Sanawar team on top of the world,scales Everest

As news trickled in of the feat,Lawrence School headmaster Praveen Vashisht began receiving phone calls from past alumnus and current students of the school. “Last year when Col (retd) Neeraj Rana,former head of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling,visited the school campus,some students asked him about mountaineering and he had put forward the idea of the students scaling Mt Everest. He then short-listed 15-20 students and in the end these seven were selected. Hakikat’s father Lt Col (Retd) PS Grewal was the one who organised everything and it is unfortunate that Hakikat fell short of scaling the summit. But he will get a chance again on May 23 as he has got the necessary permission,” Vashisht said while talking to The Indian Express.

Their journey to the summit has seen the team undergo a gruelling training regimen over the past year. They initially took part in an advance mountaineering course at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling before cycling for some 1,000 kms in Rajasthan last December. This January,they trekked and hiked to Khardungla Pass in Ladakh.

The boys reached Lukla in Nepal on April 10 and reached the Mt Everest base camp on April 19 where they spent the next one month trekking. They began their ascent from Camp 4 on Monday evening and started the final climb for the summit on Monday night. “We were bit worried about Raghav as he was under 16 years of age and needed special permission for climbing the summit. Earlier he had climbed BC Roy Peak and Frey Peak in the Kanchenjunga area. But then Col Rana got the necessary permission from the Tourism Ministry in Nepal. We talked with Raghav last Saturday and we are waiting for his call after the descent. Lt Col Grewal and Iqbal Singh,Guribadat’s father are at the base Camp 2 and have been in touch with us,” shared Ajay Joneja,Raghav’s father,who is based in Moradabad,Uttar Pradesh,and runs a lighting business.

The expedition,however,has literally come at a cost. Each member of the team had to shell Rs 17.20 lakh with sponsors and the school chipping in with 20 per cent of the amount and parents coughing up the rest.

“They had read about Ajeet Bajaj,the first Indian to ski to the North Pole and an old student of the school and used to spend hours reading about his experience. It’s a dream come true for all of them and most of them want to meet Bajaj when they come back,” said M K Gulia,the school’s sports officer.