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With neck cranked up in degrees, and mobile phones, recorders and cameras out, a large crowd stood pointing, seemingly at the sky. Children shouted ‘Spiderman’, while the adults held their breaths.

Jyothiraj climbing the 26-storeyed Inland Windsor at Padavinangady in Mangaluru. Photo: Special Arrangement

For around 15 minutes, rock and wall climber Jyothiraj, popularly known as ‘Kothiraj’ (monkey king), had the sizeable crowd in the palm of his hand, as he traversed the 26-storeyed Inland Windsor here on Sunday. Using just his bare hands, agility, flexibility, torso strength and a fine sense of balance, Mr. Raj hopped from one awning to another, till he scaled the building at Padavinangady on Airport Road.

He kept the crowd on the edge with daredevil stunts and gravity-defying showmanship. When he had to dust his fingers – chalk powder to absorb the sweat and better grip – the climber dangled upside-down, like a bat, from a concrete awning. The crowd went delirious, and were in raucous shouts when he dangled again from one hand at the edge of the precipice.

The loudest shouts were, however, when the ‘monkey king’ threw down his safety ropes and climbed the last three floors. Unfazed, he quickly jumped up the floors and raised a Karnataka flag on the terrace.

Mr. Raj said the climb was a walk in the park. “It was easy as the concrete awnings are steady. Rock climbing is more difficult because of loose rocks and uncertainty of the hold,” he told presspersons immediately after the feat.

The stunt was part of a promotion for the upcoming film ‘Jyothiraj alias Kothiraj’, which marks his entry into the Kannada film industry. “The last time I came to Mangaluru, I did not get permission to climb any of the skyscrapers here. This time, I’m glad to have done it with so much support from the city,” he said.

Inland Builders donated Rs. 1 lakh to him for development works at his rock climbing academy in Chitradur.