Karthik skydiving

My brother karthik is a very lazy person.Having defined him so accurately I needn't go into indepth explanations as to why I am putting up his experiences on my blog.He went sky diving twice near Charlotte and he hasn't bothered to write about it on his blog. After several futile attempts of coaxing him to write I have taken the task upon myself.

Today I finally saw the video and boy am I ENVIOUS!!!!Just when I was comfortably settled in the thought that after having been to Ladakh, I have conquered the world...I see this video and it thoroughly blows me away.What a magnificant experience to have.

The video is available in google video under the name 'karthik skydiving'.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=120136719761652722&q=karthik+skydiving

This is the mail he sent me describing the whole thing:

"Yeah, the skydiving experience was something that has to be felt...I can't explain it to you. But this is the sequence of events. Its called a 'tandem jump', meaning you are strapped to a harness in front of a professional instructor. So, your life is in his hands! He has the parachute. You just have an altimeter on your wrist, so you know what height you are at. Once I got into the plane, I was like...Ok, this is it! The plane rose 2000 ft with the doors open! Then they closed it. Then there was some humour and stuff like that to lighten the situation. At 12000 ft, the doors open...there is an incredible wind blowing at 140 miles an hour. Its so noisy you have to shout to hear yourself. Then the photographer jumps out as if it means absolutely nothing. That moment when I was standing at the door and looking down...god, I had my heart in my mouth. And then the instructor behind me says..."Reasy, get set, JUMP"!!!

The first 10 seconds of free fall...when you are travelling at 140 miles an hour like a bullet was mind blowing. I thought I was going to die...seriously! Then there was this cool phase when we pierced a cloud and come out of the other side in a fraction of a second! At 14000 feet when you are flying through the air at 140 miles an hour, you feel the whole thing is an illusion...an incredible, unbelievable illusion. Free fall lasted for 1 minute! Think abt falling through the skies for 1 minute...just think...1 minute is eternity when you do things like this!

Then at 5500 feet, he opened the parachute. I didn't even realize it was open. What happened was this...one moment I am whizzing through the skies like a rocket...the next moment everything is still, like a picture. When you are descending from that height in a parachute, you can't feel that you are descending because you don't feel the ground coming closer to you. It just felt like I was sitting there in the sky in the harness...I could see the sun, the clouds and everything below. God, it was simply amazing! The parachute drop lasted 5 minutes...5 minutes of pure ecstacy! And the landing was smooth...landing can be hard you know? People can fracture their legs if they don't land properly. It took me half an hour after that to get back to my senses and reality.

Those 10 seconds after the jump were petrifying and every moment after that was pure bliss. Another cool thing is the silence. When you are free falling, its damn noisy because of the speed at which you are travelling. But when the chute opens, what you hear is pure, pure silence! There is absolutely NO sound at that altitude!
So, that was the essence of the whole thing. No roller coaster ride or anything else I have ever done can match this experience. And to think some people jump from an aeroplane all the time for a living!!
Would I do it again? Hell, yes! The next thing I plan to try is bungee jumping...that's going to be another terrifying experience! After that, I should probably do more "fun" stuff than these "thrill rides"...like scuba diving or something like that. But you never know...you can be a shark's breakfast...so even scuba diving is fraught with dangers!"

Since this comes from a family member, I take the liberty to waive those copyright issues and publish it.