Visakhapatnam: Wrestling with heavy textbooks in the classrooms and chatting over coffee with friends at the cafeteria, Inti Praveen Kumar and Adapa Ramana Murthy from Visakhapatnam look like typical engineering students, except for a much desired ambition, that of joining the armed forces. To equip themselves with the necessary skills, they chose skydiving to conquer their hidden fears.
On completing a series of jumps from the aircraft in the sky recently, they received certifications from Kakini Sky Riders Association, based at Mysore airport and affiliated to the United States Parachute Association.
The two Vizag lads, who are in their fourth year engineering at the Raghu Engineering College in Visakhapatnam, underwent intensive training and an array of tests before attempting their jumps. While Praveen finished an IAD solo jump from 4,000 feet, Ramana Murthy did the tandem jump from 10,000 feet.
Speaking to this correspondent, Praveen, who is knowledgeable about skydiving events and personalities across the world, said, “Mahendra Singh Dhoni is our inspiration, who recently made the parachute jump from a height of 1,250 feet. We want to make it into the armed forces to serve the nation besides continuing skydiving.”
When asked about their training, Ramana Murthy explained, “The institute first tests whether a student is truly passionate enough about the sport of skydiving. The skydiver has to take 100 per cent responsibility of his life and has to submit a document to this effect before starting the training.”
“After a young woman skydiver plunged to death from a height of 10000 feet in 2014, the rules got str-icter. From teaching about the functioning of canopy and how the canopy is deployed, they trained us for the worst case scenario because there is no room for second chance other than losing life,” Murthy added.
But both Praveen and Murthy appreciate the encouragement of their dads Guru Murthy and Venu Gopal respectively.
