It was Saturday 22nd May 2010; day starts with the horrible news of AI fatal crash in Mangalore. Switch any of the channels, only horrified pictures, video clips about M’gl crash. All sympathy, crying and lauds from their near & dear ones. Media, reporters, Press conferences, AI officials, Leaders all were juggling to handle the situation as early as possible. While this was going on near the tale of India, at top of India someone was heading towards setting up a good news for whole world and wining over largest & strongest mountain. It was Arjun Vajpai, 16 year old from Delhi who was about to win over 8,848-metre-high Mount Everest, via the traditional South Col route in Nepal.
Sooner, the big news comes about his successful accomplishment on Mount Everest and becoming the youngest Indian to achieve such milestone in his career. But it all went in a low lime light as most of the Media was busy in covering M’gl disaster. No offence. That’s also important specially at that time.It’s been more than 28 hours but still no one cares about him from Media. Does that mean Media is more bother about his TRP, Ads, Prime Time calculations. Anyways, I will talk about Indian Media in my next article. It’s time to talk about Arjun which can help Indians to cheer for something specially after such M’gl tragedy.
Over the moon at her son’s achievement, Priya Vajpai said: “I have no words to describe just how proud I am. We knew that he was going to push for the peak on Saturday morning and when at 6.30 a.m., members of the team coordinating the climb phoned to tell us that Arjun had successfully managed to climb Mt. Everest and that he was safe, we all jumped for joy.
Arjun is a student of Ryan International School, at Sector 39 in Noida. According to his mother, he has been always been an outdoor person and loves trekking, hiking, football and basket ball. He was introduced to mountaineering only three years ago, but took to it like a fish to water.
Arjun was part of a 12-member expedition team that has a record number of Indian climbers trying their luck individually. His father Sanjiv Vajpai, a former Army officer, said he was initially afraid to let Arjun go on the expedition.
“He is just 16 years old and I wasn’t sure if it would be fair to expose him to such a life-threatening risk. But his instructors at the Nehru Mountaineering Institute, where he did two mountaineering courses, said he had both the physical and mental ability to summit Mt. Everest and so we decided to let him go.”
Arjun equalled the record of a Nepalese Sherpa Temba Tsheri, who also climbed the peak when he was sixteen.Arjun’s team was led by Apa Sherpa, 50, who broke his own record to become the first man to climb the peak for a record 20th time.
The Noida boy also broke the record of Krushnaa Patil, 18, from Maharashtra, who became the youngest Indian to reach the highest peak in 2009.
Along with Arjun, also making it to the top was an Indian woman Mamta Sodha, who reached the summit at 10:24 a.m. The feat of the two was conveyed to PTI on phone by Chunu Shrestha of the Asian Trekkers, who had organized the expedition.
Congrats Arjun for all his success and to feel Indians proud !
Details & Credentials : The Hindu
