On top of the world

The summit of Mount Everest was quite crowded this spring but among those standing tall at the summit was India's Arunima Sinha who achieved the distinction of being the first amputee woman to have conquered the world's tallest peak.

There were also others who left their footprint on the summit and would be remembered for their derring do. There was, for instance, Japan's Yuichiro Miura who at 80 became the oldest person to conquer the Mount Everest. The octogenerian achieved the feat despite having had four heart surgeries.

A team from Pune, Giripremi, comprising Anand Mali, Ganesh More, Bhushan Harshe and Ashish Mane also left their imprint on the summit.

But Arunima, by scaling the Mount Everest, wanted to prove something different. A former national-level volleyball player, Arunima, had lost a leg after being thrown off from a moving train by train robbers. The 25-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, who was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi in April 2011, was thrown out of a train when she resisted the attempts of the robbers to rob her. On being thrown out, she was hit by a passing train and suffered serious injuries. Her right leg had to be amputated.

After the incident everyone started pitying her, and Arunima could not bear that. She did not want to be pitied. She wanted to do something that would stop people looking at her with pity. So she decided to scale Mount Everest and began to train under Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman who conquered Mount Everest on May 23, 1984. Arunima, before she embarked on the expedition, was also briefed and advised by Mark Inglis, a New Zealander, who conquered the 8848-metre mountain despite being a double ampute.

Arunima's feat has been hailed across the country and she is being considered for appointment as a police officer in a Central agency.

This spring the mighty mountain also bowed down to Tusi Das from Kolkata whose mother makes a living through selling poultry eggs in the market. Tusi conquered Mount Everest not to prove anything but to test her own self. Chanda Gayen, also from West Bengal, conquered Mount Everest this spring.

There were others who scaled the world's tallest peak this season which, incidentally, marks 60 years since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first set their feet on the summit on May 29, 1953.

(Sourced from newspapers)