Glory at its summit

The time: 11.30 am. The day: May 29. The year: 1953. Fifty years later, the resonance of that moment continues to be felt the world over bec...

The time: 11.30 am. The day: May 29. The year: 1953. Fifty years later, the resonance of that moment continues to be felt the world over because it has come to define one of humanity8217;s finest hours. The image that Edmund Hillary8217;s camera captured of Tenzing Norgay at the summit of Mount Everest under a deep azure-blue sky that seemed to lighten as it touched the ice-whiteness of the peak, spoke not just for the two men who got there first, but for the world. Norgay8217;s ice-axe bore not just the flag of Britain and Nepal, but that of India and the United Nations. This was a British expedition that made cult figures out of a Nepali and a New Zealander.

It8217;s this quality of a joint human endeavour that imparted upon this expedition a quality all its own. In a way that the moonwalk of 1968 did not, because that was one nation8217;s triumph, as the Stars and Stripes on the bleak lunar surface symbolised. In a way that the breaking of the four-minute mile barrier did not, because that was an individual8217;s triumph as Roger Bannister8217;s exhausted smile captured. And, perhaps, because height commands more awe than horizontal space, the Everest feat tends to overshadow the almost superhuman effort that went into the conquests of the North and South Poles.

The world, to this day, doesn8217;t know who got there first: was it Hillary or was it Norgay? In his book on that expedition, High Adventure, Hillary is scrupulous about keeping that secret. This is how he described the final moment: 8216;8216;A few more whacks of the ice-axe, a few very weary steps and we were on the summit of Everest.8217;8217; As Hillary remarked only the other day, it doesn8217;t matter who got there first. The important thing is that they, together, got there first. Because they were there. But let us also not forget the great promontory: Mount Everest8212;Chomolungma to the Tibetans8212; 29,035 feet of grandeur. If it did not exist, as if to mark the apogee of human endeavour, none of this would matter. All this happened 8216;8216;because it8217;s there8217;8217;.