Summiting the Heights: A Tale of Perseverance and immortal love!

It was a very contented life that they had. Sharad Kulkarni, the 1982 arts graduate from JJ School of Arts, after putting in a few years as an employee, started his own advertising consultancy and settled down rather nicely in Mumbai. His wife, Anjali, and their son, Shantanu, completed the happy family.?

Fitness freaks all, the whole family used to run marathons, and that passion somehow led them to mountaineering. The glorious history of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj inspired them to a series of successful climbs of the peaks of the Sahyadri ranges and on the cusp of their 50s, the couple met Surendra Shelke, the mountaineering stalwart. He encouraged them to get some professional training and widen the reach of their passion.?

The couple found a professional mountaineering setup in the Himalayas where nobody over 40 is accepted. They make an exception only for those who are in the prime of their physical fitness and forego any right to certification upon successful completion of the training. The couple signed on the dotted line, completed the rigorous training program, and promptly took a momentous vow to scale the highest peaks from all seven continents. The list includes Mt. Elbrus in Russia, Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, Mt. Denali in Alaska, Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mt. Vinson in Antarctica, Mt. Kosciuszko in Australia (and a few include Mt. Puncak in Oceania too), and of course, the tallest of them all, Mt. Everest in the Himalayas.?

After successfully ticking off two from the list, along with a few other peaks of the Himalayas, the couple decided to give Mt. Everest a go! Sharad was 57 and Anjali was 53 at the time. Mt. Everest generally takes a couple of months, out of which one and a half months are merely for getting acclimatized to the elements. The day came when a date was finally set for the mission. The climb began, and after many cliff-hanging battles with the treacherous trails and climactic upheavals, Sharad and Anjali found themselves within the last stretch of the summit. It was May 22, 2019, when the final lap beckoned, and it was time to play hide-and-seek with the ideal weather window. At this time of the year, the window is available only for two days as against its usual duration of 5-7 days. Nothing less than 500-700 mountaineers from all over the world throng to grab this window. This last lap, not surprisingly called the ‘Death Zone,’ witnesses a literal traffic jam at the highest point of the world above the sea!?

At one point, Sharad climbed way ahead of Anjali, who was struggling to find her way through the traffic. Sharad touched the highest point and turned around to head back with his Sherpa, but the victorious mood soon turned into a moment that demanded Sharad to choose between life and death. Sharad met Anjali on his way back, but she was in no shape to move... Sharad’s Sherpa didn’t mince words and told him point-blank that if they didn’t leave immediately, death was certain! With a heart about to burst with grief and helplessness, Sharad left Anjali...?

Eleven mountaineers died on that fateful day, and one of them was Anjali Kulkarni...?

It was inevitable that Sharad should fall prey to a V-shaped depression, and he fought for 6 months to regain any semblance of sanity. His indefatigable spirit one day empowered him enough to chuck away the cobwebs and return to the mountains. It was almost as if he wanted to drown his agony in the physical pain that climbing demands, and he drove his body to the extreme point of it. Time, the great healer, was at work, and the pain was replaced, at least to a large extent, with the pleasant memories of Anjali. He dived headlong into climbing with more fervor than ever. He practiced climbing up and down the fort Sinhagad in a day, and that too with a 25kg tire tied to his waist. This brutal regime readied him for anything that the most treacherous peaks could throw at him, and sure enough, he scaled Mt. Denali, Mt. Vinson, Mt. Kosciuszko, and Mt. Elbrus in merely 3 years. Now was the time for a man-to-man talk with his son Shantanu, and Sharad expressed his desire of paying the ultimate homage to Anjali by conquering the great Mt. Everest once again!?

Once again, the gauntlet was thrown at Mt. Everest by Sharad at the age of 61, and a summit was planned along with mountaineers of age group between 30 to 40 years, from all over the world. The adventure was full of slips and falls, and Sharad was saved from one when his safety rope came to his timely rescue. The moment this near-death slide was arrested, he found a fellow Australian climber lying dead next to him. Sharad’s one eye was claimed by snow-blindness, and the other had lost 70 percent of its sight…?

The idiom ‘against all odds’ had found a whole new meaning as Sharad reached the exact spot where he had left Anjali behind and placed a photograph of her there. The promise he had made to himself was fulfilled. His bond with Anjali had reached completion, and the Tricolour was fluttering proudly in witness to this moment…?

I was one of the hundred and fifty spellbound listeners to this magnificent tale of commitment and never-say-die spirit. The pin-drop silence exploded into thunderous applause that simply refused to stop when Sharad, in a choked voice, ended his one-hour monologue.

This was a 61-year-old young man who had conquered all the highest peaks of the seven continents, and here I was, enthralled beyond words to hear him talk about it.

I salute your grit, Sharad Sir, and wish you all the very best for all your future summits!

?Original Article in Marathi by Rajesh Mandlik

Translated by Sadanand Bendre

?