By : Mridul Upadhyay
Would it had been better for #TeamIndia? I don’t think so. Almost everything went smoothly when we had participated in the last two years, but this year we left with much better learnings. Yeah, we couldn’t finish our sculpture even after working day and night, but our belief in people, art, Breckenridge and this championship grew immensely.
Kathy Christina, can any word really reciprocate your love and express our gratitude to you? What didn’t we face! But if we could end with a smile, then the reason is you. Had we not been through so much, how we would have realised that you are not a host, but our fairy godmother? I may not share the details on this platform of what all you managed for us but, in short, you saved our lives many times; starting from arranging a hotel for us when we got stuck in New York for two days because of the snow storm. On a lighter note, where will you find a host who even remembers to give you a 10 dollars bill to tip the shuttle driver while going back!
Carol Craig and Sandy Carman Metzger, would we have been able to know how generous the organisers can be if we would have got the sponsors in India or not get stuck in New York (missing 1.5 days of the championship) or could have got all 4 days to carve!! Whenever I wrote to you for asking help, I have never been discouraged, as if we are your favourites but I think every team can vouch for you on this.
If the visa of the fourth person in the team had not got rejected, how would we have got a chance to have Emily as the fourth team member? Emily, you are super awesome and brought so much energy to the team. Your team India jacket is due 🙂
Rick, was it possible without you to get such an amazing team member? Nope. We didn’t even ask and you arranged it all for us. This is the ‘trust in people’ I was talking about previously. You genuinely cared for us.
Keith Martin and Tom Day, who share their whole set of tools with so ease and no expectation in return? Especially when these tools are recently purchased from China, still packed and are jaw-droppingly cool. #TeamBreck
(Keith, man, I appreciate you for leaving your work instantly to help me fix our broken tool. And seriously, I had not imagined you carry a whole workshop in your car and can fix a tool in 1 min!!
Tom, our guitar and mandolin show is pending for the next year. Also, 25 years of Carving!! So inspiring man. And hope you have got your cutting wire. Sorry, I got stuck and couldn’t give it to you by myself)
(Btw, congratulations for winning people’s hearts. Yayyy)
Similarly, can I really thank #TeamEquador, #TeamColorado (Carey Moose), #TeamGermany-Agarwal (Franzi Agrawal), #TeamMexico (Carlos Miguel Ramirez Pereyras) and #TeamChina (王海峰) who happily shared and offered their tools from time to time? And of course thanks to #TeamJapan (Teruyasu Matsumura) and #TeamMangolia (Lkhagva Amarsanaa) for the gifts from their country 🙂
Milton Ramon Estrella Gavidia(#TeamEquador), let me confess that I was feeling so guilty in telling you that your specially designed tool which I borrowed had got broken. But I was so amazed to see your calm expressions. Instead of getting angry, you rather suggested me how that can be fixed and I can continue using it. High five for such a cool mechanical engineer cum artist 🙂
If our team Captain, Zahoor, wouldn’t have fallen from the top of the snow block, carrying down with him a finished piece of the sculpture, how we would have got to know that this championship brings together the artists who think beyond competition. Thanks to all those who joined us and helped us finish our work late in the night when we had left with only two team members, Emily and Mir Irfan, tensed and nervous, struggling with several broken pieces and a sculpture which had been carved for only 25 hours instead of total 50 hours by then.
Other than this, I would specifically like to mention, as I shared with Emily Anne, that here all the artists motivate each other so much that a person like me sometimes ends up doubting self if we have really done so well. Anyways, it keeps up the energy really high. So thank you for this.
Because of all of you and my team, I could stand near my sculpture on the last day and present it to so many visitors happily. I don’t say that luck was not our side. Even after so many adversities, we had people to pull us out of this mess. It made us realise that actually luck is to have such a pool of lovely people, rather than nothing going wrong.
As ‘Sir’ Rob Neyland said, every captain should lose his/her sculpture once, Zahoor you now have got that experience early in your life. And of course, you have one more thing in common now with #Carvin’Marvin, both of you have fallen from the top of the sculpture. Lol.
Rob, I agree with you, maybe all this feeling of collaboration and help is not possible if there is prize money. Maybe. Or maybe you’ll still have the people with their heart at the right place. But, I am happy that you envisioned it to be like this and moreover use the amount for a travel stipend. For a team, coming from a developing world and having no support at all, only this travel stipend makes us able to compete. Otherwise, we artists can’t imagine affording to fly for 60 hours and 32000 km. So you not only gave Zahoor Kashmiri and me inspiration to form the first ever International Snow Sculpture team from India and entire South Asia but also provided means to make it possible.
Cindy LoCricchio, we were so busy this time that couldn’t capture any moment. Thanks for collecting these memories for us in a photo blog post. We were humbled to know how high you think of us. Do you know that’s the reason why we could smile even after so many challenges? 🙂
Debbie MacDougall Conway, so finally your student can now ski on 1.7km long peak 9 track without falling. Thank you for introducing it to me two years back as our host.
Chris Conway, Yes, I carved much more than the first year. Wish could have finished all of it. On a different note, we missed having you with us. Our social media page is blank this time 🙂
Elena Bern, you are really sweet. Apologies for missing the dinner at your friend’s place. Hope we’ll next time 🙂
Last but not least, Eric Mamula, your town is so lovely and beautiful. I discuss it with Zahoor so many times. Breckenridge always wonders us on how can people in a town be so cool, open-hearted and a wonderful host in spite of belonging to the same ‘materialistic developed world of USA’. Not only all these people who I have mentioned here but also all the staff at #BlueRiverSports Ski & Snowboard Rental or #BreckenridgeBrewery. (On a very personal note, I haven’t seen any Mayor taking reservation orders in his restaurant. Personally, I learn from you this humility and dedication to work. And thanks for always hosting us for dinner.)
Once again, all these words are more than gratitude. Some of you might deny taking any credit of it, but we can’t actually thank you enough. Hope we’ll meet again to continue strengthening the bond which this International Snow Sculpting Championship at Breckenridge has given us.
For feedback the author can be reached engineer.mridul@gmail.com
(This is a Personal blog & views expressed above are the author’s own)
