Spirits of Air

SPIRITS OF THE AIR. By Kurt Diemberger. Pp. 304, 7 colour and 52 b/w illustrations, 10 sketches and 8 maps, 1991. (Hodder & Stoughton, London, £17.99).

Sometimes I find myself remembering an hour on the crest of a peak in the Shaksgam Dolomites, high above the glacier world. A butterfly dances around me in the warm light of the sun.

What does it hope to find up here? Perhaps it is wondering the same about me_
‘I want to know ___’ it seems to say.
What brings me here?
Because I want to know something, too. And I am not alone. We have met one another.
Diemberger ends this second biography with the above quote.
This is the story of his life, flying like a butterfly over different mountain ranges and events.

He starts with the Karakoram, but immediately takes us through a plane crash in the Alps. Then event after event unfolds, till we reach the Hindu Kush where in 1967, Diemberger climbed several peaks and explored the area of Noshaq.

There is an interesting chapter of a meeting with Reinhold Messner in Hotel Narayani in Kathmandu. We are introduced to the world of mountaineers in the bar. The story continues to Greenland, Makalu and finally to the Shaksgam valley.

Diemberger’s first biography Summits and Secrets was a landmark. But it is always to difficult to live up to such expectations. In a way comparisons are not fair, for the life of same person does take different paths. Moreover the most important event in the author’s life during this period, K2, is covered in an another book, by him, The Endless Knot.

Relax and enjoy these flights of the Spirits of the Air (as per an Eskimo proverb quoted in the book). These events give you a glimpse of a mountaineer’s life. And this butterfly is still going to fly more.

HARISH KAPADIA