A Village with Wings: Story of an Indian Para Glider

As the commonwealth games end, a tiny mountain village in Himachal Pradesh northern India has heaved a sigh of relief. Kamal Thakur, a pilot, can fly again after a 20 day ban. They neither fly planes nor jets, they fly humble Para gliders. But the central government believed someone could have flown off in a glider from Billing, one of the best take-off sites in the world and dropped a bomb on New Delhi, 390 kilometers away. After all flying is their life and livelihood.

Kamal has grown up in Bir village, next to the Billing mountaintop of the Dhauladhar range in Himachal Pradesh, India – A country where sports are a passion, but rarely a profession. As a young boy in school, he used to see his uncle fly off from a mountain top to land in the lush green valley. He often tip-toed towards his uncle’s cupboard at night. Just to touch the glider, to feel the silk of the magical wings. Failing his high school was not a misfortune but an opportunity. He stopped studying, and started flying.

What started as a boyish dare took a more serious shape when the New Zealander Neil Bruce, a celebrity in Para gliding circles spotted this skinny boy’s enthusiastic eyes. Neil gave Kamal his glider. It has been seven years of Para gliding passion.

The equipment for Para gliding costs the sky, and the locals can not afford it. “Either we borrow it from the foreigners, or they gift their old ones to the locals who help them out”. Kamal charges anywhere between 2,500 rupees for a single flight upto 10,000 rupees for 5-day training. A part of this money will be saved for his next Glider.

A self-taught teacher and a self-proclaimed superstitious man, he says “I pray to the tiny mountain top temple of the ‘Thermal God’ every time I take-off from Billing. It is partly for Thermal God’s blessings and partly for his forgiveness for flying over him.”

He fears offending him as his shoes face the holy deity as Kamal flies above him.

Before every flight he tells his local students and his foreign clients from Japan, Pakistan, and Africa along with the western nations to take the name of the god and jump off. “I don’t charge extra from foreigners. They are all sports persons. Sportsperson are all poor” says Kamal.

It was in 2007 when this blithe young man’s life took a swivel for the worse. Flying off from Billing, the take-off site near his village his glider collapsed from one side mid-air. Due to the excessive g-force his mind completely blanked out. His brother saw him turn like a top on the ground with his knees nearly 6 inches in the earth; his glider still open and swirling. He had broken all his limbs, his thighs had crushed into tiny pieces.

The road to recovery was long and expensive. And it was paragliding which occupied his thoughts the most. Accidents are not uncommon in his village. His neighbour is paralysed waist-below because of his Para glider partly collapsing mid air 5 years ago.
“If there is an –ing attached to a verb, it will obviously dangerous. Be it paraglid—ing or swimm—ing”

Life is a daily gamble for these young boys. The swirling winds and the blessings of the Thermal God shaped their destinies. It seems that geography handed over this peculiar profession to local boys.