ARUNIMA SINHA
Hello everyone.
I wish to thank you all for the opportunity to come and speak at this big platform provided by NJ. I am not going to talk about anything related to business but to share my experience of every important moment of my life.
I am today 28 years old and I have fulfilled every commitment I have made in my life. Else I don't make any commitment unless I decide to complete it. Some of you may be aware of the problems in face of which I have achieved my goals.
The Unfortunate Event:
In 2011, I was traveling from Lucknow to Delhi in Train for a job interview. Near Bareilly station, some people in general compartment started looting the passengers. I was also sitting there and when they tried to snatch my gold chain. No one dare objected to these men to what they were doing. But, being a seven time national volleyball player, the feeling of the sportsperson within me made me fight them. Within a minute or two, I found myself being carried by four – five men who threw me out of the moving train. The unfortunate part was that the same time, another train was moving from opposite direction. Like ping pong, I dashed between the two trains before falling to ground.
After both trains had passed, I tried to get up with the support of my hands but I wasn't able to. With excruciating pain, I tried to lift my thighs and saw my severed leg clinging onto my jeans. My one leg was hanging by my jeans while another one was broken at many places with bones literally coming out of my jeans. Even my elbows were fractured. Inspite of all this, my mind was still conscious. I wasn't able to move and lying on the tracks, I could see all trains moving at very close proximity. The toilet filth would often drop near me which I couldn't even wipe off. There were also rats who used to crawl all over me and had started feasting on my wounds. I spent entire night crying for help lying on the tracks in this situation.
In the morning some villagers saw me and took me to Bareilly district hospital. While lying down, I overhead the pharmacist and the doctor talking that they have no blood, no oxygen, no anesthesia so where to start operating from? With some strength I first thing I said them was to chop off my legs without anesthesia, I don't have any problem. Hearing this, both of them donated 1 unit each of their own blood and cut my leg without anesthesia. Even the news came out in media that I was a national player, I was shifted out from general ward to a separate ward and was giving proper treatment. I was later shifted to AIIMS Trauma center by the sports minister himself.
The Decision:
The real challenge of my life started from AIIMS where I was admitted. After 20-25 days when I had recovered to some extend, I started watching news and saw media carrying stories that I was traveling without ticket and that I had gone to commit suicide from the train. Can you imagine how a family, a person who has lost a body part, who is unsure whether she will ever stand up, unsure of her life, would feel hearing these stories on the hospital bed? Everyone was trying to put blame on me. I then realised that I had to give an answer with silence. I was then that I said to myself that today is your day but come tomorrow and my day will come and I will get my chance to prove myself.
I was offered a job by CISF and even today I am an CISF Assistant Commandant. I could have chosen that life and lived a comfortably. But could I have ever got back that self respect and gained that confidence with which I am speaking today with you? Would I have ever got this platform from NJ? Probably never. Today entire world knows me because I chose otherwise.
On the hospital bed itself, I had decided that I will do mountaineering. I had decided that I would scale Mt. Everest. This was my goal and it had to be done. But how? It is not easy to do so as the costs alone run over 60-70 lakh rupees. For a common girl, it is a big thing and I had never even saw that kind of money together. But then, I had decided that I have to do it.
Scaling the inner peak:
From the hospital bed when I started talking out my goals, people used to mock me and called me mad on my face. They told me that even my mind was lost after my leg. The need of the hour was that I kept myself strong. I told myself that those who have faced society humiliation initially have gone on to create history. Today I feel happy when people tell me that I am mad after my goals as I now believe that when people start telling you that, it means that you have come much closer to your goals.
After coming out of hospital when people would think of family, life and job, instead of going home, I went straight to meet Bachendri Pal who is the first Indian lady to scale Mt. Everest in 1984. For the first time I had then traveled in an handicapped compartment in train for that and when started climbing the stairs of her office, blood started oozing out of my legs. When Bachendri madam knew what I was aiming for given my condition, she told me that 'you have already scaled the Mt. Everest of my mind and it was only now left to prove to the world. You may not know but Everest is not easy and you will first have to prove that you can climb mountains.'
The Hardwork:
Truly, there is a big difference between talking about something and doing it. When I used to train, other people used take only few minutes to walk up to the base camp of small peaks, I used to take 2-3 hours and my legs would bleed. I fell, I crawled, I struggled but slowly I started walking up to the base camps. I could not carry anything but was expected to carry over 35-40 kgs. But belief in self and constant practice can help you achieve great things.
I kept practicing and never took any break, even during festivals. Slowly, I started overtaking other climbers at Surya Top where I practiced. In eight months after starting off from scratch, I was able to carry weights of about 35kgs and scale to the Surya Top at 14,000+ ft, often being the first in the group to reach to the top. I was happy in knowing that now I could walk on mountains and I enjoyed more when other climbers asked me what I ate for such great walking. I remember telling that it was my passion, my life, my goal and the only thing I cared about and once one you are so focused on your goal, there is nothing to stop you from achieving it. The biggest problem I had faced to reaching to this stage was convincing people that I could do it. I believe that one is not handicapped from body but is only handicapped from mind.
The Climb:
Finally I was able to get sponsorship after much efforts. When I landed in Kathmandu, even my sherpa refused to accompany me to the climb saying that it is impossible to climb with an artificial leg and a broken leg in the freezing temperature. Madam Bachendri had to convince him that I had gone through much training and knew every thing about mountaineering. I believe that it is important to know everything possible about your goal and that helped me a lot.
Till base camp I was doing well among our small group of climbers on rocky terrain. But when the blue & green ice started, things became difficult. Using every strength in me, I scaled that icy terrain section with much difficulty but never giving up. Then came the icy wall section for which I had trained before but never with the kind of ice that Everest offers. My legs used to slip and while digging often my artificial leg used to turn. But with repeated efforts and self belief, I kept pushing myself and kept moving ahead slowly. In the Everest climb, there are 4 camps and as we progress the difficulty level increases and people start dropping out and so did my fellow climbers. I had to motivate myself. From camp three to camp four, I told myself at every step that I have something in me that others do not have and that is why I will scale the peak and return back.
When I reached camp four called South Col, I was very happy. While acclimatising, I saw few tents around me and also noticed sherpas carrying out bodies of two climbers who had died earlier. I was slightly afraid but reminded myself to strictly follow the rules of mountaineering and be disciplined to avoid any such tragedy to myself.
For the final climb to the summit, called the death zone, the final 3,500 feet, we started in the night. Climbers prefer night as the whether is normally calm and the ice is also strong. The others in our group and already left. When I started alone with the sherpa, I could continuously see many dead bodies, many body parts emerging from the snows, still having their full equipments on. Even on my rope line, I heard a Bangladeshi climber dying further ahead. When I reached him, his body was frozen with his eyes open. His oxygen was exhausted. My mind almost went blank at that moment and it even gives me chills when I talk about it today. Finally, after few moments, I gathered myself and passed over that dead body on the rope line towards the summit. I told myself that I will scale the peak and return alive for all those who lay dead around me.
The Final Steps:
At the Hillary Step, on South summit, my sherpa suddenly asked to go back saying that I cannot climb the summit. My oxygen levels were running very low. It was at that moment of truth that I reminded myself of what my mother and madam Bachendri had told me – that a moment will come when you will feel you cannot go further, at that time just look back and remember that you have reached to this place by taking every single step and all you need to take was to take another single step and then you will reach the top. Finally I told the sherpa to do whatever he likes, but I will unfurl the tricolour on the peak. I began walking and was followed by the sherpa who never left my side no matter how much we fought.
After two hours at 10.55 am on 21st May, I was on top of Mt. Everest along with my sherpa. I had planned a lot for this moment and was carrying multiple cameras and batteries with me to capture the moment. I was asking sherpa to click my snaps and he was warning me that my oxygen could get over at any time. But when I asked him to take video, he lost it and turned around in anger to return. I held his hand at that moment and told him that even if I don't go back, take the video back to India so that it reaches out to the youth of the country. Somewhere I knew that with the amount of oxygen I had left, I would never make it back alive.
Just after few steps in climbing down, my oxygen got over and I fell down. I couldn't breath and couldn't walk. Just then, unexpectedly, out of sheer luck, we could see another climber turning back and leaving an used oxygen cylinder back. The sherpa got that cylinder for me and luckily it had some oxygen in it. That is what saved my life.
Back at our camp 4, our fellow climbers had almost given up hopes of our survival. When we reached there, the team lead asked me why I had taken so much risk in life? My reply was simply that not taking a risk in life is the biggest risk. No pains – no gains.
My beliefs and my future goals:
I believe that it is not fate that defines our destiny. It is our own decisions which shape our destiny. On my climb, there were many occasions where I could have turned back and then that would have been my history. But I didn't and that is how I shaped my own destiny. Even while lying on the tracks for over seven hours and after passing of 49 trains, I did not die, I did not give up. Sometimes, we have to make our own fate the hard way - one scratch, one step at a time. We may fail or die anywhere in life, it is where we decide and I had decided that if I had to die, it would be on Everest.
Every person has his own Everest to scale in life. I believe that when things are the darkest, a beautiful morning is close by. God has given everyone all things equally and everyone has some qualities. What matters is that we identify it and work with it. I am still not resting on my achievement and awards, I am now aiming to scale the highest peaks on the each seven continents on earth and hoist our flag on it. I have already scaled six peaks and this December I will try my last on Antarctica.
Also with so many youth and disabled people looking up to me, I had to make the decision to establish an international sports academy which needed about 55 cores. I didn't have any money and was staying on rent at that time but I had the confidence. Finally after many years, on 28th November last year, we did the foundation stone laying ceremony for that academy. So again, all we need to do is to decide and focus all our energy on it and there is nothing we can achieve.
All I have to say is that failure is not when we fall short of achieving our goals. It is when we don’t have goals worthy enough. I reiterate this small poem which is my favorite …
Abhi to is banj ki asli udaan baaki hai,
Abhi to is parinde ka imtihaan baki hai,
Abhi abhi hai maine langha in samundaron ko,
Abhi toh pura aasmaan baki hai...
Thank you.
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