EVEREST Standing tall amid crisis

By Asha Ramachandran

“The Himalayas are our deities. Everest is our Mother Goddess.” This is how the Sherpa community, which is an integral part of mountaineering, looks upon the world’s highest mountain range and the tallest peak. Standing tall at 8,848.86 metres, the revered Mt Everest also goes by the Nepali name, Sagarmatha, which has various meanings, the closest being “Forehead in the sky”.

 In the Tibetan language, it is called Chomolungma, which means “Mother Goddess of the World”. Mt Everest was also previously referred to as Peak XV and was renamed in 1865 after Sir George Everest, a British surveyor and geographer, who served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843.

To the Sherpa community, the mountain is a sacred place, deserving of dignity and respect. This was once a pristine landscape, but hordes of climbers and poor waste management have turned it into a polluted mess. And the true beauty of the people, who live in the shadow of the mighty Himalayan mountains, is often lost.

As hundreds of mountaineers and Everest summiteers gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 29, to mark the Platinum jubilee of the historic ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who became the first climbers to successfully summit Mt Everest in 1953, there was a mixed feeling of pride and concern. This year, as the families of Hillary and Norgay, led by their sons, renewed their bonds with the Himalayas and the people, they were acutely aware of the gravity of the impact of climate change and the urgent need to protect the region’s fragile ecosystem.

To mark their fathers’ feat 70 years ago, Tenzing Norgay’s son Jamling and Edmund Hillary’s son Peter jointly inaugurated statues of their fathers at Tenzing Hillary Airport in Nepal’s Lukla and released 70 commemorative coins to mark the 70th anniversary of the first Mt Everest summit.

Peter flew in from home in New Zealand and was in Khumjung, Nepal, for a programme at Hillary School. Both Peter and Jamling have followed in their fathers’ footsteps to scale the world’s tallest peak, albeit separately. They now want their children to keep up the family legacy. Jamling, who was born 13 years after the historic first ascent, says he was inspired by his father to join mountaineering and carry  the  culture of the Sherpas further.

He feels his children as well other kids from the community must know the core values of Sherpas. “They need to know where we come from and what we symbolize,” he says. Members of both families organize camps and workshops on mountains and spread awareness about the need to keep them clean. “When I go to Darjeeling, I meet Jamling and his brothers. We have a long connection between the two families,” Peter said.