Getting a new high

As a schoolboy, my friends and I used to fly gas balloons from the terrace of the building where I stayed. I still remember the Sikh balloon...

As a schoolboy, my friends and I used to fly gas balloons from the terrace of the building where I stayed. I still remember the Sikh balloon vendor rolling his gas cylinder into my lane and how we rushed to buy his balloons. Today, gas balloons are considered too dangerous, and you can8217;t find such vendors at street corners anymore.

For those of us who were not skilled enough to fly kites, the gas balloon was the next best option. They would float high in the sky in minutes, as we watched in amazement from down below. Long after I had lost sight of my balloon, I would still pretend to myself that I was actually seeing it. Sometimes this puzzled my friends. They could see nothing, but I would still be pointing up at the sky, claiming that my balloon was within sight.

Watching a balloon or kite soar up was a joy that was so unique that it was hard to summon up the required words to describe it. Especially for a schoolboy like me. Hours after my balloon had left my hand, I would imagine its flight and wonder whether it was still bobbing along, or whether it had burst somewhere over China! We used to write our names on the balloon hoping someone, somewhere, will read it. Sometimes I wished that my balloon could carry me up, up and far away, and that I could get to watch the world from a point somewhere in the vast skies.

Therefore when Vijaypat Singhania took off in a balloon recently, it brought back a rush of old memories. I can imagine the excitement he experienced as he flew his balloon to a record high8212;in spite of some technical snags. What a great feat. It should truly make every Indian proud. I would call it a small child8217;s dream and a great man8217;s conviction come true.

In a world where some are too scared to even travel in a plane, flying all alone in a balloon requires real courage. Although there are many entries in the Guinness Book of World Records, for excellence in various fields, I have always thought that some of the entries in it were quite silly8212;like growing the longest nails, for instance. But defying gravity and scaling the skies to unknown heights makes a worthy entry indeed.