April 2013
from home, aged seven. He was a troublesome kid and had thrashed a classmate, had “broken his bones”, so the school dismissed him and he ran away fearing his parents’ wrath. He went to the small town of Bagalkot, working in a sweetmeat shop until he was 12. He left because the owners were constantly abusing him. He then began a long walk to Chitradurga, sustaining himself by raiding bee hives and sugarcane, and eventually started working as a household help with a family. One day they accused him of stealing money. Bitter and disgusted, he decided to end his life. He went to the Chitradurga fort, spotted a boulder, and started climbing it, wanting to jump off from the summit. It was his 18th birthday. He was about to throw himself off the boulder when he saw people cheering for him. They were astonished by his climb up the boulder and had no idea he was planning to kill himself. “I felt better,” says Jyothi. “The next day I returned to the fort and saw a monkey climbing a boulder, and I thought – if he can do it, so can I. And so I started climbing the boulders and fort walls.” He worked as a construction labourer to make ends meet, spending all his spare time and money at the fort walls and rocks of Chitradurga, befriending the monkeys there, and trying to replicate their stunts. Over the years, he has become an internet and TV celebrity. One video shows him scaling a wall, stopping half-way and, using his hand as a pivot, flipping his body around, some 15 feet off the ground. Another has him performing a leg split as he balances himself on his hands at the edge of a wall. Most of his antics have elements of buildering and parkour, and a fall would cause death or severe disability. The climbing community is divided in its opinion of his skills. While some rate him highly, others believe he has some technical deficiencies, which explains why he hasn’t done too well in competitions – a fact he attributes to the lack of training on a competition wall. There’s no doubt, however, that he occupies a unique place in the still-emerging Indian climbing story. Most climbers believe it’s time for him to stop risking his neck. “Climbing should be a personal thing,” says a senior climber. “Showmanship is the last reason you should be climbing. And the kind of stunts he does… if he has a bad fall, it’ll be over. There’s nobody to take care of him.” But climbing is the only thing that matters to Jyothi Raj, and he is determined to push the envelope. “I’m told to be careful,” he says, “But you can’t achieve anything if you are too careful.” He does come across as an earnest simpleton. He wears the Indian national flag
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as a headscarf because the date of Indian independence holds great significance for him. “I was born on 15 August 1987, and it was on 15 August 2005 that I started climbing,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to be in the army, and to shoot our enemies. But because I cannot be in the army, I’m asking my students to join. I cannot get a passport because I don’t have a ration card. People say, get married and you’ll get a ration card. But why would I want to ruin somebody’s life? My own life is very insecure.”
Editor: Dev S Sukumar Design: Venkatesh E N Content copyright DUSTY TRAILS www.facebook.com/dustytrailsindia www.issuu.com/dustytrails For advertising, contact: 0-9611 833 630 or mail: dustytrails76@gmail.com Published at: Print Factory, Bangalore. Conserve paper. Once you’re done reading, pass this on to a friend or place in a public reading space.