International Achiever’s Day

That evening near Churchgate, my friend for coffee was a bank manager. We had trekked and climbed together several times. The conversation turned to the last trek he had done.

It had been a small hike to a well-known pinnacle with multiple climbing routes to the top. The day my friend got there, a group of rock climbers were attempting the routes. It was International Women’s Day and the outdoor club in question wished to see its lady members successfully on the top.

My mind drifted to how elevation is perceived in society and how it combines with the structure of a peak for imagery. Many reach the mountain’s base. Only few reach the narrow summit. It instantly evokes elimination, competition, getting ahead. I have heard many in the outdoors say “survival of the fittest”, without realising how true and amazingly boring — not to mention narcissist — that paradigm is.

More to life

Surely life has more textures. Climbers labouring up difficult routes don’t obsess with success as much as with the next move. Some live the moment; others enjoy, and some become nervous wrecks. Success is what those on the ground make of the summit or what those on the top face, once back.

It is a study in contrast that we can’t banish from the mind. And because it haunts in the achievement-ridden world, marketing loves to taunt us with pictures of success. When those ladies reach the top, they would probably be just happy or worrying about the descent. For those below, the photo announces ‘International Women’s Day.’

My friend had no appetite for the journalist’s overactive mind. He accepted the outdoor club’s intention as an enjoyable day spent climbing with a fine accomplishment alongside. For him, the corruption of summits started in the city where every other day from Women’s Day to Father’s Day and a day for day’s sake, the media bombards us with ‘achievers.’

He sipped his coffee and said, “I was thinking how quietly and unknown to everyone, the club observed International Women’s Day with their lady members climbing that pinnacle. In the city, they load everything with success and winning.” Outside the cafe the commuter rush gathered momentum. The Railways were approaching their defining image — peak hour — when they preen, elevated from other railway systems in the world.

Image management

A foreign climber once told me of one of the most famous mountaineers of her country. With all the publicity he managed to garner for his summits, he had become a lightweight in the mountaineering fraternity and a heavyweight with couch potatoes watching TV. Increasingly, staying away from the media isn’t a bad idea. Just do your work.

But it’s hard because the contemporary idea of work is not to do but to be seen doing. With media easily accessed, everyone is larger than life in their self-conferred moments of glory. It gives you elevation in society. “I hope those people did not return from the pinnacle and talk to the media of what they did,” my friend said. He sipped his coffee. At work, he was labelled ‘difficult’. He had seen the view from a mountain top several times and I suspect experienced the most obvious — everything. It’s like standing on an overhead bridge and watching the crowd at a suburban station as means to understanding Mumbai. That’s the only gift of elevation and the real meaning of summit. The rest is media and International Achiever’s Day.

(The author is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)