Long ago I had read Tom Junod's The Falling Man and feel the way he describes the descent of the man from the burning Twin Towers is unparalleled. I was asked to write about the jump in this case. It took a few seconds for the man to land on the greens but in those few seconds, a lot happened. An edited version of the story appeared in the Indian Express on October 30, 2010. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Fall-and-rise-of-India-s-first-BASE-jumper/704754/
This one's about the jump, and how he fell from the tower, the way I wrote it and I saw it.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, October 29, 2010
The tower looked like a needle that shot up to the sky from the earth
– lean, cowering, and intimidating. At 235 meters, everything looked
puny in front of it, including the man who was to jump from the top,
who was reduced to a dot in the context of the looming tower.
On top of it, at the platform 158 meters from the ground where
spectators lined up early morning to see the “fall”, he hesitated for
a mere two minutes. The winds were rough.
On Thursday, Lt. Col. Satyendra Verma, 42, had felt a little nervous.
His BASE jump, the first in India, was part of the centenary
celebrations of the Corps of Signals, Indian Army. He had proposed the
feat, trained for it, and it was a few hours away.
“I had apprehension. I have jumped from Kuala Lumpur KL Tower, which
is more than 900 feet. But the higher the structure, the less the
danger because then you have time to react and plan. Pitampura tower
was a challenge,” he said. “The winds were strong last evening. I
thought if it continues in the morning, I won’t jump.”
He took the elevator to the top of the structure at 5:30 a.m. Friday.
The jump was scheduled at 6:15 a.m.
“The winds were strong,” he said. “I was hoping the winds calm down
even for a few seconds. I would use the window of opportunity.”
It was man against the force of nature. Man on a mission to prove he
is bigger than his creation, in this case, the tower that formed the
backdrop, the focal point of his base jump. He needed to conquer the
fear, the tower, the nature, and the spectators.
At 6:17, he jumped. A tiny bird falling in the sky, vertically.
For a fraction of a second, his feet swerved. He drifted towards the
left where a eleven storey building stood. For a fraction of a second,
in the space of the blink of the eye, nature took over. If he hadn’t
manoeuvred, harnessed his will and the parachute, he could have hit
the walls, brick and mortar.
“The winds were coming from right hand side. The parachute went in the
direction of the wind. So I had to correct,” he said. “You have to
maintain your body position. Once you tumble, it can be dangerous.”
The winds did shake him a bit. But he managed to get vertical again.
And in his fall, he rose in stature.
At about 120 meters from the ground, after about 2 seconds after he
jumped of the platform, Col Satyendra Sharma pushed the button to open
up the parachute. The green and blue parachute gave him wings. The
gravitational pull, another force of nature, was defeated.
He rose, the green and blue fluttering above him, and he fell. The
steep jump transformed into a slow motion gliding almost. If he hadn’t
opened the parachute, it would have taken all of 4 seconds for him to
hit the ground. The wings broke the speed. He drifted for 15-20
seconds before he landed.
Legs down, he drifted in the sky, the tower behind him, despite the
“environment forces”. He was carried by the wind, and then it was an
effortless fall that started with a determined “jump”.
He landed gently, and before his feet touched the ground, cameras had
already surrounded the first man to ever jump from the high rise
tower.
His wings lay collapsed. As he walked towards the “picture frame”, a
board celebrating the centennial of the Signals, he carried the blue
and green wings that looked like a mutilated butterfly. On his helmet,
the Indian tri colour was pronounced. Two cameras too had been fixed
to it to capture what the earth looked to him from his height as he
fell.
It all took a few seconds. Groggy-eyed photographers and reporters
gasped. A few missed the spectacle. He jumped while they were still
walking towards the spot. Cameras secured in their backpacks, they
looked up, and in moments, the spectacle ended.
The tower looked forlorn. Its height, pride had been breached. It had
been subdued by human endeavour and spirit.
On top of the building, men and women had collected to watch him jump.
“It happened like ‘dhurrrr’ and it was done. Maybe 6-7 frames. That’s
all I got. The light wasn’t too good,” a camera person said.
When he jumped, the skies were a dull grey and orange. Minutes after
Verma attempted India’s first BASE jump, the sun came out. And he had
his moment under the sun, with shutterbugs clicking at the speed of
light.
His family – wife Monika and a son, 9, and daughter, four-and-a-half
years – weren’t there to witness his free fall.
“I think she was scared,” Verma said, as he laughed.
Verma has trained in Kuala Lumpur and has performed BASE jumps at KL
Tower in Malaysia and Perrine Bridge in the USA.
Now, he wants to attempt wing flying in the Himalayas next year. He
started training in BASE jumping a year ago but has been involved in
adventure sports for a long time.
“It is adrenaline rush. It is a thrill from conception to planning.
You get a great satisfaction,” he said.
At the lawns of the TV Tower, a few staff from the DD were standing.
For three months they had been roped in to facilitate the event, JR
Arora, station engineer, said..
Cameras had been installed at the ramp on top of the tower on Thursday
night. Each moment of the free fall had to be captured, history had to
be manufactured through the lens.
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