Kamshet Blues
Uget there and are awestruck by the beauty that surrounds you....clean, peaceful, unpolluted, green, ethnic, calm; just few of the amazing qualities of the place i stayed in and had some of the most unforgettable moments in my life 'Kamshet'....
 Well flying has been a fantasy and passion all my life. Only that i did it for the first time here in kamshet with some lovely people: Nick gray (software professional) from Florida, Swati Iyer (Cartoon network - Events Division) from Aamchi Mumbai , Maneesh Dhingra ( software engineer) also from Mumbai, Bhai ( Professional Gangster) ;-) , Jurgen Voorbrock (Cargo Pilot - Lufthansa) from Germany, Mudit Maheshwari (Corporate Event planner) from Delhi, Pia a visiting Paraglider and instructor from Switzerland, Vikram Singh a visiting pilot & myself Jamsheed Sethna (Geologist) from Mumbai. People with a different outlook in life, who u can bond with, well and fast cause we were all there for the love of it ...being up in the air, flying like birds.
We could'nt have had more able and fun people to be our instructors:
Avi - the one who discovered most of the flying sites in kamshet, ex fighter pilot wow!!.... impressive, great to be with, has loads of experience being up there and of course has really interesting stories to tell, good carrom player and partner which i discovered on the second day, best thing i like about him is that he's frank and gives an honest opinion about most of everything..
Anita - felt like id known her for a long time even before we met... avi's better half ;-) lovely lady who makes the whole atmosphere really lively.... always has something to say....so ud never feel left out even if u are of the quite kind... good to c her at the landing site so ud have company once u got on ur feet... i would have never learnt good and fast canopy packing if ani was not around..and the word flare of course which i learnt after my first landings...professional carrom player too so watch out!!
Samson - what would we do without his lovely kites and parafoils to keep us company when the winds let them be up in the air rather than us...
samson was full of surprises, a jolly good person full of information on kites, sailplanes, aeromodling, helicopters, parafoils, adventure sports and paragliding of course...great to be with while at the ashram and if interested will show some presentations on flight and kites which he makes specially for IIT aerospace engineering students on his laptop...samson’s a bird without wings...
Teejay: He’s the master of the lands and should be trusted for wind directions till u get ur bearings right and a feel of the winds, which could take a while...!! Getting us to the flying site in the shortest possible time is one of the many things he does well!! and when the weather is not favourable u can always go over to cool TJ's ganna (sugarcane) fields and have the freshly cut juicy raw stalks.....that waz a fun thing to do!!
Our daily activities would be getting up early..havin breakfast and leaving the place by 6:30am...go to the site either shelar or tower hill where the winds were favourable in the morning, though most of our morning sessions were done at tower hill...
 Well during the week we stayed there, the wind gods were really moody or they were confused over which direction to puff some of it...so either we had to wait patiently for long periods or then just do top to bottoms in null wind conditions which we did for most of the time...only once did maneesh and i get lucky with being up there for 90 minutes and over.....Nick was busy checking mail on his laptop and missed taking off with us....we were the only two up there as the winds had gotten pretty strong after we took off......maneesh and i could see the long faces below us.....that was worth all the wait we had....we got to practice flaring, weight shift turns, S - turns, 360 deg turns, pitch control, rolling, a bit of thermal ling, spot landing's ( swati's gonna love this lingo hehe!!) maneesh had smooth landings where as i experienced ballooning after breaking a couple of feet earlier than required...well and landing hard on my feet...ouch that HURT!! after which i decided to get my landing act sorted out and did actually have some good landings ...
Post flight sessions we'd hang out at rangoli to have their lovely cold coffee or maneesh's trademark fresh lime and topi dosa's and discuss the flying session and what we needed to improve on...with expert comments from our pal's: Wing commander Avi, Anita (good ground instructor), Samson the kiteman, and cool Teejay.
We had some funny and scary incidents as well...which started with me.. on my second solo i pulled the brakes too hard after taking off and almost landed on the tree top's...and wo i was glad to get away from them...donno wat happened to me then...surely avi was swearing at me for not listening to him on time...hehe...
Swati a carefree fun(ny) gal.... enjoyed her flights the most ...her goal was to get up there the that was it...her landings were just purfect...always with her feet up and a smoothe landing on her rear side, thanks to the harness haha!! i cannot forget that either lady...
Maneesh to had a rollercoaster ride after his takeoff....and now has a pair of torn pants to keep as souviner's of this lovely trip of ours...
 On my second long flight which was the best flight i had to date …i lost radio contact with TJ and Avi right after i got above the ridge...after which i waz in two minds..whether to hang in there and fly by what i had learned so far or fly in to wind and land...of course i was not going to give up this amazing flight so i chose the first option...i was nervous in the start but i waz glad i did stay up ...i waz high really high ...now i knew what ridge lift and thermals really ment....i was enjoying my self and i had the company of many a pilot up there, though jurgen and myself were the highest ...soaring above all....doing the ridge beat's...didnt feel like coming back down but had to at sunset.....
That night we had company of the Russian group who'd come paragliding...and Avi had organised dinner and barbecue for them...they come back again the next day as well....
We played carrom and sipped kokum as we had no other intoxicating beverages....Jurgen my partner was a prodigy ...the game came to him like he'd played for a long while now...we were the undefeated champions ...although mudit and Avi put up a tough fight ;-) was super fun...after the game and dinner we exchanged experiences with an instructor pilots Vikram Singh, Pia.....she was good with the guitar as well, played and sang some P. J. Harvey songs....pretty impressive the singing and her electric guitar..
Meliss's place was the ideal Set up for this trip.... stunning scenic views from the cottage...the lake water was lovely to take a swim in after the morning session just before lunch and i was glad i did....Julian, Anil and the boys took great care of us and made us some amazing pineapple jam which we all freaked over....and took back home...
The place got quieter as only mudit, jurgen and myself were around till jurgen and i left on tuesday evening the 11 th of January 2005 leaving the delhiwalla all to himself....
Wanted to stay on much longer as i felt at home here too....but low on currency and a family wedding to attend....had to leave with the unforgettable moments...which is more than i could have asked for......
Well we've decided to meet up in mumbai and start a pilots club here, for which swati's gona design some cool logo...i hope she hasn’t forogotten...Jurgen and I decided to have a soaring competition the next time we went flying at shelar…very ambitious!! glad i picked up a Tee shirt which i do ocassionally wear with a smile on my face everytime someone asks me about templepilots....have a lot to say :-)
A couple of days while we stayed the Paragliding Ashram...........................................
Day 1 :
Melissa's beautiful cottage took a while to find but was an experience all together....Mumbai to lonavla by train, lonavla to kamshet by the local and finally kamshet town to govitri village by jeep packed with sixteen villagers and me wow!! reminded me of the fevicol add.... walked the rest of the way to the Paragliding Ashram (golden glades)...
maneesh nd i reached melissa's at the same time....there we met the rest to the gang, anita first who came out to recieve us. Avi was sleeping over the morning session...met nick with a running nose and swati at lunch time after which we had a briefing on the morning ground handling session and basic lessons on the physics and aerodynamics of flight..samson came in soon after..
freshened up nd went for our first lessons of ground handling to Shelar.. the site named after one of the villagers livin at he foot of this lovely ridge...
we got to see some pro's flying by the time we got there...doing what we would be learning in the days to come......
well i would'nt say i was a born pilot....took some time for me to get a hang of controls...it seemed like a lot of effort, but we learned that life would be much easier if we got these first lessons right..and so we went again and again, back and forth trying to make the most of the little time we had before it got dark....we were learning form swati and nick who were one up on us ...i got some decent runs after the first few collapses...and we had watchful eyes around us so things went smoothe...
sundown and we walked back to the jeep....felt great with the glider on my back ...and knowing that we'd be doing our solos the very next morning....
had dinner settled down in the cozy dorm with an open air bath toilet...hehe something u dont get to experience too often...!! good nite...
Day 2: First Flight>>
woke up at 6:00am ...had to leave by 6:30 and were warned of being left behind if we get late...(the reason being the winds could change anytime so we needed to be there early to make the best of it)...so i quickly ran down to find all sipping chai (tea) and almost done with breakfast...breakfast was great thanks to the caring touch of julian the chief cook and care taker of the place..since melissa was out flying in panchgani with a group of visiting pilots....
off we went to this site called shindewadi in a rattely trax with sandeep driving us that day...Avi came along in samson's gypsy to the site...
did a bit of ground handling and avi asked me to climb up the hill, i was to be the first to do the solo....was really exited and a bit nervous as well...saw swati do a great bunny hop as i climbed...
once on top we had to wait for the winds to pick up...i strapped up the harness and radio till then and waited...had avi check me just to make sure after id done my preflight check....the winds did pick up pretty fast and this was amazing...id taken off in just about two steps ...all the hard work put in during groung handing was forgotten...i was up in the air, i was flying...........it was the most amazing experience ive ever had...and i knew from then id be hooked to this for the rest of my life....i am a pilot now!!
Anita has taken some lovely pictures of my first flight...pictures i shall look up to for ever!!
Fly eagle high,
Jamsheed.
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