The Day I Jumped Out of an Airplane
Tags: Travel, This Happened To Me, Inspiration, Storytelling, Self

“I hope I won’t get scared in the last minute!” exclaimed Vijith keeping his eyes fixed on the distant aircraft steadily descending from the vivid blue sky. I looked at him, he did look a bit nervous. That was unexpected. After all, he was the one who had planned that trip. He was the one who went around at the office inviting everyone to join.

This happened five years ago, on Nov 1st, 2015. It was a clear sunny day in the lush green suburb of North Wollongong, 85 km away from Sydney City.

It felt strange that Vijith was nervous. I looked around. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone else too had a pinch of fear in their eyes while their smiles silently spoke loud words about how excited they were. “Are you scared?” Meria asked me while she carefully dabbed sunscreen on her hands. I realized that I was also showing mixed signs of nervousness and ecstasy.

Was it silly to be scared at that point? I guess not because our fear was the drive behind the dive. We were not jumping just to see those birds-eye-views from the sky. Instead, all of us were silently searching for a greater sense of achievement that escalates our self-esteem. And those beautiful sceneries were just gifts, rather than goals, for those who are bold enough to come out of the safe zone.

“Let's go to the beach” called out Sujith, interrupting my thoughts “We won’t be flying until 2. We have plenty of time”.

The eight of us walked to North Wollongong Beach and the two amateur cameramen among us started experimenting with their expensive toys.

The sea was cerulean blue with gentle waves that had milk-like crests. The sky was dotted not with clouds but with parachutes that seemed too tiny due to the vastness of the sphere above. Many more parachutes flew over the sea and safely landed on the ground nearby. Everyone started looking less scared and more excited as each parachute landed. Time passed by and all we did was taking photos and watching the divers.

“We need to move on…” called out Mithun, the eldest among us. “The thing is,” he said “We will have to sign certain forms before getting our equipment for the dive. If we go to their office now, we can avoid the last-minute rush.” Some of us wanted to stay at the beach a bit more longer but knew that it was pointless to argue. Mithun walked towards the office and we followed.

The forms to be signed were funny in a cruel way.

The statements were like “I declare that if I get hurt or die the diving company is not responsible” and the ‘to-be-filled’ columns asked “The contact details of the person to be contacted in case you die”.

“So why are we doing this ??” I asked myself again “Oh yeah... self-esteem; challenge; pride”

After securing all our belongings in lockers, a lady handed out some wild equipment to us. Following her instructions, we attached that equipment to our bodies. Later on, we were greeted by our diving instructors. They led us to a bus. And after a 20 minutes long bus journey we reached a mini-airport quite far from the North Wollongong beach. My instructor explained that we would cover this distance from the beach within seconds in the air. His name was Ralph. He was a friendly old man who was twice my age and thrice my size. Ralph told me stories of his previous dives. He had been diving for years and he had lots of stories to tell.

We boarded a jump-plane from the airport. Inside it, we had to sit on the floor since jump-planes didn’t have seats. In fact, it barely had space for 16 divers and 1 pilot. Ralph sat behind me, Aswin on my left, Vijith’s instructor in front, and on my right side, it was the window.

The view from the window was amazing, but it was not new.

I’ve been on helicopters twice before — once above The-12-Apostles and once over Pokolbin. Even though this wasn’t a helicopter, the overall view was pretty much the same — aerial view of sea and land. In fact, even tall hills can give you a high elevation view. The only difference is that when you are on an aircraft, earthlings would seem even smaller.

I remembered the first time I saw a high elevation view back in Kerala. I was a child. It wasn’t very high, still, I was scared. The years that followed gifted me with many such experiences. High elevation was no longer scary.

In a short while it started to get boring — both Ralph’s stories and the view. I looked around. Aswin’s face was red. Mithun seemed okay. I couldn’t see the faces of the rest of the crew but could sense the air of nervousness creeping in again. The instructors were cracking jokes, but my mates didn’t seem to be in a mood to laugh.

I looked out again, the elevation was steadily getting higher and higher. It started becoming interesting.

Soon the elevation was so high that the houses and roads weren’t properly seen. The ocean looked magnificent. The land, even though it was mostly green, had a mixture of hues here and there as if an artist had mixed oil paint on a palette.

“We are 14000 feet above sea level and the temperature is…” an instructor started announcing. “That sounds very high.” I thought “14000 feet !!! How much is that in kilometers? 1000 meters is 1 km... but what about feet? Bad time to do the math. Why can’t they announce it in meters?”

While I was lost in not-so-significant thoughts, I felt something fall from the plane. And suddenly I heard a scream and realized that it was a person. No, it was two people — Sujith and his instructor. They had jumped !!!

No sooner than Sujith’s scream had faded, the next pair jumped. Meria, Alan, Dilip, Vijith, and Aswin jumped. And it was my turn.

“Are you ready?” Ralph asked me. I nodded. We crawled to the aircraft’s door. A strong cold wind blew. A sudden shiver shook my body. My palms suddenly felt wet. “Am I sweating ??” I clutched my side belts.

“On the count of three…” shouted Ralph so loud that I could hear him despite the loud rattling noise of the aircraft engine and the strong wind. “1, 2, 3…” and I remember raising my feet. In a fraction of a second, we were in the air.

We were in the air !!!!

No, we were not floating peacefully in the air. We were falling down with great velocity.

A strong cold wind was blowing against us. The cold air was hitting directly at my face and pushing my cheeks outward as if the wind wanted to tear my face apart. Recalling Ralph’s previous instructions, I looked up and the wind stopped hitting directly at the face. And that’s when I found myself starring at a blue expanse.

The sky looked curved and the horizon infinite. The jump-plane was flying away and it soon turned into a black dot in the vivid blue cloudless sky. Seconds later the black dot vanished into the blue.

Felt a bit dizzy for everything around me was blue, blue, and blue. Avoiding straight hit from the cold wind, I slowly looked sideways down again. Like snakes, roads ran between green and yellow patches on the ground. Waves played with the beach sand imitating the flowing laces of old Victorian gowns. It was a unique feeling. I was in mid-air, floating freely; my legs hanging down like hands. Like any other object under the herculean hands of gravity, I was falling. The vast blue sphere above me; land and sea below me.

The parachute suddenly opened. The pattern of our movement changed in a jiffy. We were no longer falling at great speed but rather slowly floating like a pendulum while still descending down to the ground. The strong rattling sound of the wind was no longer heard. The parachute was under perfect control by Ralph’s strong hands. He directed it towards the sea.

We floated above the cerulean blue Aussie sea for some time. Beautiful, peaceful, and calm. Life ought to be like that sea. Beautiful and peaceful. But most of us are too busy worrying about things that are not worth worrying about at all -the daily battles of deadlines & tasks, the murmurs & opinions of people who don’t matter to us, and many other negative vibes that would live in the limelight only for a day or two.

We often don’t realize that there is a lot more in this world to explore and experience.

Ralph tilted the parachute a bit and it started moving in a different direction. The wind was at his aid. We were now moving closer to the ground. “Are we about to land”, I asked him. “That’s right, Kiddo” replied the giant. “Can we fly around for some more time?” I asked again. He smiled and said no.

We floated above the green patches for some more time, descending lower as each second passed by. And finally, my legs touched the dew-kissed grass.

Vijith came running like a madman as soon as I landed. He gave me a high-five, shouted something in excitement, and ran to the next person who had just landed.

Soon the whole crew gathered, everyone, smiling gleefully as they spoke about their recent adventure in the sky. The sky was slowly turning a bit more cloudy and slightly darker. More parachutes were coming down.

Felt a bit guilty about taking months to plan and book a dive that takes just a few minutes. Felt more guilty realizing that there are a lot more items in my unwritten “to do” list waiting for a tick mark.

For the rest of that evening, my thoughts circled around many questions.

That day ended like any other day when darkness swallowed yellow light in the west. Weekdays and weekends followed. But life didn’t continue as usual as I started seeing goals and dreams from a different perspective. Secretly & silently I thanked everyone and everything that had led me into the sky diving adventure.