It's been 60 years since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to scale the world's tallest mountain and even all these long decades later their feat resonates as one of 20th century's enduring, signature moments.
After years of dreaming about it and seven weeks of climbing, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Tenzing Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, at 1130 hrs on May 29, 1953. They were the first people to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Mount Everest had long been considered unconquerable by some and the ultimate climbing challenge by others. Soaring in height to 29,035 feet (8,850 m), the famous mountain lais in the Himalayas, along the border of Nepal and Tibet, China.
Sixty years ago, the two men became the first to stand on the roof of the world in a remarkable feat of endurance and strength of the human spirit. As the May 29 anniversary of Norgay and Hillary's summit of Mount Everest approaches, hundreds of people from all walks of life, and with varying motivations, are trying to follow in their footsteps.
Asthmatic people have climbed the peak, overcoming their additional problem of breathlessness where the air is anyway thin. Age too has not been deterrent when Yuchiro Moro, the oldest climber at 80 years, reached the top this year, while a 13-year-old had done the same in 2010.
In 2006, New Zealander Mark Inglis proved to the world that nothing is impossible when the double amputee conquered Everest, a feat underlined this year by Arunima Sinha of India. She had earlier lost her left leg after getting thrown out of a train and became the first female amputee to scale the peak.
Chanda Gayen, a resident of Howrah district in West Bengal in her mid-30s, is the third woman from West Bengal to climb the 8,848 mt peak high Mt Everest this year.
'I feel like the proudest mother in the world. My daughter harboured a childhood dream to climb Everest and I thank God that she has achieved it today,' said her mother Jaya Gayen.
Similar were the feelings kof the mother of Tusi Das who
lost her father when she was 10 years old, but completed her schooling and graduation, studying evenings so she could continue working during the day. The 29-year-old egg-seller girl, Tusi Das, who stayed with her mother in a nearby slum, also had an Everest dream.
On May 12, after being held up by bad weather for four nights at the life-sapping altitude of 26,300 ft, a notch above what is known as the 'Death Zone' for being an open graveyard for many mountaineers, and suffering from temporary blindness in a snow-struck eye, Das reached the summit.
On the 60th anniversary of the first Mount Everest ascent, the egg-seller girl could finally do what others have done before her -- suffuse extraordinariness to otherwise ordinary lives and reach heights that defy seemingly insurmountable odds.
Yet, 60 years on, Mount Everest continues to be a tower of hope and aspiration for individuals from every margin of society. Das, though, remains grounded in her circumstance.
'I didn't climb Everest to get a sarkari job or for any other incentive. Neither to prove anything to anyone,' says the girl who has 17 years of mountaineering experience, including 10 peak ascents. 'I did it to test myself and see how far I can reach.'
In Das's struggle for excellence, they found resonance with their own fight back-many of them have contributed anything between Rs 100 and Rs 200 for the Everest fund, and an elderly grandmother there contributed Rs 50, 'all that she could', informed Sabita Das, mother of Tusi.
She always wanted her daughter to be right there at the top. 'I was very scared initially. But I'm very happy knowing that my daughter has reached where she wanted to be,' says Das.
--UNI
After years of dreaming about it and seven weeks of climbing, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Tenzing Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, at 1130 hrs on May 29, 1953. They were the first people to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Mount Everest had long been considered unconquerable by some and the ultimate climbing challenge by others. Soaring in height to 29,035 feet (8,850 m), the famous mountain lais in the Himalayas, along the border of Nepal and Tibet, China.
Sixty years ago, the two men became the first to stand on the roof of the world in a remarkable feat of endurance and strength of the human spirit. As the May 29 anniversary of Norgay and Hillary's summit of Mount Everest approaches, hundreds of people from all walks of life, and with varying motivations, are trying to follow in their footsteps.
Asthmatic people have climbed the peak, overcoming their additional problem of breathlessness where the air is anyway thin. Age too has not been deterrent when Yuchiro Moro, the oldest climber at 80 years, reached the top this year, while a 13-year-old had done the same in 2010.
In 2006, New Zealander Mark Inglis proved to the world that nothing is impossible when the double amputee conquered Everest, a feat underlined this year by Arunima Sinha of India. She had earlier lost her left leg after getting thrown out of a train and became the first female amputee to scale the peak.
Chanda Gayen, a resident of Howrah district in West Bengal in her mid-30s, is the third woman from West Bengal to climb the 8,848 mt peak high Mt Everest this year.
'I feel like the proudest mother in the world. My daughter harboured a childhood dream to climb Everest and I thank God that she has achieved it today,' said her mother Jaya Gayen.
Similar were the feelings kof the mother of Tusi Das who
lost her father when she was 10 years old, but completed her schooling and graduation, studying evenings so she could continue working during the day. The 29-year-old egg-seller girl, Tusi Das, who stayed with her mother in a nearby slum, also had an Everest dream.
On May 12, after being held up by bad weather for four nights at the life-sapping altitude of 26,300 ft, a notch above what is known as the 'Death Zone' for being an open graveyard for many mountaineers, and suffering from temporary blindness in a snow-struck eye, Das reached the summit.
On the 60th anniversary of the first Mount Everest ascent, the egg-seller girl could finally do what others have done before her -- suffuse extraordinariness to otherwise ordinary lives and reach heights that defy seemingly insurmountable odds.
Yet, 60 years on, Mount Everest continues to be a tower of hope and aspiration for individuals from every margin of society. Das, though, remains grounded in her circumstance.
'I didn't climb Everest to get a sarkari job or for any other incentive. Neither to prove anything to anyone,' says the girl who has 17 years of mountaineering experience, including 10 peak ascents. 'I did it to test myself and see how far I can reach.'
In Das's struggle for excellence, they found resonance with their own fight back-many of them have contributed anything between Rs 100 and Rs 200 for the Everest fund, and an elderly grandmother there contributed Rs 50, 'all that she could', informed Sabita Das, mother of Tusi.
She always wanted her daughter to be right there at the top. 'I was very scared initially. But I'm very happy knowing that my daughter has reached where she wanted to be,' says Das.
--UNI
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