The Day I Got Bullied…
This was the second time in my life I had felt terrified of wind in the open. My heart pounded and raced.
“I will be swept away into oblivion,” I thought.
There was a light drizzle outside when Thorrik (that is how I pronounced his name) our driver-guide, said, “You all ready to see some glaciers?”
“Damn right, I am. Raj-wants-me-some-damn-glaciers,” I muttered under my breath.
I was buzzing at the prospect of seeing a glacier for the first time—taking some amazing clicks and adding them to my Icelandic memories.
A few smart fellow travellers, like me, started layering up before hopping off the bus.
I was incredibly proud of my preparation: ankle-covering hiking boots, woollen socks pulled to my knees, and waterproof over-trousers—all bought in Dublin the day before, specifically for this trip.
I glanced at the remaining travellers, smirked, and thought to myself, “Look at them. Stupid people. Wearing sneakers and cotton joggers in Iceland. And look at me. Look at my NEW boots. Will you?”
At that moment, I felt invincible. I could have walked straight into the ocean, and my lower body would still have been as dry as a bone in the desert.
My upper body was wrapped in a light jumper beneath a Superdry puffer jacket. The tiny detachable hood was basically a showpiece, and my head was protected by a thin woollen beanie.
I looked proudly at myself once more.
I was ready for a glacial expedition.
Or so I thought…
-----------------
Sól-he-i-ma-jö-kull? Sól-heim-aj-ökull? Só… something… glacier was only a few hundred metres from the bus stop.
The Icelandic language somehow manages to look both elegant and mildly threatening at the same time.
Sólheimajökull Glacier was only a few hundred metres from the bus stop.
(Remember Thorrik, our guide. His actual Icelandic name was Þorri. Before even attempting to pronounce his actual name, I first had to emotionally process the letter “Þ,” which looked less like an alphabet and more like a symbol from an ancient Viking weapon manual. Þorri, to his credit, was patient. He tried—genuinely tried—to teach me how to pronounce his name correctly. I tried too. Five times. By the fifth try, Þorri paused, and said, “You are fifty percent there.” Thorrik was that fifty percent)
Thorrik announced that we would take a short walk further in for some photos.
I was the last one to get off the bus, but before doing so, I scanned outside the window to judge the rain and figure out which way we were heading.
And that was the last time I properly looked outside—or straight.
As I started walking, my NEW boots broke through the slushy ice like a spade through sodden peat. It was my first time wearing hiking boots, and I immediately cursed myself for not buying them years ago. I was loving them.
In no time, I overtook my fellow “stupid” travellers, who were by then probably reconsidering their footwear choices.
I kept my head down, dodging icy puddles with grim determination. I figured I’d look up and start taking photos once I got closer.
But at around the hundred-metre mark, the atmosphere transformed instantly into something I had never experienced before.
Calling it chilly, strong wind would have been a massive understatement.
No—this was not wind.
This was katabatic wind, formed when air above the glacier becomes so cold and heavy that gravity hurls it violently downhill.
It doesn’t just blow.
It falls.
After fighting it for a few seconds, I stopped, unable to steady myself.
Real fear crept in as the glacier relentlessly exhaled cold, dense wind straight into me.
And my heart agreed.
I leaned my entire body weight forward, doing a 45-degree Michael Jackson lean just to stay upright.
Every fresh gust forced me to plant my NEW boots and pray the volcanic gravel had enough grip to stop me from becoming a human tumbleweed.
It felt as though the earth itself was trying to slide out from under me and offer me to Katla volcano, lurking beneath the ice.
“I will be swept away into oblivion,” I thought.
The rain, meanwhile, wasn’t falling.
It was being fired at me horizontally.
-----------------
While my legs fought for stability, my hands were writing their own tragedy.
My right hand stayed buried deep in my pocket, desperately palming my Sony camera. Bringing it—and without a case—had been a stupid decision. But now my only instinct was to shield that fragile piece of glass and electronics from the deluge.
My beanie had long since surrendered. It was wet, useless, and cold. The wind sliced straight through the knit, freezing my ears.
So my left hand yanked the showpiece hood as far forward as it would stretch.
Without gloves, every raindrop felt like a tiny freezing needle striking my knuckles, turning them a shade of red I didn’t know existed.
No gloves. No proper hat. No thermals.
Remember my fellow “stupid” travellers?
They suddenly seemed very smart.
I tried angling my body so the wind itself would pin the hood against my head. That bought me a few precious seconds to shove my frozen left fist into my pocket before sacrificing it back to the elements.
“What about photos?” I wondered. “I’ve come too far to leave with nothing. But how do I even take one? I can’t move my right hand because it’s guarding the camera. I can’t exactly pull down my over-trousers in front of everyone to fish the phone out of my main trousers. And even if I somehow managed that circus act, the phone would probably be ripped straight out of my hand.”
Then another thought arrived, far more practical and far less heroic: “Do I really want photos, or do I want to get back to safety?”
I chose survival.
There was, however, one problem.
Without Thorrik, I couldn’t get back to the bus.
But there was one problem—without Thorrik, I couldn’t exactly get back into the bus.
He was a few yards ahead of us, and with every brutal gust, he seemed to be getting farther away.
Thankfully, after a few seconds that felt more like several long, frozen minutes, Thorrik turned around and made his way back to where a few of us had been firmly planted by survival instinct rather than courage.
He confirmed going any farther would be dangerous.
So we turned back.
But the thought of leaving without a single photo gnawed at me.
“I may never return,” I thought.
So I stopped.
I switched the camera on while it was still buried inside my palm. Without focusing, adjusting, or even looking at the screen, I blindly clicked some photos in different directions, turned it off, and shoved it back into my pocket.
All in under five seconds.
By the time I scrambled back onto the bus, silence slowly gave way to a chorus of relief, laughter, and disbelief.
My Superdry jacket was now Superwet.
My beanie practically spat water when I squeezed it.
But as I peeled off my soaked jacket and hung it on the hook above the empty seat in front of me, I was stunned to find my jumper underneath was still dry.
Even the DSLR lens obediently extended and retracted when switched on and off.
Huh. It wasn’t all lost after all.
In Icelandic, Sólheimajökull translates to "Home of Sun Glacier." But that day, the sun was nowhere to be seen and home was distant while a giant piece of ancient ice constantly bullied me and didn’t care about my NEW boots.
