On Top of the World

Aggarwal’s tryst with peaks started in 2000,when she accompanied her daughter for a trek to the Dalma Hills near Jamshedpur. At that time,Aggarwal had no ambition of being an accomplished trekker. “My daughter told me about this small trek and wanted me to go with her. During the trek,I met Bachendriji,who encouraged me to become a mountaineer,” she says. So,she enrolled for a course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering,Uttarkashi. She still hadn’t thought of serious mountaineering till 2005,when she went to her parents’ home in Darjeeling. There,she did an advance course from Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. “That was the first time I thought about climbing Mt Everest,” she says.

Her husband,Vimal Aggarwal,a journalist,helped her with researching on different peaks in the world,thus helping her decide to undertake the seven-summit climb. “Vimal would search for mountain gear online and give me autobiographies of renowned mountaineers as well as books on mountains,” she says. She began with Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa in 2008. “Its terrain is friendlier than others. We were three ladies in the expedition and the guides there could not speak English,so we communicated through sign language,” she says. Her next stop had to be Everest,but it would be still three years away,during which she would “jog 10 km daily at the JRD Stadium”. “I would do yoga at 3 am as I had to manage home also. Then I would train in Darjeeling for two months. There,I would trek Tiger Hill daily with a rucksack filled with 25 kg of salt.”

Aggarwal climbed the Mt Everest with six other Indians. “When we reached the peak,I wanted to breathe fresh air and opened my mask. In excitement,I pulled my glove and misplaced it. Later,I had to borrow one from a fellow climber,” she says. The following year,2012,was quite packed,with Aggarwal scaling three peaks across South America,Europe and Australia-Oceania within 10 months.

Aggarwal believes that no mountain is easy to climb. “After I climbed Mt Everest,people said that I could now climb anything. But conditions everywhere are different. During the Mt Aconcagua climb in South America,I survived on bread and butter for two weeks as I am vegetarian. On Mt Elbrus in Europe,I had to tackle powdery snow. While scaling Mt Carstensz in Indonesia,we had to walk for six days through rainforests and swamps. We also encountered native tribes who still use bows and arrows. The mountain is still unmapped and we had to rely on local guides and fellow climbers,she says.

This year,too,has seen Aggarwal achieve new highs. Besides being awarded a Padma Shri,she climbed the Vinson Massif,the highest mountain of Antarctica,and then Mt McKinley,thus completing her seven-summit climb. More than talking of her achievements though,she enjoys recalling her experiences. Vinson Massif,for example,brought her “closest to nature”. “We were the only humans there. I took many photographs of polar animals,” she says.

Mt McKinley,her last stop,was the toughest. “ I would rate it tougher than Mt Everest. The temperature drops to -35 degrees there,” she says.

Aggarwal’s next task is to help fellow housewives realise their dreams of doing something different. She is organising an expedition of 30 housewives to Sandakphu peak in West Bengal next month. “Every continent I went to,I learnt how to cook vegetarian dishes. I have brought back recipe books and will share them with housewives on the trek,” she says.