Monday, May 09, 2005

A Wired Sanyasi

Continuing with my himalayan anecdotes, here is a story of a hi tech sanyasi whom I happened to meet at 16000ft above msl much ahead of gaumukh during my second expedition in 1998. It was more than ten days we had been climbing and we were totally out of touch with the latest happenings around the world. The normal transistors don't work most of the time due to screening effect and those days there was no Worldspace radios in India. Even if you had one, it was our last priority. We reached a fresh water lake and we decided to rest for the day after hours of strenuous climbing. There we saw a small tent and a sanyasi sitting and cooking food for himself. I walked upto him and started my conversation. I was mighty impressed to know that he was an engineer from western UP from the town of Buland Shahar and he had come here in seach of himself!! I was also astonished to know that though he has been away from home for 3 yrs, he was having information about all the latest happenings in the world, including the facts like Mr Vajpayee was the 13th prime minister of India, etc. When I was curious to know how did he manage to keep himself uptodate, he answered my curiosity by taking me near a rock to show me his improvised antennae connected to his pocket radio!! I later requested him to improvise one for us to make our radio work and he helped us with one!!
I was happy to meet a Wired Sanyasi!!

1 comment:

P B said...

Very interesting to re about this wired sanyasi..but what I dun understand why sanyasi wants to know about the happenings. I think to him nothing never happens. Anyways very interesting read.