THE STORY OF MYSELF TILL NOW..

Hi, I am Muriki Pulakita Hasvi from Excellecnia Infinitum school studying in grade 9,

To start off I’d like to tell you all a story of a young who I’ve been knowing her for almost 13 years, she is almost like my best friend.

There was once a young girl who was a national roller skater, badminton player, and mountaineer.

Her early life had started something like this-

She wasn’t a really active person when she was young and her brother was a skater, so her parents also put her into skating. she was really young then and did not know her interests and the hard work to do.

So, she has gone till nationals and missed a national medal with a 0.01 mark! So close right?!?

Then, they shifted their house and then she was again not such an active person for 4 years, after that time she suddenly had started to gain interest in cricket she eventually started to go to classes and joined in an academy but poor 4rth grader couldn’t manage school and sports and the academy was too far, then she had a dream to become a freedom fighter when she was about 10 years because she used to like the army, India, and patriotism towards the nation. A few years went by now this young girl had started to gain interest in badminton, she learned badminton for 6 months until she joined in an academy, where she had to get up 4 o clock in the morning for the class at 4:45 and traveling would take time and she had to carry a total of 3 bags with her every day, so her badminton class was from 4:45 to 7 and then she had gym session at 7:30 which extended till 9 after that she rushed to school by 9:45, and then came from school 15 minutes early and attended her badminton class at 2:45 which extends till 5 and then she would come home and take rest and get to studies. Though she wasn’t a much scorer at studies as much she is now, she used to get 65% which Is really bad, her most memorable badminton match was when she defeated her opponent, who defeated her in the first match that she ever played by 15–7, 15–7, and then this young stubborn girl defeated her by 30–29 where she won by 1 point!! Soon after that the lockdown was announces because of the pandemic ., she then started to focus on studies and she wasn’t playing any sports, she planned of calling a coach into our community but that wasn’t going that well, then she started to do cycling to pass her time out, until she realized that she wasn’t a bad cyclist at all, she used to cycle 3 hours a day, and she started playing basketball and cricket with her friends and she got pretty fit, then she also started running, she started to love cricket after that she also started to attend MUNs, she attended 2 IMUNs so far in where her committee won leaving her the most honorable delegate award and the most outstanding delegate award!, she little girl also won 3rd place in the SFA fitness challenge, this little girl was stubborn as hell, if she had seen patriotic movie she would want to be a soldier, if she had watched a boxing movie she would want to become a boxer but I have to warn you, if she would catch the hold of it and is interested as hell in that she wouldn’t take a chance to leave it slit, like that once she watched a mountaineering movie, she had started to develop interest like that and then she watched the movie over 4 times and then she dug deep about mountaineering and she told her parents, she wasn’t 2 days than she said and her dad asked her to talk to ROMIL SIR I had no clue he was at the first and then my dad told that I will be going to the Everest base camp in 2 ? months, this young girl was shocked and scared, then after she searched up about Romil sir, she got to know that he was an everester and this girl was shocked back again! This little girl did not also know that Everest has a base camp and she will be going there in 2 months from now! She did not do that much of fitness, neither did she do any research about it, she just did cycling and basketball and a few sprints every day thinking that that would be sufficient, but so less did she know that it was a tough climb!

Days pass by and months pass by, it was 15 days to go to the expedition, she had to buy her Equipements and clothes, also this little girl was going to be traveling alone with another boy from Hyderabad of the same age. So, first off, her parents were scared to send her alone and this little girl was all okay with it!

Then, she started working out immensely as there were 10 more days left for the expedition, then this little girl started getting weird thoughts as will she be able to make it or not if she won’t be able to make it what is going to happen?? Cause this was her first expedition! one week before her expedition this little girl was cycling and she fell off, leaving a big bruise on her knee and hand and minor Once on head and Nuckels, this little girl was so worried now!

So, the day was finally here! She had to take off from Hyderabad to Delhi to Nepal, Kathmandu.

The flight was all good, spent most of the time sleeping though, so when they reached Kathmandu, they stayed there for 2 days to get acclimatized to the weather, then they had a flight to Lukla where the airport is considered having one of the shortest runways to take off or land, and the flight is very small with a lot of turbulence!

She and the team were ready to take the flight but unfortunately, the weather wasn’t that great at Lukla for them to land there, instead, they landed a little far, so then they decided to take the flight again the next day and start the trek next day, so on that day they went for acclimatization trek and where all ready to take the flight the next day.

Then, they took the flight and started their trek so, that was going to be very hard as they apparently had to cover 2 days of trek in 1 day and those people literally walked for 12 hours that day and the next day was a break for them and they were all recovering so that little girl that day night threw up because of the sudden altitude gain!

Days went by we kept trekking and they reached the base camp finally! this little girl could see Mt. Everest with my eyes at that time, it was a wonderful feeling!

Then they were back on our way, it was pretty short and easy in going back, they did fun stuff while going back like sprinting was loads of fun and then after they reached back to Lukla they took the flight and started the next day morning then they stayed a couple of days in Kathmandu and they all flew back home we also shopped and went sightseeing in Kathmandu and we had our flight from Kathmandu to Delhi got canceled and we had to wait for one day at a 5-star hotel which was worth the wait and we had all our flight back to Hyderabad the next day.

The team was extremely cheerful and always happy, and it was a great stay out there says the little girl.

The lesson that I learned there was that self-motivation plays an important role and everyone must keep on motivating themselves!

That’s when this little girl decided that she was going to climb all the seven summits, but she also learned that every mountain is different and climbing them is all different.

So, the next expedition this little girl planned of going to was the highest free-standing mountain in the world which is Mt. Kilimanjaro in south Africa , she was all pumped to go, cause that is also one of the summits, 4 months before the expedition this little girl was making the list of things to carry, so she was also doing a lot more fitness than she did for the Everest base camp, because her coach challenged her not to vomit for the Kilimanjaro trek as she threw up at the Everest base camp, so she took that to her head and started to practice, She did walking with weights, cycling, climbing stairs, sprinting, skipping, fitness classes and on top of all of this she had to manage studies and managed to scored 85% in her pre midterms before the expedition this little girl managed to do mid night walk like walks from 11pm to 5:30am with weights on her legs and bag on her shoulders, she also did cyclist around the same 1km radius for 5 hours completing 100 kilometers, so according to her mentally challenging, she then kept going for hours of practice every day three months before the expedition she stopped to eat chocolates the food she loves the most! The trip kept on postponing cause of the covid protocols in South Africa, again as she said she was full of nervousness before the expedition.

Almost one month earlier to the expedition, this girl got her flight tickets booked there were almost 4 people from Hyderabad including her 1 from Bangalore 1 from Rajasthan and 1 from the US, it was all exciting, she packed everything a day before of attended all her online classes and was ready.

so, it was finally the day to leave she had told goodbye to her parents and grandparents and she went on the flight with 3 other mountaineers. Now, this little girl was so desperate to study in her free time that she had taken biology and math workbooks, she used to them every day except the days on the mountain, and she used to report it to her family, also in her family both her parents where educators but this girl wanted to do something different, and her brother had gone for undergraduate studies at the US, WHO HAS AN INTERNATIONAL SKATER, and her parents supported her and her brother a lot in sports. So, coming back the first day was a 6 hour long crazy drive to mochi which literally drives you crazy, and then she had to get ready for the next day as it was from Marangu gate to Mandara hut, it was basically a free walk in the nature and very pleasant Marangu route is only one of the routes up to Kilimanjaro other than that there are 5 other routes but we had chosen the Marangu route.

so the day 2 was from Mandara hut to horombo hut, which was again a long walk about 8 hours that they had and then they had acclimatization stay at horombo hut for 1 day there this girl could not at all get proper sleep because of the sleeping bag and also the room and the next day the girl felt that her eyes were a little strange as she felt one was heavier than the other when she saw her eyes she found out that one of them where swollen so badly that she started to get water from her eyes unconsciously after a little time in the sun light everything was fine and after that they went and saw the zebra rocks as an acclimatization hike and there this girl found out about the story of Kilimanjaro and his brother mavenzi, the story was basically that Kilimanjaro and Mawensi once fought and then Kilimanjaro kicked and punched mawezi on the face that is why Mawensi’s face is all unusual and then Mawensi in return threw porridge on Kilimanjaro’s face and that is the reason why there is a little snow on the top of Kilimanjaro and then it always covers itself with a cloud near its face because of the same, this was obviously a fictional story by the ancient that’s what I told her. Then they went back to Horombo hut from the zebra rocks after that they were lucky as they got a much bigger and much warmer room and sir also gave this little girl a much thicker sleeping bag. So, she could sleep well as the next day was the biggest day ever, that night all of them played this game called UNO and ate dinner and slept as the next day it was to Kibo hut and there they had to stay only for the night because early morning they had to leave to the summit, so that was another 9 hours but the last 1 ? hour was deadly because of the heavy winds. They really managed to reach by then and everyone was tired this little girl was the first one to sleep, then they had to wake up and start early and have an early dinner most importantly and take rest, so they woke up at 12:30 thinking that they would start but because of the weather they couldn’t start then and they had to wait, so they waited till 1:30 am and started for the summit, everything was good initially but after 10 minutes of the walk this little girl started feel to throw up and that is the most horrible thing she has ever felt in the expedition, she did not eat anything in the morning either, and she was feeling to vomit while having an empty stomach so then she started to fall behind of the group she had porters and sir to help her out and then she was totally unstable, then this girl had her favorite and the best protein bar that she had left for the summit, she had half of it and started to walk but she was still behind the whole team, within half an hour something happened to her that she was able to catch the team and she was so energetic that time she thinks it because of the protein bar and then she goes pole pole which means slow in Swahili( the south African language), the porters and sir motivated her a lot when she was behind the whole team. After she was with the team, she still had that throwing up sensation but her body fought that and came over it, and then there were a lot of ascents and that is when one of the guides turned on music to keep all of them active, so this little girl loves music and goes up to him and asks to turn up the volume, as everyone was sleepy and were walking and honestly the girl was almost sleepwalking when there were steep ascents that is why to keep herself awake she goes and stands right behind the guide to enjoy that music. Then, finally, the sun had come out at around 5:30 am and this girl had felt so relieved and this was also the first time she ever liked frozen water because her water bottle had frozen, the first 2 hours were really nice with good weather, but the last 3 to 4 hours on the way to Gilman’s point the weather had started to deteriorate, the clouds started to come, it had started to become foggy and hard to breathe.

So, after a few hours and hard work walking and a few chocolates and lollipops and with the sir’s help she reached the Gilman’s point, after reaching everyone in the team including this girl had slep for 10 minutes, we had to soon start to the summit because it was already 12pm and the weather was turning bad, so there where 3 people going back with the help of the porters, and this girl had to make a decision to reach up or go back down, this girl thought for straight 2 minutes and decided to go up because this girl dreamt of climbing 7 summits and this is just one drop of the ocean of problems that she was going to phase and there are many more to come, also all the hard work she did will all go in vein, she did not want that and she started to the summit despite the bad weather, while she was walking, she was so happy to make the decision, but simultaneously her confidence was decreasing as almost half of the team went back and the bad weather is affecting her a lot because she couldn’t breathe properly for the first 10 minutes she was walking, she then asked sir, who was going with her for the summit if she will be able to make it?? Sir, replied YES EASILY! Those 2 words made a huge difference as the sir itself told yes, so her confidence was fighting with her tiredness and finally, her confidence won by 1 run and then this little girl was also able to acclimatize after those 10 minutes of horribleness because both of her nostrils were blocked and there where cold winds, but after 10 minutes it was all fine. They started at about 11;30 pm from Gilam’s point and reached the summit at 1:30, when this girl finally reached the summit she was overwhelmed with happiness and joy that she did almost 15 pushups, more than she had to do, she also took a picture with her muscle there and she was really happy, but they must not stay for more than 10 minutes on the summit because of the bad weather, so they were returning as soon as possible, after reaching the summit, this girl had a bar of chocolate while descending which was frozen and really tasty, that was a feeling she could never forget, she also saw one of her teammates behind and the other mate already had summited and was descending, as all of them got separated because of their pace, this little girl was with Bharath sir from the company Boots and crampons and he was the main guide for us, and the other 2 mates were with the local guides and the porters, this girl also had coke which sir had, it had given her all the energy.

As they say, going up is only half of the cake but coming down is the most difficult and tasty part of the cake, in fact, she thought going down was much easier but not after Kilimanjaro!

While descending they had to descend fast as they were in the rock fall area, and it was all foggy after they crossed the rock fall area they took a break for about 0,5 hour and obviously this little girl slept then they had to start fast because they were descending the Gilman’s point which is totally slopy and full of rocks and on top of that it was totally foggy, which made it hard for her and sir to see, so this little girl summersaulted for about 5 times and they slowly reached after about 3 to 4 hours then she reached kibo hut where there was no one she was now with one of the porters as sir went fast down in search of the others who are at the camp, so when there was no one at kibo hut this girl was shocked and the porters told her that she had to go with a couple of porters who will carry her all the way to horombo hut which was about 2 hours from there, so this girl thought of waiting for the other mate who was behind, but the porters said that it is going to get late and you should go down, so this girl went down with the porters carrying her so then this girl started to get pain near the back bone so she decided to walk with the porters, after a while she realized that she was pretty fast without the porters carrying her and then she walked by herself and the porters for the rest 65% of the route and as a matter of fact she was so fast that she reached in 1.5 hours, and she reached horombo hut at around 9:15pm and went into the room and they got her food, but she was unable to eat, she thought that the other mate coming behind might be hungry and saved it for her with a protein bar, the whole walk this little was only on about 2 protein bars and 2 chocolates and liquids, so wanted to inform her parents and went out of the room for internet, that’s when she saw the other team mate in a stretcher and she was shocked and the other mate come in to the room, this girl first gave her the protein bar to eat and then they shared their experiences to each other and this little girl was told to eat something so she had like almost a half bowl of rice and a chocolate and slept.

The next day she found out that everyone will be going down in a van as an emergency exit cause all the people were all tired because of the summit push and they were all not really feeling good.

So she had a last breakfast at the horombo hut and went down with the team and finished her Kilimanjaro expedition by getting a long-awaited certificate.

THIS WAS A STORY OF MY BEST FRIEND FOR 13 YEARS AND THE FACT IS THAT I AM MY OWN BEST FRIEND!

HERE, REFERRED AS SIR IS BHARAT SIR WHO WAS THE WHOLE GUIDE FOR THE TEAM, MENTIONED HERE AS MATE IS GAYATRI MAM, AND RAJU SIR ON THE SUMMIT DAY.

HERE, I LEARNT THAT SELF-MOTIVATION IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR A HUMAN, NEVER GIVE UP CAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW HOW CLOSE U ARE TO YOUR DESTINATION, TRY TO CHANGE YOUR IMPORTANT OPTIONS TO DECISIONS CAUSE DECISIONS MATTER FOR LIFE!

I’D ALSO LIKE TO THANK MY PARENTS FOR PUTTING SUCH AN EFFORT IN SENDING ME HERE, BHARAT SIR, ROMIL SIR WITHOUT WHOM I PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE REACHED, AND ALL THE OTHER TEAMMATES ’ SUPPORT AND MOTIVATION WHO WERE ALWAYS THERE FOR ME, LASTLY, THE PORTERS FOR THEIR CONSTANT SUPPORT, GUIDANCE AND CONFIDENCE BOOSTERS.

AND THIS IS ME AND MY LIFE TILL NOW.