Soul Mountain

There is nothing in her house, with its chipped flooring and peeling paint, that points to Himalayan ambitions. But Sukhi tells you it was here, inspired by one of the stories her carpenter father read out aloud from the paper, that she resolved to climb Everest.

The second of four sisters and a brother, she was always the tomboy. 8216;8216;Papaji never treated me like a girl, he taught me carpentry and made me run errands like a son,8217;8217; says Sukhi.

In a state notorious for its high rate of female foeticide, that8217;s remarkable. Sukhi8217;s father Jagat Singh says he liked the spark in his little girl.

Singh8217;s girl learnt to take care of herself early in life. 8216;8216;I was six when I first thrashed a boy,8217;8217; she laughs, running her fingers through her roughly shorn hair.

By 16, Sukhi was a national-level kabaddi player with dreams of donning the khaki; by 20, she was adjudged the best trekker by Panjab University; at 25, she won the Red 038; White Bravery award for heading an all woman AIDS awareness cycle rally.

8216;8216;Make it Sukhi and Pammi,8217;8217; says Sukhi. Paramjit Kaur is 24 hours older and wiser and as much an achiever. Not too long back, the duo went out and got themselves an Enfield Bullet.

8216;8216;Actually, I8217;d gone to test-drive a Splendor at a local auto showroom, but when the owner smirked and said I should try a gearless scooter instead, I opted for the Bullet,8217;8217; grins Sukhi.

A friendly mechanic taught them some 350 cc basics. 8216;8216;The rest we learnt on practice runs from Muktsar to Bhatinda,8217;8217; recounts Pammi. Sometime later, they rode it to Khardungla, the second-highest motorable road in the world.

When did the mountains happen? 8216;8216;We used to give tuitions, and one day we read something about Mt Kamet on a child8217;s notebook covered with an old newspaper,8217;8217; says Sukhi, who signed on for the expedition and scaled the summit on 14 July 1998, an endeavour, which fetched her a state award.

Four years on, the friends took on Mt Saser Kangri, the highest peak in the Karakoram range. 8216;8216;Unlike Sukhi, I didn8217;t have any training in mountaineering, I just copied what others did,8217;8217; says Pammi. So when she slipped into a 100-ft crevasse, she just clung to the rope, sure that Sukhi would rescue her. And she did.

The Everest, the girls chorus, would have been a lot more doable had they been together. 8216;8216;I was with an all-male team of foreigners who I could barely speak with8230; my angrezi is weak,8217;8217; Sukhi explains, telling you how she kept to herself throughout the climb. There were, says Sukhi, communication gaps, prejudices and frazzled nerves that led her to abandon the climb.

Money was an issue, especially with Sherpas. 8216;8216;They want tips in dollars, I didn8217;t even have rupees,8217;8217; says Sukhi. Her Rs 4.85 lakh Everest campaign was funded by a collection drive launched by well-wishers in Muktsar.

But the girls want to have another go. And with some NRIs London-based Kartar Lalwani has reportedly offered to fund Sukhi8217;s next expedition promising to help the 8216;heera of Punjab8217;, money may no longer be a hurdle. 8216;8216;Please don8217;t ask for details, it8217;s too premature,8217;8217; says Sukhi.

The sponsorship might take its time coming, but you know the determination is already there when Sukhi says, 8216;8216;You wait and see, we will be the first Punjabi mutiyaa women to scale it.8217;8217;