Cross Country
March 2009
An interview with Debu Choudhury in issue 122 of Cross Country magazine
“I’M FULLY CLOUD PARANOID,” says Debu Choudhury, one of India’s best paraglider pilots. “I got sucked up in quite a small cloud. I put big ears on, but it just got stronger and more turbulent. I got disoriented and knew I had to get down.” He started to spiral, big ears still in. “Down and down and down,” he says. “And then I saw the cloud getting darker and thought, ‘shit, it’s the mountain’. And it was too late.”
I meet Debu in the Friends Café in Bir, India. It’s a small place, just some outside space and a few tables. A team of helpers, a couple only children, work 12-hour days keeping pilots fed and watered in season. Debu, 29, rolls himself a cigarette and we talk about his flying career as the last few pilots of the day fly in from the launch at Billing 1,000 m above. It has been an atypical day – wind and cloud stopped play for many, while others raced gust fronts back from Dharamsala after topping out at 3,800 m. It is two days after the Himalayan pre-World Cup, which Debu helped organise.
“I learned to fly in Manali in 1994,” he says...
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