School Days
Jayal began his mountaineering career while he was a student at The Doon School, where his teachers encouraged his interest in climbing as a way to tame his somewhat unruly nature.
Jayal's first major expedition as a 16-year old schoolboy was to the Awar Valley above Badrinath, reaching 6,000 meters. Other climbs, while still at Doon, included Trisul with Gurdial Singh, a teacher from Doon. While Singh went on to reach the peak of Trisul, where he performed a headstand asana to honor the Hindu god Shiva, Jayal noted his own feelings in lyrical terms: "The grass on which we camped was like a cushion sprinkled with tiny mauve primula and the gentle lapping of the running water recalled melodies from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. I confess a desire to bring my efforts to an honourable conclusion here – as long as somebody got to the top – and revel in this bracing and saner altitude."
It was a remarkable transformation of Doon's most delinquent boy who had became a "gentle, perfect knight"
Read more about this topic: Narendra Dhar Jayal
Famous quotes containing the words school and/or days:
“What a wise and good parent will desire for his own children a nation must desire for all children.”
—Consultative Committee On The Prima. Report of the Consultative Committee on the Primary School (HADOW)
“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms 90:10.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662)