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Barnala,India: The journey from a small village to icy Antarctica in itself seems highly challenging but he is going to be the first turbaned Punjabi Sikh to explore the high seas for research purposes.
Though a very few turbaned Sikhs could have had a chance to explore Antarctica that too for only tourism purposes, Bandanjot Singh of a small village, Handiaya, is going to be the first turbaned Punjabi to head towards the South Pole as a member of an expedition.
Twenty six years old, Bandanjot, is among the 30 probables from 20 countries that have been selected for the hazardous expedition.
“I am very excited about the upcoming expedition and want to devote my energies to work for renewable and green energy initiatives in India to promote innovation and help rural India to achieve self sustainable energy production”, Bandanjot proudly declares, upon being asked about his mission to the expedition.
Bandanjot is in the rural solar electrification projects and is associated with the leading educational institutes like IITs in electrification projects. He is excited to be the first Sikh saying “some turbaned Sikhs earlier had been to South Pole but only as tourists not for research purposes”
Son of a general manager in BSNL, excited Bandanjot terms the power breakdown in the Northern grid in the recent past and Hurricane Sandy in US as the urgent points for him to explore to Antarctica as member of international Antarctic expedition(IAE) 2013. The expedition, he says is aiming at creating leaders for education, environment with the theme of ‘Leadership on the edge’.
Having done the integrated course of B.Tech instrumentation and MSc Physics from BITS Pilani, Bandanjot, is presently working for a US company National instruments and has no past experience of any such expedition.
A fortunate meeting with Sir Robert Swan, who is the first person to walk both the north and the south pole made him work hard to be a part of the upcoming expedition and he is happy that he got selected, said Bandanjot.
He will be heading towards south pole on February 28 via Argentina and will return on March 20 after spending three weeks at Antarctica.
About the probable achievements at the expedition, he simply says it is the journey of hope and we hope to get enough from it.
Source:TTN
