CHANDIGARH: The first Sikh to go to space has taken another daring step by wing walking at 80. Bryan Adams once sang, “18 Till I Die.” If there were a living embodiment of that anthem, it would be Arvinder Singh Bahal.While many settle into the comforts of retirement, Bahal is doing quite the opposite. He is pushing boundaries that would challenge people half his age. In a society where ageing is often viewed through the lens of limitations, he offers a different narrative, one of possibility, resilience and reinvention.Hailing from Jalandhar, now a US citizen, adventure has been a lifelong pursuit for Bahal. An alumnus of the 28th course of the National Defence Academy (NDA), he was medically boarded out at 17 because of deafness in his right ear. What could have been a crushing setback became merely a detour.
Leaving the NDA, he worked as a manager on a tea plantation in Darjeeling before moving to the United States in 1975, where he built a successful business and made Boston his home. Through it all, one childhood passion never left him: flying.During his college and NCC cadet days, he earned a glider pilot licence in Agra. Later, he obtained a private pilot licence in the US. During the Covid pandemic, while the world was grounded, Bahal added another feather to his cap, a helicopter pilot licence.“Flying was always my passion,” he says. “As a child, it was all I wanted to do.”His latest adventure began at a travellers’ conference in Uzbekistan, where he was recounting stories of skydiving, polar expeditions and global travel to a British woman. In the middle of the conversation, he realised there was one thing he had never done, wing walking.The woman found a facility in Kent and invited him. Ironically, she backed out after suffering a panic attack. Bahal went ahead.Strapped atop the wing of a vintage aircraft flying about 600 feet above the English countryside, he faced powerful winds and aerial manoeuvres. As a turbaned Sikh, he even secured his turban with rubber bands to withstand the force of the air.“I stretched out my arms and felt the clouds above,” he recalls. “It brought out my inner child.”Fear, he says, is part of the thrill. “I do feel fear. That is when I feel alive the most. I conquer it. No fear, no human.”Bahal has visited every country in the world, photographed remote corners of the globe and documented many of his journeys in his coffee-table book Tireless Traveller. A second book, My Planet, My Playground, is in the works.What surprises him most is people’s reaction to his age. “They are amazed I’m still flying,” he says.His favourite response, however, comes from his eight-year-old grandson. “He tells me we are the same age because the zero in 80 has no value, so I’m really just eight.”Asked what remains on his bucket list, Bahal laughs. “One lifetime is not enough. I’m open to any adventure life throws at me.”
