It takes luck to die doing what you love...

- Talk-Think-Shishir Ramavat

- 'Mountains are my life, my religion. Now it is too late to do anything else in life. A mountain is not a stadium on whose ground you play matches and achieve achievements. For me the mountain is a temple where I go and practice my religion...!'

How many births are required to get the desired life? And to get the desired death? Those people are truly lucky who have no line of demarcation between job (work, career) and joy (pleasure, love). There is no such thing as 'enough, enough is enough' for them. Achievements in his career only come as commas. If Purnaviraam is to come, he has to assume the guise of death. Many sincere actors around the world have this dream: I will continue to act till the last breath of my life, life will leave my body only when I have makeup on my face...

In Australia, a man named Steve Irwin went mad. The man who became world famous as 'The Crocodile Hunter' spent his entire life smilingly breeding aquatic creatures. For Steve to have an aquatic creature cause his own death was not a pity, but a desirable state of affairs! That day of September 4, 2006. For Steve, it was a routine day like any other. Today he was supposed to shoot a shark underwater for a documentary called 'Ocean's Deadliest' for the Discovery Channel. Along with Steve, a cameraman named Justin Lyons was also going to go under the sea. A research boat took them both to Australia's world-famous Great Barrier Reef, a place home to a variety of marine animals, from turtles to whales.

Steve and his cameraman donned diving gear and got into the water. Today, for who knows why, the water was shallower than usual, so it was difficult to find a safe place where the sharks could sit and wait for the fish. Just before the two come to the decision to cancel the shoot, Steve notices an interesting thing. It was a wonderful fish called stingray. Sides like wide wings, long asked. This tail is its main weapon for self-defense. The total length of a stingray fish can range from five to 16 feet. Steve spent his whole life with sea animals. It was well known that stingrays do not attack fish from the front unless a human teases, accidentally steps on its inquiry, or feels threatened. Steve decided that now that the stringy fish had appeared, let's shoot it. At that time, his little daughter Bindi was in his mind. Bindi used to anchor a wildlife show called 'Jungle Girl'. Steve thought this stingray fish footage would be useful for my daughter's show.

Steve motioned to the cameraman to turn on the camera. Steve began swimming parallel to the stingray fish. The cameraman was shooting from a short distance. The stingray fish gliding amidst the iridescent background of the sea looked very beautiful. Stingray fish generally do not allow humans to approach them. On seeing a man, it either runs away or sinks down into the sand. It just so happened that Steve and the cameraman got too close to the stingray fish while swimming. Fish flared. He wagged his tail hard against Steve's chest. For the first few moments, I didn't realize what had happened. Steve was numb. In such a situation, Steve pointed to the cameraman: keep the camera on... don't stop the recorder!

But within a few moments the seriousness of the situation became clear. Steve's chest was cut two inches deep by the sharp blow of the stingray fish's tail. Blood was gushing out of it and the water started turning red. This was even more dangerous, as the blood would immediately attract sharks and come closer.

The K member present in the boat pulled both of them inside. Steve's condition worsened with excruciating pain. The blow from the stingray fish with its saw-like tail did two things - one was to puncture Steve's lung, and the other was to rip across the chest and go all the way to the heart. Blood had flowed profusely. Steve was rushed to the hospital at breakneck speed in an inflatable speed boat. Steve showed great strength. The paramedics tried hard to keep him from passing out, but Steve's face was turning blue. He lowered his face. His eyes were towards the sea. The sea which was their second home. Steve died in the speedboat before he could reach the hospital. He breathed his last in the midst of the marine life for which Steve had worked all his life to nurture.

Children of martyrs in military families are not afraid of death. Like fathers, uncles or grandfathers who were martyred fighting the enemy, they also proudly join the army. The reaction of Steve's children was similar. When Steve was cremated, his young children made a vow: Like our father, we will spend the rest of our lives in the service of animals. We too will become zoo-keepers like them!

***

In the bottomless ocean, in the vast mountains, what kind of greenery is hidden in nature that the adventurers do not want to leave? What kind of consciousness is there in these various forms of nature, against whose interest even the danger of life becomes dwarfed? Two mountaineers are worth recalling in this context - one, an Austrian mountaineer named Hermann Bull and the other, Anatilo Burkevir of Russia.

Herman's childhood was spent in an orphanage. From a young age he started carving the Alps. Later he started working as a rescuer and trained to become a mountain guide. He achieved his first feat in 1953, by climbing a mountain in the Himalayas known as Nanga Parbat. It is the ninth highest mountain in the world. Till date, apart from Hermann Bull, no other mountaineer has been able to climb this dangerous mountain alone. Even seasoned mountaineers were left in awe of Herman's solo climbing. Because of this achievement, Hermann Bull is remembered as a legend in the mountaineering world.

Did Hermann Bull continue to work as a mountain guide after his solo death-defying ascent of Nanga Pahar? It would have been! Four years later, in 1957, he climbed Broad Peak, which stretches between Pakistan and China and is 26,414 feet high - without an oxygen tank, without a porter to lift the luggage. However, this time he was not alone. He was still not satisfied. A week after climbing Broad Peak, they set out to climb another inaccessible mountain. This time at Chogolisa Peak. This 7665 meter high mountain is also located in the Gilgit-Balistan region of Pakistan. This climb proved fatal for him. An unexpected snow storm arose. Herman forgot the way, an avalanche occurred and Herman fell 900 meters to his death. A part of his dead body was not buried.

An ultra-adventurous Russian mountaineer named Anatilo Burkvir is particularly well-known for his role in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. At that time he saved the lives of many mountaineers. He climbed 10 of the 14 mountains in the world with a height of eight thousand meters (or 26,247 feet). Not once, but many times. Like, he climbed Mount Everest four times. He also died in the middle of the mountains. In 1998, he set out to climb the Annapurna peak. Snow is often deposited on the top of the mountain, creating a distinct and deceptive plain. Anatilo Burkvir was traversing one such treacherous surface when it suddenly collapsed, throwing Burkvir 2,600 feet and losing his life.

Nine months before his death he had predicted that Jojo, while climbing Annapurna something like this would happen and my life might also be lost in it! His family-friends say: If you know everything, don't you take any other line? Burkvir said, 'Mountains are my life, my religion. Now it is too late to do anything else in life...' He once said, 'A mountain is not a stadium on whose ground you play matches and achieve achievements. For me the mountain is a temple where I go and practice my religion...!' Again the same question: How many births is required to get a desired death?