Lying in her hospital bed following a leg amputation over two years ago, Arunima Sinha knew that the only way to silence her inner demons was to twist the hand of fate. But few expected her to do so at the summit of the world’s tallest peak.
The former national-level volleyball player, who lost a leg after being thrown off a moving train, climbed her way into history books on Tuesday by becoming the first Indian amputee to conquer Mount Everest.
Sinha, a UP resident, was on April 12, 2011 pushed out of a Delhi-bound train while resisting a chain-snatching attempt. So grave were her injuries that doctors had no go but to amputate her left leg below the knee.
Right after that came the moment of epiphany — that she could either drown herself in self-pity or she could work towards picking up the pieces of her life and having it all again.
The pitiful looks she got from her well-wishers at the hospital helped her make a choice.
“Everyone was worried for me. I realised I had to do something in my life so that people would stop looking at me with pity,” she told a TV channel before leaving on her expedition.
After reading about how those climbing the Everest had beaten several odds, she knew little else spelled as triumphant as scaling the 8,848m-high mountain. Egged on by her elder brother and her coach, she began training in Uttarkashi last year where she was groomed by Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to conquer the Everest.
The 26-year-old completed her journey from Kathmandu to the Everest’s peak in 52 days as a member of the Eco Everest Expedition. Her achievement coincides with the 60th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s feat on May 29, 1953.
The Everest isn’t her first conquest. She scaled the 6,622m-high Mount Chhamser Kangri of Ladakh last year, while keeping her eyes on the big prize.
Rhonda Graham, a 61-year-old American, was the first woman amputee to climb the Everest in October 2011.
