During our younger days some of the quiz questions ran thus: Who has won the Formula 1 World Championship twice? or Which mountaineer has scaled Mount Everest twice? The answer to the first question was Ayrton Senna who won the Formula 1 World Championship in 1988 and 1990 and actually went on to win the Championship for the third time in 1991 but met with a fatal crash in 1994. The answer to the second question was Nawang Gombu Sherpa.

The 29,035 feet (8,850 metres), the highest point on planet Earth, was scaled successfully for the first time by Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953. Nawang Gombu became the youngest Sherpa to reach 26,000 feet and scaled Everest for the first time in 1963 and again two years later.

However, in the field of Formula 1 racing, Ayrton Senna’s glorious achievement has been put to shade by racers like Michael Schumaker and Lewis Hamilton. When I attended the Basic Mountaineering Course, way back in November 1981, at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, Nawang Gombu who was one of our instructors was a hero to be worshipped by every mountaineering enthusiast. However, since then, several sherpas have scaled the world’s highest mountain on more than ten occasions. Leading the pack with 30 successful summits is 54-year-old Kami Rita Sherpa.

Tenzing was born in Thame, a small village in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal. Twenty seven years later, on 17 January, the same village saw the birth of Kami Rita. The young Kami wanted to be a monk but he soon realised that this was not going to be the way of his future life. He became a porter for the mountaineers and thus began his mountaineering career.

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There are some people who manage to pack a lot in a twenty-four hour day. They are trailblazers who inspire us with their achievements. One such person is sixteen-year-old, now world-famous mountaineer Kaamya Karthikeyan.

Kaamya is the daughter of Western Navy Cdr. S. Karthikeyan and his wife Lavanya, an educator. Her father has a passion for mountaineering which he inculcated in Kaamya from an early age. This standard 12 girl has a lot of firsts to her credit. On 20 May 2024, she conquered Mount Everest (height: 8,849 metres) with her father, making her the youngest Indian and the world’s second youngest person to climb the formidable mountain. The Indian Navy congratulated her on her “immense courage and fortitude”.

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A beggar was living on a city footpath for many years. As a stranger passed by, the beggar asked him, “Sir, will you spare some coins for me?” The stranger replied, “I don’t have any change with me. But what is that box on which you are sitting?” “I don’t know. It has been there for so many years.” But the stranger encouraged him to open it, and with some difficulty, they together opened it and were quite taken aback. It was full of gold!

As you have begun the new academic year, it is worth considering the above story taken from the famous book The Power of Now by the British author Eckhart Tolle. In the book, Eckhart exhorts us to be aware, awake, and fully present in the moment we live. The present moment is all we will ever have, so live in the here and now. Yet, people spend a lot of time thinking and planning their future. If you take a break and listen to your mind for 10 minutes, you will notice that your mind repeatedly speaks about the same things.

Your present moment is putting foundation to your future. Unlike animals, human beings are gifted with a higher level of consciousness which is fashioning your life. What you repeatedly think today will be unfolded in your life in the coming days. A rich man’s son thinks in the present moment that he will be rich like his father. A poor man’s son thinks that he will not be able to become like that rich man.

The greatest treasure that everyone owns is one’s consciousness of NOW, by which one can alter one’s destiny. You and your mind are not one but distinct and independent. Your identity is separate from your mind, thoughts, and perceptions. If you watch your mind silently, with eyes closed, you will observe how it loves to escape either to the past regrets or future worries. So, it is challenging to become conscious of the present moment and to observe our thoughts without judgement.

Therefore, silently watch your thoughts. This way, you can have mastery over your thoughts, retaining those that help your happiness, and rejecting what is harmful. You are helpless regarding your past or future, but you can handle the present moment now when you can deliberately insert a great idea or delete negative ones. So, fill your present moment with those thoughts which you wish your mind to dwell in. All the things that you see around were built, discovered or invented by creating the mental images at their present moment and pursuing them moment after moment.

In this issue, we happily present the great story of Kaavya Karthikeyan, who conquered Mt Everest in her mind years before she actually reached there on 20th May 2024. The story of Elon Musk too is the same. So remember, you are sitting on the treasure box of NOW! The same is possible for you in every aspect of your life. Give it a try!

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In the hustle and bustle of the main market of Nainital dwells an ordinary housewife and mother, Tusi Anit Sah. But once acquainted with her life story one does not take long to realise that she is far from ordinary. Never promoted by the media for her deserving potential, Tusi is an extraordinary mountaineering talent with an envious mountaineering record. She is not only known for her achievements but also for the struggles that she has overcome to make her dreams a reality.

An expedition to the world’s highest point is a cakewalk compared to the difficulty in conquering several other mountain peaks. Climbing Mt Kanchenjunga is thrice as difficult as climbing Mt Everest and the former is only the third highest peak in the world. It is not the height but the arduous route, availability of sherpas and other administrative requirements that all contribute to the difficulty of the climb.

While Everest offers several spots for a rope fix, they are only scantily distributed over Kanchenjunga. Also, due to the crowd of mountaineers on Everest, it is often possible to get help from other teams going up or down the mountain which is a difficult proposition along Kanchenjunga. Consequently, while nearly 5,000 mountaineers have conquered Mt Everest, less than 300 have scaled Mt Kanchenjunga successfully till date.

Tusi gained recognition as an able mountaineer when out of a batch of five female mountaineers from the Kolkata Albatross Adventure Society, she was the only one who could scale the Thalay Sagar peak (6,904 m) on 22 July 2012, becoming the first-ever woman in the world to scale this treacherous peak. That she did without any oxygen support.

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Meet Arunima Sinha, the mountaineer whose determination can only be gauged as higher than Mount Everest. Her hair-raising story is not just a story of determination of the highest level but one of a sublime level which may serve as an inspiration for all and yet may be impossible to emulate.

Determination must have been in her blood as Arunima was born in the family of an Army engineer on 20 July 1989. I guess her early life must have been one of hardships and struggles as she lost her father at a very young age, and the family consisted of four children. Being a resident of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, Arunima had her schooling in the Government Girls’ Inter College of her hometown. Her hobbies were gardening, sketching, yoga, travelling and listening to music. She also liked football, while distinguishing herself as a national level volleyball player. She has participated in the Nationals, seven times.

Aspiring to join one of the para-military forces, on 12 April 2011, Arunima Sinha boarded the Padmavati Express on her way to Delhi to appear for her CISF examination. Little did she then know that her life was about to take a turn for something that neither she nor anyone could have ever foreseen. A gang of robbers tried to rob the passengers of the General Compartment in which Arunima was travelling. Arunima resisted when the hooligans tried to snatch her necklace but she was outnumbered and was pushed out of the train. She fell on the rail tracks and was unable to move and all that she remembers is that another train on the adjoining track ran over her left leg. She recalls: “I resisted the robbers, but they pushed me out of the train. I could not move. I only remember another train coming towards me. I tried getting up. But by then, the train had run over my leg. I don’t remember anything after that.”

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