Pk-Day Mumbai, and National Jam 2010 Writeup

So we finally conclude the two-day long event we held this year for our second annual Parkour India National Jam, which we clubbed together with our preponed fourth annual Parkour Mumbai Pk-Day (Pk-Day 2010). Actually it concluded two days ago, but I was so tired and sleepy (but not less than the APK guys), that I just about finally managed to garner enough energy to sit and write it down.

We saw a huge turnout this time - 30 people, which is the largest figure we have ever had so far in a Parkour Jam in this country. Not only did people from other parts of the country join Parkour Mumbai in the jam, but our good friends from American Parkour/The Tribe, who were in the country for performances at IIT-Guwahati, also joined us for the celebrations and jamming (which is the reason we had to keep the Pk-Day early this year).

A big shout out and a huge thanks to everyone from outside that made it to the jam - APK, Chennai Parkour, Parkour Hyderabad, and Parkour Nashik. This wouldn't have been possible without all of you.

Day 1:
We started off by having a small, private jam at the Gym on the afternoon of the 6th. I drove down to the hotel where the Tribe was staying. They had flown over to Mumbai from Guwahati just an hour earlier after having barely slept that night after finishing their final performances.
Hellen wasn't feeling too well and decided to stay back, Jereme and Meredith hadn't been able to make it down to Mumbai, and Ryan never managed to come down to India, so that meant there were only 5 people that could make it to the gym in the end - Mark, Justin, Frosti, Knox and Travis. I had room for 4 others in my car, but hiring a rickshaw to follow us all the way from Juhu to Kandivali East with just one person was pointless. So Frosti decided to sportingly ride in my cramped trunk instead. Must have been quite an experience for him to feel all the bumps of the pothole-ridden Indian roads first-hand, which only get magnified where he was sitting.

We reached the gym and hooked up with the Chennai Parkour guys who had already gotten there early that same morning and were staying at the SAI guesthouse where I'd gotten them rooms. So they had already played around on Megan Fox for a bit and seen the gym. However, they were resting in their rooms after lunch when we got there with the Tribe, and I had to go and get them. As soon as the Tribe saw Megan Fox however, they were off, doing stuff like crazy. Justin in particular reminded me of Oleg Vorslav as he kept moving about the bars, never coming down, staying mostly on the top level. Unfortunately, I missed most of it since my camera decided to act up at the same time, showing strange 'clean your camera head' error messages. This meant I could not record the highlight of the entire jam, and just hope Mark and Susheel captured some of the action on their still cameras. The CPK guys seemed a bit apprehensive and stayed mostly out of the way, choosing to watch Justin, Frosti and Travis do their thing from the sidelines instead. Whenever I could get my mind off the disaster with the camera, I got excited enough to join the guys in the fun on the bars. Vishwa, despite his bad shoulder, also joined in from time to time, executing some brave maneuvers.
One thing I noticed was that the CPK guys are really good with Handstands and kept doing some impressive press handstands on the bars. Gotta work hard at those here in Mumbai.

In the middle of all of this, two additional members joined us, right after getting off their trains - the heads of Parkour Hyderabad and Parkour Nashik respectively - Vinay Sagar and Shivam Aher. But they were simply too tired to do anything, and just hung around for a while, and then retired to their rooms.

So after a while, it started raining again, and everyone moved to the gym. The guys had already gotten the boxes and crash mats outside and were practicing when I got back in after showing Vinay and Shivam to their rooms at the guesthouse. Now I do not remember most of what went down in the gym, everyone was doing their own thing all over, so I just hung back, spoke a bit to people here and there, and participated in some stuff every now and then. The things I do vaguely remember is people creating a kong-able obstacle over which Frosti started leading everyone to do these huge kongs, and in another corner a crash-mat setup where everyone started flipping like crazy.

By 7 PM, it was getting late and the APK guys and I needed to leave and get some sleep or we wouldn't have woken up early the next day, so we started rounding everyone up. Problem was, everyone was having so much fun, no one wanted to stop. It was almost 8 PM before we managed to pack everything and leave the gym, but we left the CPK guys still training in there because they didn't have to travel far to get to either food or lodging. Frosti hopped back into my trunk for another bumpy ride.

We got back to Juhu around 9 PM, but that wasn't the end of it. The APK guys only managed to get to bed by midnight because the restaurant they had dinner at had some pretty slow service, and I wasn't done organizing things for the next morning yet, so I managed to go to bed only by midnight as well. For a while there was this scare that one of the guys supposed to bring a car the next morning wasn't really serious about it, so it took me more than an hour to sort the whole thing out and get the plan back on track. (Little did I know the plan was going to get thrown out of whack one after the other the next day anyway.)

Coming to Day 2:
I always knew going trekking in the hills in the middle of the monsoons was a bit of a gamble. For a couple of days last week around this time, things looked really hopeful with the sun coming out for the first time in three months. But it started pouring down around Sunday once again, but I didn't give up hope. My reasoning was that the weather in Khandala is different from that in Mumbai, with the weather in Mumbai itself not being consistent in different parts of the city. For instance, Juhu was all dry and sunny on Monday and Kandivali was all wet.

But the APK guys were here only for a few days, and the date for the 7th had been set a month ago, with a lot of people taking leave from their work/colleges for that day in advance, and the Parkour India guys booking their train tickets accordingly. The gym had also not been booked for the 7th but only for the 6th, with gym booking charges per day quite high. So this was a gamble we had to take. There was no way of knowing whether we might find it completely dry and sunny either after reaching Khandala. So we decided to brave it anyway.

My going to bed late the previous night meant I got up a little late. Which saw me reaching the hotel where the Tribe was staying 10 mins late. Two of the guys were already waiting in the Tavera below the hotel. I went inside and saw Mark already up and about. But there was no sign of the other guys. Mark told me about their evening, and we went upstairs to see what the other guys were up to. I found myself waking them up instead. Frosti and Travis didn't even have an alarm in their room, and Justin and Knox's alarm said it was 5:30 when in fact it was 6:45 AM. Hellen still wasn't feeling too good, and for a while it looked like Mark would have to stay back with her, but she decided to brave it after all. They all decided it would be good to have a little breakfast before embarking, especially Hellen, who hadn't eaten much the previous day. So we got delayed even more.

Finally we all managed to reach the actual meet-up point near the airport a full hour late. Everyone else was already there, and on time for a change, and had to wait for me instead. This is where things started to go a bit wrong. I was in a highly distracted state of mind, and on top of it, it didn't look like the rains had any intention of ceasing. Since we were late, I didn't have any time to do any preparations for the jam that I had planned earlier, which included exchanging cell numbers of two people in every car, and allocating people to the cars properly to leave room to pick up two of my teammates later from New Bombay. And on top of it, starting from that point in time onwards, I managed to spectacularly lose my way and take the wrong turn no less than 5 times the entire day in my own damn city!

On the way to Khandala, after a little bit of confusion magnified by the unceasing rains, we managed to pick up my two teammates and make our way to McDonald's on the Panvel highway for a brief pit-stop, and breakfast for all those who had shown up at the meet-up point punctually and were all hungry as hell. We then made our way to Khandala, where we were held up for an hour once again because one of the cars had broken their seat-belt in Panvel and went off to repair it, and were running late. I do not know what time we reached Khandala, how long we waited there, and what time we finally started the trek, because outside everything looked the same - bleak and cloudy and overcast, with specks of rain covering the horizon.

Half the guys weren't carrying any lunch, so after shopping for some in town, we were finally off on our way. We did a head-count and made our way down to Saint Mary's Villa behind which the cliff leads down to the bottom of the river valley through steep and treacherous pathways.

Even climbing the short way down from the highway to the bluff on the cliff where the trail down to the valley began was very slippery and moss-covered, so with rain pouring down on our heads incessantly, things looked very treacherous indeed.
No one from Guwahati had deemed it necessary to inform the Tribe that June to September is monsoon season in India, so they should all carry rain gear, and I made the mistake of forgetting to inform them about it as well, so the afternoon of the jam, right before we were about to set off, we discovered that none of them had any protection from the rain at all. Hellen managed to obtain a spare rain-jacket from someone and atleast had some respite from it all. I felt very bad to see them all getting wet and cold in their thin layers of clothing, and it looked like things were only going to get worse.

So I gathered everyone around on the cliff and laid out the whole deal before them. Told them we knew the whole trip was a gamble from the start, but we would never have known about it if we hadn't even given it a shot. Some of the guys, including me, had a good mind to turn back, but most still wanted to go on. Mark said that in the end everyone had to choose for themselves. We decided with the latter. So we went further down the sloping cliff and came upon a beautiful vista in front of us. Clouds covering the tops of mountains and cliffs which fell in tiny rivulets and mountain waterfalls into the river snaking below. In the distance on the face of the cliffs on the far side, I pointed out to everyone a waterfall path down the mountain similar to the one we were supposed to take to the valley below. At the same time, Partha came back from further below the path and asked me to have a look at our intended path. Sure enough, it was a raging torrential river flowing over a steep, slippery rocky path. It didn't look like a feasible route down, not for the entire group anyway while it was raining hard above.

Everyone just gathered around the cliff to enjoy the view for a bit while me and a few students conferred as to the next course of action. We were contemplating going to alternate locations near Khandala, but the rainfall was too heavy and the land too slippery for me to be comfortable going to any place which involved climbing with such a large group. In the end we just ended up hanging around the cliff for an hour, enjoying the view as people took photographs, and dispersed in groups here and there. Frosti took a large group with him to an adjoining cliff and gave them a long workshop, and just being Frosti in general. Travis took another group with him to play PDQ in the rain, as Mark chased after some water-buffaloes. I missed most of the action around this time as I sat down on the cliff edge with Justin to have a nice long chat.
Some of the braver ones decided to try make their way down the river-path anyway, and went about halfway down.

The rains had begun to slow down by now. Finally when it was evident that despite the rains slowing down, they weren't going to let off completely, and it was impossible to try and climb down the river with our bags, and without the food in them we would probably die of starvation in the valley below, and the fact that it would get increasingly difficult to climb back up as the day wore on and the rains continued, we decided to head back to town.

I would like to take this moment to profusely thank Mark Toorock, for initiating India's first actual Leave No Trace, where we helped clean up the spot before leaving. We used to follow Leave No Trace in our jams before, but only in spirit, where we strove not to leave behind any trace or litter our surroundings, but we were unsuccessful in our efforts to actually get everyone to help clean up any place. Thanks and big props again to Mark, who has over the years initiated many good efforts within the Parkour community, the most notable being Leave No Trace, and for finally bringing it over to India. We hope to continue the efforts here in subsequent jams.

We came back to the parking spot where everyone had lunch, and I gave everyone a false hope that we might be able to relocate to the gym for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the gym at SAI is rented out by them most of the times and isn't usually available. You usually have to make bookings in advance, and then, also pay them a hefty charge for using it. I had already gone through this entire process for booking the gym the previous day, so personally I only had this tiny little hope that we might get to use the gym at all. Nevertheless, I decided to call up the officer at SAI on our way back home and see if the gym was free and if he would let us use it. No luck. His phone seemed out of reach the entire drive back to Mumbai from Khandala.
Everyone knows I do not even carry a cell phone, and that was the first time in my life I actually broke the one traffic rule in the city that can get you in trouble - not over-speeding, but talking on cellphone while driving. (On a side, but related note, I was driving back home from the gym the day after the jam, and I saw a traffic cop take a motorcyclist aside at a signal because he had earphones on under his helmet. The cop first checked what he was listening to on the earphones, apparently checking the decibel level, and dissatisfied, asked him to pull over. Don't know what happened next because my signal went green by that time.)

So all the cars finally reached the airport again, back where we had started on the disappointing journey, and we were no close to a resolution. Everyone was very disappointed by the way the expensive (at 300 bucks a piece for fuel costs) trip to Khandala which was ruined by the rains, and I risked a mutiny on my hands if I didn't take them all to the gym to make up for it that evening. So in a last-ditch attempt, I made a call to the director of SAI himself, disturbing him in a meeting he was attending outside SAI, and quickly explained the situation to him and asked him if we could use the gym that evening.
To our great joy, he actually agreed and didn't charge us anything for training there. We quickly sent everyone on their way so that they could get there as soon as they could through the rush-hour traffic and start training and make the most of the evening. On the way, I had to drop Mark and Hellen, who were riding in my car, because Hellen was feeling unwell again and wanted to get to the hotel. Finally, after taking an hour and fifteen minutes to cover a fifteen minute distance, everyone landed at the gym.

I won't try to describe what went down at the gym, because what did happen was the same sort of stuff that happens at most jams, and you will get to see enough of it in the photographs and videos that will start showing up online, but needless to say, everyone finally had a lot of fun, and I had a shot at redemption for giving them a fitting conclusion to a well-planned jam gone lousy. Once again, when it was high-time to leave, we had a difficult time dragging everyone away from the gym and it took us the better part of an hour to finally get everyone to say their goodbyes, and then say them about 5 times over and over again.

I drove the Tribe back to their hotel (which is pretty close to where I live). Frosti was relieved that since it was just four of them this time, he didn't have to ride in my 'boot' (lol Knox) again.
It was still 11 PM before we all finally managed to shower and have dinner. Luckily for me, I could sleep all I wanted the next morning, but the poor guys from the Tribe had to get up early again.

This finally brings an end to an eventful two days of jamming unprecedented in India. Hope to have as much fun again next year, if not more. Stay tuned for Sunday, November 20, 2011. (that is, unless it gets preponed or postponed due to any reason again.)