About UsSouth Calcutta Trekkers Association South Calcutta Trekkers Association, a tiny initiative of a group of friends, started walking on the same terrain roughly from the year 1983. Today, when we look back at those footprints left on the face of time, Mallory's words and the question that he was asked become very important for us. In all our modest activities of climbing peaks, trekking in the mountains, camping in the jungles, we have always felt an irresistible urge to come back. We have felt it almost as a compulsion, as an intoxicant, as the point of fulfillment of our lives. And in all these years, many more have joined us. Young minds with fresh enthusiasm have got involved in this endless voyage, in this carnival of joy, sorrow and unrestrained vigor. But the big 'why' still remain unanswered. Mallory's answer also reflected a standard form of human desire - the desire to know. The chief impetus behind all discoveries, all expansions in all ages stemmed from this forceful and arrogant desire. To know is to conquer, to exercise control through conquest. It involves the modernist zeal of progress, of moving towards the mastery of that final truth. Mountains, however, can never be known. They have always eluded such an arrogance of knowledge. Climbing a mountain might give birth to a sense of triumph in mountaineers. Our experiences have, however, been enriched most by our 'failures' in the mountains. Failure, in terms of being unable to reach the summit or to reach the planned destination, are perhaps the best occasions to delve deep, to look for an answer to the irresolvable question. The 'why' behind mountaineering can never be a single, concrete answer. |
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