|
Not long ago, by a stroke of good luck, I got in touch, after
a break of seven years with my old friend Sidney D’Sousa.
I first met Sidney when I was teaching Paragliding in Goa in 1994.
Since I last was in India, and saw Sidney, there has been a lot
of water under many bridges, and India, in fact is changing at
a rate of knots. I have changed my life from that of a maniacal
flying instructor, to that of a sober, (well usually), English
teacher. Sidney, it seems is teaching paragliding in the Bombay
area.
Once contact with Sidney was re-established, I found myself besieged
by memories, memories of the days when paragliding, still a young
sport, was in its absolute infancy, particularly in India. The
following is an account of those days.
I learned to paraglide in July 1989, in Portugal. My instructor
was Gerry Breen. Since I had previously spent some considerable
time in India, I naturally wanted to go there to try out my new
toy. The only thing stopping me was lack of experience, caution,
cowardice and terror. I managed to avoid India until 1990, when,
as I walked into Gerry’s office at the, ‘Aeroclube de
Lagos’, to register for the local competition, I was asked
by Gerry. “Do you want to be in our team, or the English
team?” “What English team?” I replied. “They’re
standing over there.” Said Gerry, indicating two guys with
a sweep of his hand. Dave and Garry, the English team that I joined,
came to stay for a few nights at my place, and during that time,
the plan was made to go to Goa and Western Maharashtra, to explore
the flying possibilities there.
The day after Boxing Day that year, we were on the plane, bound
for Bombay, as it was then called. The following couple of months
were so packed with incident, that they deserve a book to themselves;
I’m going to pass over them lightly here. Suffice it to say,
that, after an initial flight at Dahanu, we found ourselves in
the thick of a Goa New Year party, and the next day, in fairly
disreputable condition, we made our first flights from the cliffs
of Anjuna beach. This demonstration, followed by others at North
Anjuna, and Chapora fort, resulted in us hiring, along with my
old friend Ingo Grill, who now runs the Saturday Night Market
in Goa, a nineteen-seat bus, to go exploring the flying possibilities
in Maharashtra.
By the time we set out, we had a little information, though nothing
very clear. We headed for Kolhapur, took a look at Panhala and
then up the highway four, eventually taking a back way across
towards Pune, so that we could take a closer look at Purandhar
fort, which turned out to be a fine looking flying site, but,
unfortunately, a military restricted area. After this setback,
it was only half-an-hour or so, before we were driving up the
road to Pune, and saw a sight to gladden the heart of any pilot.
We saw the unbelievable, a sailplane, soaring, away over to the
left. A short while later, we were being welcomed by the membership
of Hadapsar Gliding Club, who were intrigued by our new way of
flying. We all took a joyride in the sailplane, and were given
names, phone numbers, and, of course, endless cups of tea. This
fortuitous meeting resulted in my spending quite some time in
Pune over the next couple of years. The trip in the bus, lent
another dimension to the rugged countryside of Maharashtra, mixing
images of wings in the sky over Satara, Panchgani, and a few other
places, with those of Shivaji, and bands of marauding Marathas.
So far, I have been doing my best to avoid naming names. There
are just too many people who lent a hand, gave information, and
generally helped out to mention them all. I could not tell this
story accurately, however, without mentioning Wing Commander Jagtap.
Jagtap ran a windsurfing operation on Khadakshwasla Lake, about
thirty kilometres outside Pune. I often took people to his place,
which was right next to a small ridge, about a hundred metres
high, from which it was possible to fly, on an East, or a west
wind. Jagtap’s resort provided an excellent place to escape
the heat of the day, take refreshments, and enjoy the stimulating
conversation of the man himself.
I might still be there, but, tragically, The Wing Commander contracted
lymphatic cancer, and died rather suddenly; He is still sadly
missed by his many friends. Before he went, he knew the plans,
which we had made, were not going to happen, and he was thoughtful
enough, in his last days to introduce me to some of those friends,
who were trying to manufacture gliders in the Pune area, and who
possessed a winch. I got the job of finding a qualified winch-operator,
and organising a business. So, in the summer of 1983, I raced
around England, and completed the necessary tasks. Eventually,
along with three other European pilots, I found myself ready to
roll, with a prime pitch, just in the fields by Anjuna flea market,
from which to hoist tourists a thousand feet into the air, and
spin them around. There was only one hitch. There were no tourists.
The ‘83/’84 season was killed by the scare associated
with an outbreak of bubonic plague in Maharashtra. We carried
on regardless, making a very small living out of the few who did
visit Goa that year, and diversified into teaching as many customers
as we could, including Sidney, who I mentioned earlier. We worked
from Anjuna cliffs, and Arambol cliffs, and in the end taught
a good many people to soar in sea breezes.
For me, the problem was that I was bored with sea breezes, and
I wanted to have fun in the more challenging terrain of Maharashtra.
By mid-January, I’d had enough of Goa, the pickings were
very slim, and I was convinced that whatever the plague scare
was, it wouldn’t deter the Osho sannyassins in Pune, and
Sidney, who was a glider pilot from Hadapsar, had promised to
introduce us to the hierarchy there, assuring us that there would
be a lot of interest from the locals. Also, Jagtap’s friends
had indicated that it might be possible to winch people up from
the racecourse in Pune, though that never happened.
In the event, Sidney was as good as his word, and I spent many
happy hours with the guys at Hadapsar, and the guys and girls
in the ashram. That year, and the following year was spent teaching,
giving tandem rides, and organising the odd trip to Panchgani,
Nasik, and a few other places.
When I returned to Goa last year, I was surprised, and thrilled
to see that the paragliding scene, is now firmly established there,
many of the people we trained, all those years ago are still flying,
if not instructing, or giving joy rides. Sidney tells me that
he’s teaching in the Bombay area, and I know of others who
are benefiting from our hard won experience of Maharashtra, which
means that now people are flying there with some knowledge of
what to expect, and are doing much more than we did in the early
days.
Paragliding technology has now advanced so much, that greater
things are possible with much more safety, and there are pilots
from all over the world floating over the beaches of Goa, and
the mountains, hills and Ghats of India. I achieved a personal
ambition, flying from Anjuna down to ‘The Good Luck’
shack in Baga, though sod’s law dictated that none of my
old friends were there to see my flashy landing. Never mind, I’ll
be back in ’95 to try again.
Dick
Jones 2004
|
