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Height of excitement
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An adventure camp held on the outskirts of city by the Kerala chapter of NAF attracted students from different schools.
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THEY WERE Tenzing Norgays and Edmund Hillarys in the making.
More than 50 school students braced themselves to climb a craggy rock at Eruthavoor on the outskirts of the city at a camp conducted recently by the Kerala chapter of the National Adventure Foundation. Armed with ropes (8 mm and 10mm), carabiner screws and other climbing gear, they clambered up the 160 ft rock and then rappelled down from the summit. Excitement was writ large on the young faces.
"I want to be a soldier. This camp will help me face some of the army selection tests," said J. Shanmughaprakash of the SLB Government Higher Secondary School, Nagercoil.
Plus Two students from 25 schools in Kanyakumari district too attended the camp. They were members of the National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme, Bharat Scouts, Junior Red Cross and Road Safety Patrol.
"Under the banner of NSS and RSP, we hold regular programmes in different parts of Kanyakumari district to create awareness about traffic rules and civic norms,'' said V. M. John Paul of the Scott Christian Higher Secondary School.
Tents were pitched on an NAF site at Russelpuram for the camp. Apart from rock climbing, river crossing and trekking were also part of the course.
"I love adventure sports. And it was a dream come true to attend a camp with good instructors and where everything, including the food, was offered free of cost," said Anto Kennedy of the Kumarapuram Thoppu Government Higher Secondary School.
The National Adventure Foundation, founded in 1979 by Brigadier Gyan Singh to instil strength and courage in youth, functions with support from the Government and other agencies.
"We are supported by the Union Human Resources Ministry, University Grants Commission and the Kendriya Vidyalayas. Hence, we can offer the courses free or at subsided rates to the participants," said Wing Commander (Retd) S. K. J. Nair, director, NAF (Kerala).
The NAF is led by Maj Gen (Retd) B.C. Khanduri, the Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, and other eminent ex-service men, including Lt. Gen (Retd) P. S. Roy, Lt. Gen. (Retd) R. K. Gaur, Lt. Gen. (Retd) Yuvraj Mehra and Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest.
"The supervision of such experts ensures the safety of the participants of our programmes," said Nair.
Anyone above the age of 12, with an interest in adventure sports, can take part in the activities of NAF, which include water rafting (at Rishikesh, Uttaranchal and Imphal), kayaking and canoeing (Kerala, West Bengal and Rishikesh), parasailing (Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Manipur, Kerala and Nagpur), skiing (Manali, Narkanda, Kufri, Auli and Gulmarg) and paragliding (Manali, Kerala and Manipur).
"A course that might cost $ 3,000 or $ 6,000 in the U.S. is offered totally free of cost by NAF," said S. K. J. Nair. "However, we charge corporate bodies that seek our services as part of their management training programmes. We conducted training programmes recently for a few employees of Wipro and Infosys."
The NAF plans to hold another rock climbing camp on the outskirts of the city next week.
The camp is open to anyone between the ages of 12 and 35 and there is no participation fee.
During the next academic year, NAF will conduct camps for 3,000 students from Kendriya Vidyalayas in the State.
"Unlike their counterparts in other parts of the country, young men and women in Kerala seem to be rather diffident," said Nair. "Adventure sports hardly attract them. The boys and girls are brought up in a very protective environment, and this adversely affects their personalities. Even boys are not allowed by their parents to stay in a tent overnight."
But the NAF is not to be let down by such attitudes. For, its mission is to create "better citizens of tomorrow".
He taught Saddam's boys
HE HAS flown aircraft ranging from low-speed propeller-driven ones to frontline supersonic jets.
Wg Cdr (Retd) S. K. J. Nair, director of the National Adventure Foundation (Kerala), is a former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force, with thousands of hours of flying and teaching experience.
He was also a part of a team of Indian pilots that trained Saddam Hussain's air force, between 1986 and 1988.
"At the Al-Walid base near the Syria-Jordan border, there were 24 young Iraqi trainee pilots. Iraq had a fleet of aircraft including MiG-21, F-7, Mirage-3, Mirage-5 and Sukhai."
Nair was not enamoured of the Iraqi airmen. "They were more devoted to words than to deeds. They lacked the will to learn to fight. The tenacity you normally see in an Indian or Pakistan fighter was missing in an Iraqi soldier," he said.
Nair, however, recalled that Iraq treated him and his colleagues well. "There were instructors from Russia and France too."
Nair remembered Iraq as a "land of dreams". "Being the second largest producer of oil, material success was for their asking. And it's sad to see the country being reduced to rubble."
K. SANTHOSH
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