Indraneel Kar's Speech at the Outlook Traveller Awards 2018
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00:03 Good evening.
00:05 And I would like to thank Outlook for giving me
00:08 this opportunity to talk about my adventures at this place.
00:10 And well, I am doing this for 26 years now,
00:16 walking the Himalayas.
00:17 So I'm kind of a Himalayan adventurer,
00:20 if you can say that.
00:21 And to put my experiences in 10 minutes or 12 minutes
00:25 becomes a bit difficult for me.
00:26 So I would possibly start from where I started.
00:30 I'll give you some experiences which
00:31 have not been very pleasant, which
00:33 have been very, very pleasant.
00:35 And as I talk, you can see some--
00:38 I'm a photographer as well.
00:40 So you can see some photographs from different treks
00:42 which I've done in India from the Himalayas.
00:45 And I wanted to talk about these photographs also.
00:48 But then I guess we don't have that much time.
00:49 I might take a day to talk about my experiences
00:52 or about each photograph which we see here.
00:55 So to start with, it is adventure.
00:59 OK, fine.
01:00 So it's like Helen Keller said that either your life
01:05 is a wild adventure or it's nothing.
01:08 Now, I believe in one very important thing
01:11 is that sometimes when you are--
01:13 I'll give you a very small thing from where I started.
01:15 It's like I was going on a train with my parents to some place.
01:19 And the train stopped in between.
01:21 And I wanted to just get out of the train.
01:23 I was seeing through the window.
01:24 And I saw that, OK, there is this nice mountain.
01:27 I think it was Igatpuri while we were going to Mumbai or some
01:30 place.
01:31 So I thought, yeah, I'll go by foot,
01:34 see what kind of place is this.
01:36 Because I was seeing it through a window.
01:38 I was not experiencing it in a frame.
01:41 I wanted to go get inside and get a 3D effect of it.
01:44 So I got down.
01:45 Yeah, it's different that I nearly missed the train later.
01:47 Because I was really inside.
01:49 And I had to really run in and do this thing.
01:53 Now, this is way back when I was in school.
01:55 And I am from Delhi.
01:57 I studied in the Air Force Golden Jubilee Institute
01:59 in Subarabang, if you know.
02:00 So the first trek which was initiated to me in my school
02:04 was a trek from Dehradun to Mussoorie.
02:06 We had a nice school trip over there.
02:08 And everybody went by bus.
02:10 But four of us, including our games teacher,
02:12 we walked from Dehradun to Mussoorie.
02:14 And we took the jungle route.
02:16 So now, that was the first thing which I did as--
02:19 if you look at an adventure point of view,
02:21 it was like you were going through the jungle.
02:24 You never knew where you were going, what the nature was,
02:27 how it was.
02:28 And the bus went.
02:29 And we were, I think, four hours later.
02:30 We reached also.
02:31 And the best part of adventure, which I felt at that point,
02:35 was the achievement part.
02:38 It's like you have done something to achieve that.
02:40 Feeling the place after you have actually slogged it out
02:44 and you have gone to that place.
02:45 Now, adventure is not always about slogging it out
02:48 and really risking it and stuff.
02:51 There are first steps to adventure.
02:52 There are things like you just take the first step.
02:54 Like you just get down of the car, walk the muck,
02:56 and go to the place.
02:57 That is also a kind of adventure which you can do.
02:59 And I have done a lot of things like that.
03:02 And I have walked a lot of Himalayas.
03:04 And at one point in time, near Kanchanjunga Base Camp,
03:07 I got also stranded in between the mountain and the avalanche
03:11 for two nights.
03:12 I survived that because I was on the other side of the group.
03:17 And the avalanche fell in between.
03:18 And it was 30 feet of snow on one side.
03:20 And on the other side, we had the third highest peak
03:22 of the world.
03:22 That is Mount Kanchanjunga.
03:24 So that was an ordeal which definitely
03:27 was not very pleasant for me.
03:29 But yes, when you're into it, you
03:31 get prepared to do these kind of things.
03:34 Your mindset-- it's very important
03:35 to have that mindset because the difference between ordeal
03:39 and adventure is attitude.
03:41 It is about the attitude, the attitude
03:44 which you should have to get into that kind of a thing,
03:46 to embark on such a thing, which becomes so much surreal to you
03:51 that it stays in your head throughout.
03:54 So I always tell people that, why do you want to go in a car?
03:58 A car is also a different kind of adventure.
04:00 But since I'm a walker, I feel like every step you walk,
04:05 the journey which you make becomes the destination for you.
04:08 Because there are two kinds of people who enjoy--
04:10 either you enjoy the destination or you
04:12 enjoy the travel part of it.
04:14 That is one part of the stories.
04:16 Second part is that, what kind of mindset
04:19 do you need to get into this kind of thing?
04:21 If I talk about myself, I was in corporates before.
04:25 And then I left it 17 years back, opened my company,
04:28 and I started it.
04:29 I did the courses and all which you generally
04:31 do, mountaineering courses and everything.
04:34 But then to get into that kind of a thing
04:36 where you want to actually do this,
04:38 you want to really go to the mountains,
04:40 you want to jump into the water, you
04:41 want to feel the water, soothing your senses,
04:44 where you get into that fog which engulfs your senses,
04:47 your body, and you are going through it.
04:49 You're going through the nature, into the nature,
04:52 for the nature, for yourself.
04:54 This is, I feel, the biggest essence of being in adventure.
04:57 And it is something which pulls you back.
05:00 It seriously pulls you back.
05:01 It pulls you back so much that--
05:04 I could not survive in a corporate world because
05:06 of that, because I was like, every three months,
05:08 I needed a holiday.
05:10 And obviously, nobody's going to give you that.
05:11 So you are out of it.
05:12 You're always like-- you come out of the thing,
05:14 you get irritable.
05:15 That, OK, I need to get back.
05:16 I need to do something.
05:16 That's when I thought, OK, let's open a company where I'm
05:19 traveling with my clients, at least.
05:20 And I'm sorted there.
05:21 So I'm doing that.
05:22 So eight months, I am in the mountains right now.
05:26 But yes, another important thing I would like to talk here
05:29 is, when you get into an adventure kind of a thing,
05:34 you have to become also very responsible
05:36 because you are interacting straight on,
05:39 head on with nature.
05:41 It is not-- you're not looking at it in a mirror
05:44 or in a window or something like that.
05:45 You are seriously in it.
05:48 So you have to be very responsible about how
05:50 you look at it, how you take care of it, how you protect it.
05:54 That is very important.
05:55 That is the biggest issue today.
05:57 I have been walking for so long.
06:00 I have seen the Zematang Glacier,
06:02 which is the Kanchenjunga Glacier,
06:03 retreating 2 and 1/2 kilometers in 25 years.
06:07 Like, the place we used to actually use crampons
06:11 to walk on, now we camp over there.
06:13 It has become that bad nowadays.
06:15 So this is like one of the biggest things for me
06:18 to stand here and talk to you is that, first of all,
06:21 I want everyone at least should take one step towards adventure,
06:25 should take one step towards embracing the nature
06:27 while you're on any of your holidays.
06:29 India is definitely the best place to do this.
06:31 And I am so proud to be an Indian
06:34 to have been exploring Himalayas like this.
06:36 I don't think anywhere you can get this kind of diversity
06:40 if you talk about the culture, if you talk about anything,
06:43 from flora to fauna to everything.
06:46 And also, apart from the protection part of it,
06:50 it is also that you have to be responsible
06:52 towards yourself also.
06:53 Preparation is one of the very big things
06:55 while you get into an adventure.
06:57 Choose your adventure.
06:58 There are a lot of places you can go to take your first steps.
07:01 You don't have to do a full-fledged trek,
07:03 or you don't have to do a river rafting expedition,
07:05 or a climbing expedition, or really go summit something
07:08 or nothing.
07:10 Go for a weekend adventure.
07:11 Just go for two days.
07:12 Just go walk, explore yourself, and understand
07:15 that what is it to be.
07:16 People who have not-- this is for people
07:18 who have not ever been into an adventure kind of a thing.
07:21 Because I go for unedited adventure.
07:24 That is like you go for yourself.
07:26 Go yourself.
07:27 Explore yourself.
07:28 Go through that window.
07:29 From where you're looking at nature, go through that window.
07:32 Jump into the water and feel the water.
07:33 Feel that breathlessness in you.
07:35 And then go reach somewhere and enjoy the beautiful vista
07:39 which will be in front of you.
07:40 This is something which we really have to offer in India.
07:44 That is the best part of the story out here.
07:48 And out of this-- see, this is like-- as it's rolling,
07:52 I can show you.
07:52 This is the Nubra Valley back train camel photograph.
07:55 Just after there was a desert storm,
07:58 and then this thing I got.
07:59 This is at Shokar Lake.
08:01 This is how the clouds actually move down in Ladakh
08:06 during this thing.
08:07 See, this is like a McKinney's gold thing.
08:09 This is on a trek from Lamar to Chilling in Ladakh again.
08:13 This is the Kanchenjunga base camp
08:15 trek where this is Pandem.
08:16 It was glowing in sun, in the sunset sun.
08:19 And we had the tents.
08:20 And these are all layers of Ladakh.
08:22 And all these photographs, I can really talk about these things.
08:25 This is the sleeping Buddha from the Kanchenjunga peak
08:28 from Sandakphu.
08:30 This is the Kanchenjunga from-- this
08:31 is where I got stranded.
08:32 The white part you see, this is the place
08:34 where I got actually stranded for two nights
08:36 trying to survive and walk back 75 kilometers in a day.
08:39 So that was seriously something.
08:42 That was not because of mispreparation
08:44 or it was misadventure or something.
08:46 But that was something which happened.
08:48 And nature is so unpredictable that you
08:50 should be always prepared.
08:52 When you are there, you have to be prepared with everything.
08:56 And out of all my experiences, I've actually also have--
08:59 I've made a presentation kind of a thing,
09:02 which is a time lapse kind of a thing, which
09:04 is from all the travels which I have done,
09:06 which includes the Kanchenjunga base camp trek,
09:09 all of the Himalayas, and the Spiti, Ladakh, and everything.
09:13 So after I end my talk here, you can see the presentation,
09:18 which will basically take you to the vistas which you get,
09:22 which you get while you are on an adventure.
09:25 I seriously, since I'm an adventure tour operator,
09:29 and I really want to tell you just
09:33 should go for an adventure in life at least once.
09:35 And then it is my guarantee that you will be hooked onto it.
09:39 You will be seriously hooked onto it.
09:40 I will right now leave you with the presentation to end it
09:43 here.
09:44 And I would like to thank everybody
09:45 for really taking your time and really listening
09:47 to me with such a lot of patience.
09:49 And I would like to congratulate all the people who
09:53 have won awards here and who are going to awards, if you have.
09:55 And I will leave you with the video here.
09:57 Please do enjoy the video.
09:58 Thanks a lot.
09:59 Thanks a lot.
09:59 Good night.
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