BENGALURU: It took B O Prasanna Kumar a trek at the Everest Base Camp in Nepal to realise what calmness really means. “There’s pin-drop silence even during the middle of the day,” says the Chairman of the Indian Plumbing Association, Bengaluru chapter, and the joint managing director of DesignTree Service Consultants. “All you have in front of you is acres of open land and just the sound of your footsteps to keep you company,” he adds. A self-confessed workaholic till about 2008, Kumar didn’t really consider trekking until the next year, when he turned 44.
His interest in trekking was piqued by a trip his wife and mother-in-law took to Kailash Mansarovar. “Every time they got access to a phone they would tell me stories from their trip and I got even more interested in the activity,” he says. And if finding time was difficult, the final push came from the example of his own mother-in-law. “She’s a surgeon and still made time to do the trek. That just inspired me further,” he adds.
While Kumar pursued civil engineering during his under graduation, his post graduation was in environmental engineering. “Trekking provides you a close connection to nature, which also helped me relate to my work better,” he says. Though he began trekking in 2009, it wasn’t until 2013 that it turned into a serious hobby. Kumar now goes on at least one trek a year and besides the Everest Base Camp, he has also been on expeditions to Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Stok Kangri in Ladakh. “While nothing has been finalised yet, I hope to go on the frozen river or Chadar trek in the Zanskar region of Ladakh in January,” he says while speaking of his upcoming trekking plans.
The trek to Mt Kilimanjaro, though difficult, is also one of Kumar’s most memorable experiences. “We would wake up at 6.30am and return by 3.30pm but when you are with a group, you don’t feel the physical fatigue as much,” he explains. The terrain, however, posed some challenges. “It was full of loose gravel and pebbles, so climbing there is a herculean task,” he recalls. But it’s not the walking or climbing Kumar minds as much as tent pitching. Recounting another experience when they started their summit in Ladakh at 9.30pm and peaked at 7.30am, he says, “The trekking portion is okay. It’s after coming down that the fatigue hits and that’s when setting up a tent is difficult,” he says with a small laugh.
Kumar’s love for trekking hasn’t been deterred even by the coronary stent implant he had to undergo in 2012. Instead, he undergoes a complete health checkup before any trek and practises yoga regularly to stay in good shape. The hobby, he says, has also taught him some valuable life lessons. “You can’t stop midway through a trek and realise you have no water or have left behind some of your essentials. Similarly, if you want to do something right in your day-to-day life too, you have to plan well,” he explains.
The trekker has also managed to influence his friends and family with his love for the hobby and often urges his employees to take time off work to pursue their interests. “I would come back to office after the trip and see that they managed to do just fine without me. I realised the importance of this 20 years after working so now I tell others to do the same,” he says.