Think Everest ! Everests Happen

Think Everest ! Everests Happen !

Atul Karwal  

Going to the mountains is like a pilgrimage for me: I fee at home and in absolute peace with myself there. The sparkling ling and open spaces of the mountains, their flora and fauna, the buzzing energy, the colours– they empty my mind of all thoughts and set it free. I feel that I have netered an enchanted and vibrant world– a world far away from the humdrum of everyday life. All paraphernalia of life including the emotional baggage just fall away from my thoughts, leaving them serene and joyous.

‘When I got to mountains, it feels like I am going to the lap of my mother,’ I would often tell my mother.

‘As long as you remember who your real mother is!’ she would retort jokingly.

In fact, I can identify so well with the Tibetan name for Everest, Chomolungma, the Goddess Mother of the earth. For me all mountains are Chomolungmas.

Why did I want to climb Mount Everest? I have deep regard and love for the mountains and Everest is the ultimate mountain, the queen, the Goddess. How profound it would be if I could get a chance to see her in person? It was a dream I had seen as a boy and now, incredibly, I got a change to be worthy of this dream. Dreams by their very definition are not limited by constraints or possibilities. Even though this dream of climbing Everest was on the edge of the impossible, had I not availed of the chance of attempting it, I would have regretted it all my life. I sometimes feel that even with a higher probability of injury or even death, I would still have wanted to go; I wanted it that bad. Gautama Buddha had said, ‘I do not believe in a fate that falls on men, however they act ; but I believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.’ Perhaps I was out to prove it.

When this dream started unfolding and materializing for me, it seemed surreal, though it was happening for real! But why did it come my way at all, out of the blue? I cannot prove it but I firmly believe that it came my way just because I had wanted this with all my heart and soul for the last two decades of my life. If I look back, I had spent innumerable blissful days of my life in the mountains and would volunteer for training courses just because the venue happened to be in the mountains. I read books on Everest and mountaineering for many years. When I bought my iPod many years back, much before this opportunity came my way, I’d named it, ‘Everester’. This constant yearning finally attracted Everest into my life, and that is my truth.

In the past, I have seen myself egged on to do something just because it scared me. It’s the way I overcome my fears; by confronting them. In skydiving, the act of throwing myself out of a flying plane frightens me so much; I find it difficult where I have to jump or lose face; lose face not with anyone else but myself, inside me. So I go ahead and jump, even though a voice inside me is screaming, ‘What the hell is wrong with you man!’ I grow in confidence after every such victory over my fears.

Before the expedition, reading about Everest and watching whatever films on climbing that I could lay my hands on made one thing very clear. It was a prospect fraught with severe hardships and myriad risks. Safety was at premium and some things were downright terrifying! What added to the challenge was the improbability of my summiting. I was not a typically experienced and expert mountaineer.

Everest has now acquired an altogether different meaning for me. It has become the nucleus of a mélange of new dreams, vision and ideas for my life, some easily achievable and some less so. It is for the epitome of a new equilibrium in my life. It embodies the infiniteness of the soul and the finiteness of the body. It solemnizes the solidarity of the cosmos with the individual– the ‘oneness’ that is all encompassing. It is the resounding reverberation of the life force within me and in everything else. It is a powerful postscript to liberate myself from the frenzied aimless pace of a formula life. Everest for me is also the spirit of a life lived spontaneously. It is elevated enlightenment itself.

Entering the Icefall: The Khumbu Icefall has accounted for 50% of the casualties on Everest. Photo: Think Everest: Scaling Mountains with the Mind

What after Everest? Has anything changed for me in life after Everest? Everest taught me the joy of simplicity and how uncomplicated life can be, how an entire world of sharing and caring was slipping through my fingers unnoticed, how it is possible to have a creative   correspondence of ideas with the elements of nature. The blessing of the summit of Everest is so huge on the horizon of my life that every problem seems insignificant in comparison.  And the best part is that this experience is like a treasure inside; I can go back to draw strength from it whenever I want and it can never be taken away from me. It is deep inside me and mine for keeps.

‘Everests’ are intimidating and seemingly invincible. But they can be climbed bit by bit. Who knows they may even be willing you to try, just to show you what you are capable of! My ‘Everest’ happened to be the real one. It need not be so for everyone. It could be some other seemingly unachievable situation that we try our hardest to make happen.

So take the first step towards your own ‘Everest’ and begin your journey to shape your destiny. And as Swami Vivekananda had also said, ‘We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.’

Think Everest!

Everests happen!

(Atul Karwal, IPS officer in Gujarat, India set out to fulfill his dream through a daunting journey to the summit of Mount Everest. He was a part of a part of 15-member police team and was successful in summiting the Everest on May 22. This article is an excerpt from Think Everest: Scaling Mountains with the Mind authored by Atul Karwal with his wife, Anita Karwal. The book is published by Viva Books Private Ltd, 9788130919546)