The Shifting Sands

The brown scar left from the falling block. The quickdraw helps to provide some scale Francisco, Ada and myself were at Navi Mumbai for a routine weekly climb.  That said, there are very few routine things in India.  We had just completed our morning exertions and were packing away our gear, ready to journey home.  A large group of local climbers had arrived, they are not normally early risers, and were working a number of routes. One route involved climbing to an undercling which included a loose 30cm x 30cm block.  The climber studiously avoided the loose block but, much to everyone's surprise, a 1m x 1m block ripped loose and fell in a couple of pieces. Everyone having a nervous laugh about the rockfall. The injured leader is at their feet. The leader was held by the belayer despite the belayer being very much in harms way.  The leader landed hard on his feet on a small ledge.  He didn't appear to have broken any bones but his ankles were very s

Transport is the life blood of commerce, and the variety of vehicles used to move goods in India never ceases to amaze me. Carts are hauled by all manner of livestock throughout India, camels in Rajasthan  ponies in Kashmir and oxen through the rest of India. Even in Mumbai, Oxen drawn carts navigate the crowded streets moving goods every day. Carts are the basis for many small business. They are pushed into location each morning read for a day of providing Indian fast food..... ..... and fruit and vegetables. Importantly, no trader is without their mobile phone. Tricycles are used to deliver the Government subsidised gas bottles every day. They are pushed uphill and riden downhill. All manner of goods are moved by bicycle.  Eggs, bread, papers, rice, live chickens, milk, tiffins, fruit and vegetables, and all manner of construction materials including large sheets of plywood are moved everyday by bicycl

Risk and reward can be seen as two sides of the same coin.  Normally, when you go to a downhill skiing resort, the coins that you flip are small, small risk small reward.  One of the reasons that I love Gulmarg is that you play the game with bigger coins. Paul and Sam, my brother in-law and nephew, had heard great reports about Gulmarg from Jack, Sam's brother, despite Jack coughing up blood for most of his stay.  They decided that a visit to India was in order and, as Sam is a keen skier,  Gulmarg was the priority destination. The adventure started when we boarded the aircraft in Mumbai when I was informed by a Kashmiri on the same flight that Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri native who had been convicted of supporting a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, had been executed earlier that morning.  Needless to say things were going to be interesting in Srinagar as this had occurred after a number of fatal military clashes on the Line of Control. On arrival at the airport at