fit or engaging in exhilarating activities which provide a sense of achievement," Vasumathi says.
As a child, she remembers, she was always curious to see what was "on the other side of the hill" when she was taken to picnics at Nandi Hills, a popular day-trip destination for Bangaloreans. As a schoolgirl in 1968, she remembers hiding in the park toilet at Nandi Hills so that the family would miss the bus for the return journey to Bangalore, and she could climb the hill. Bus was the only transport between Bangalore and the picnic spot in those days, she recalls. And missing the return bus meant she would get the opportunity to climb down the hill all the way. Her mother, with her on this trip, too had to climb down all the way, thanks the daughter's passion for adventure. Now, Vasumathi's daughter Smitha joins her on her expeditions and the duo got into the Limca Book of Records for becoming the first-ever mother-daughter team to climb the Himalayan peaks. She has also gone on expeditions with the internationally famous mountaineer, Doug Scott.
As a student of Mount Carmel College, she joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). She was in the first-ever rock climbing team in south India during the December holidays of 1971 and got an A-grade in the advanced course of the Central Government Mountaineering Institute. Last year, she set up a company called Adventure Zone that organises adventure camps for school children, to channel their energies into areas they find thrilling as well as useful in terms of learning new skills and gaining self-confidence. "Today's children are heavily into computer games, and don't know the pleasures of seeing different kinds of flowers, birds, insects, butterflies, coloured rocks, and the beauties of the wilderness. Unless they are exposed to nature's variety and develop a fascination and respect for our environment, they cannot understand, much less help tackle the ills of climate change," she says.
Any memorable experiences? "Plenty," Vasumathi recalls. When river rafting was first introduced as a sport in India, she went rafting on the Beas with Bachendri Pal. After the party lost their oars in the rapids the raft got caught in a fast current, drifted and fell 30 ft, even as TV cameras were filming the expedition from the banks. Some members of the party, including the guide, panicked, but not Vasumathi, who jumped into the water, rescued a male member of the team on her back and swum to safety. Stranded on the raft the others had to be rescued with ropes thrown from the shore.
On another occasion, during the first Karnataka Ladies' Expedition in 1981, of which Vasumathi was the leader, the team pitched a tent to store all their provisions for the trip and spent the night at base camp in the Garwal region of the Himalayas. They were climbing the Pandar Punch peak, also known as Kala Nag peak. The next morning, when they woke up, they found the tent torn to shreds, all the provisions scattered and destroyed and footprints of a bear on the snow. Luckily, the bear had not attacked the tent in which they were sleeping. "Mountaineering is tough, but it helped us understand the hardships that the army 'jawans' face in remote, hostile terrain, while guarding our country," she says. Incidentally, for that trip, Vasumathi had left her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and 10-month-old son in her mother's care.
It is not just the thrills and chills, Vasumathi points out, there are important lessons that adventure sports impart that can help in daily life. Once, when they were just 50 ft short of the 21,000 ft Banderpunch peak in the Garwal region of the Himalayas, they had to abandon the climb because of heavy fog. "It was far more important to be safe than successful. So, even failures teach us valuable lessons," she says.
Listening to her, one realises that our popular perception of adventure sports as something for eccentrics is far from correct. Even "ordinary" women can gain self-confidence and improve their physical fitness by choosing activities that are seen as "unconventional".
NewsNetwork/WFS
THE occasion was her daughter's wedding. In her nine-metre Kancheepuram silk sari, worn the traditional way, Vasumathi Srinivasan looked a typical middle-aged south Indian housewife. But give her a pair of crampons or the metal spiked boots worn for walking on ice or a jummar harness for climbing on a rock-face, and she accomplishes feats that go into the book of records.
Bangalore-based Vasumathi created a world record last year by leading the first ever all-woman desert safari expedition, riding a camel for 35 days across the Thar desert and the Rann of Kutch. She was in the first team of women to step into the Siachen region with Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to climb to the top of the Everest. She also led the first army women's expedition to 21,500 feet Kullu Pumori peak in Himachal Pradesh in 1996, and has already been to the Everest base camp, which is above 18,000 ft, five times. This intrepid woman is now looking forward to the "historic moment" some time next month, when the Women's Adventure Network of India (WANI) will be registered, with Bachendri Pal as president, to promote adventure sports - trekking, surfing, rock climbing, rappelling and cycling - among Indian women of all age groups. "Not just for breaking records, but also for staying fit or engaging in exhilarating activities which provide a sense of achievement," Vasumathi says.
As a child, she remembers, she was always curious to see what was "on the other side of the hill" when she was taken to picnics at Nandi Hills, a popular day-trip destination for Bangaloreans. As a schoolgirl in 1968, she remembers hiding in the park toilet at Nandi Hills so that the family would miss the bus for the return journey to Bangalore, and she could climb the hill. Bus was the only transport between Bangalore and the picnic spot in those days, she recalls. And missing the return bus meant she would get the opportunity to climb down the hill all the way. Her mother, with her on this trip, too had to climb down all the way, thanks the daughter's passion for adventure. Now, Vasumathi's daughter Smitha joins her on her expeditions and the duo got into the Limca Book of Records for becoming the first-ever mother-daughter team to climb the Himalayan peaks. She has also gone on expeditions with the internationally famous mountaineer, Doug Scott.
As a student of Mount Carmel College, she joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC). She was in the first-ever rock climbing team in south India during the December holidays of 1971 and got an A-grade in the advanced course of the Central Government Mountaineering Institute. Last year, she set up a company called Adventure Zone that organises adventure camps for school children, to channel their energies into areas they find thrilling as well as useful in terms of learning new skills and gaining self-confidence. "Today's children are heavily into computer games, and don't know the pleasures of seeing different kinds of flowers, birds, insects, butterflies, coloured rocks, and the beauties of the wilderness. Unless they are exposed to nature's variety and develop a fascination and respect for our environment, they cannot understand, much less help tackle the ills of climate change," she says.
Any memorable experiences? "Plenty," Vasumathi recalls. When river rafting was first introduced as a sport in India, she went rafting on the Beas with Bachendri Pal. After the party lost their oars in the rapids the raft got caught in a fast current, drifted and fell 30 ft, even as TV cameras were filming the expedition from the banks. Some members of the party, including the guide, panicked, but not Vasumathi, who jumped into the water, rescued a male member of the team on her back and swum to safety. Stranded on the raft the others had to be rescued with ropes thrown from the shore.
On another occasion, during the first Karnataka Ladies' Expedition in 1981, of which Vasumathi was the leader, the team pitched a tent to store all their provisions for the trip and spent the night at base camp in the Garwal region of the Himalayas. They were climbing the Pandar Punch peak, also known as Kala Nag peak. The next morning, when they woke up, they found the tent torn to shreds, all the provisions scattered and destroyed and footprints of a bear on the snow. Luckily, the bear had not attacked the tent in which they were sleeping. "Mountaineering is tough, but it helped us understand the hardships that the army 'jawans' face in remote, hostile terrain, while guarding our country," she says. Incidentally, for that trip, Vasumathi had left her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and 10-month-old son in her mother's care.
It is not just the thrills and chills, Vasumathi points out, there are important lessons that adventure sports impart that can help in daily life. Once, when they were just 50 ft short of the 21,000 ft Banderpunch peak in the Garwal region of the Himalayas, they had to abandon the climb because of heavy fog. "It was far more important to be safe than successful. So, even failures teach us valuable lessons," she says.
Listening to her, one realises that our popular perception of adventure sports as something for eccentrics is far from correct. Even "ordinary" women can gain self-confidence and improve their physical fitness by choosing activities that are seen as "unconventional".
NewsNetwork/WFS