By Richa Sharma, IANS,
New Delhi : Losing a leg in a train accident hasn’t stopped 65-year-old Manindra Paul from climbing mountains. But as he aims for Mount Kamet, India’s third highest peak, one thing is worrying the national adventure award recipient – sponsorship.
“I need around Rs.700,000 for the whole expedition, which includes expenses on travel, board and lodging, hiring mountaineering gear and equipment and medicines,” said Paul, for whom mountaineering is a passion.
The month-long expedition starts Aug 15.
“I have been trying to meet some parliamentarians and people from private companies for sponsoring my trip, but it hasn’t fructified yet,” Paul, secretary of the Bharat Adventure Society, told IANS.
He has already received a confirmation letter from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation giving clearance to his 10-member team for scaling the peak.
Paul, who made it to the Limca Book of Records in 1994 under the category of highest climb by a disabled, is excited to break his own record by climbing the 25,200-foot Mount Kamet falling in the Garhwal region of the Himalayas.
Paul made it to the 24,130-foot Mount Abigamin in 1994 and tried to climb Mount Kamet twice, in 1999 and 2005, but had to return mid-way due to poor weather conditions. He has done the holy Kailash Mansarovar Yatra five times.
“If all goes well, I will be the first handicapped person in the country to reach Mount Kamet. I don’t use an artificial leg and climb using crutches,” said Paul, whose next mission is to scale Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
Born in Bangladesh, Paul migrated to India in 1960 and came to Delhi from Kolkata in 1984. In 1995, he got the national adventure award given by the ministry of human resource development and the department of youth affairs and sports.
According to Paul, who lost his right leg in a train accident at the age of 19, it took a lot of effort to prove his mettle.
Even before he completed his basic training in mountaineering, Paul accompanied an Indian Army team on an expedition to Everest in 1985 and went till the base camp.
After that he joined a mountaineering institute in Manali and completed both basic and advanced courses in mountaineering.
“Because of my handicap, no one initially gave any attention to my skills as a mountaineer, but I persisted with my efforts to join different teams and earned a place for myself,” he said.
Asked what inspires him to take on such a daring task, Paul said: “When I heard about Thomas Whitaker, an American with an artificial leg conquering Everest, it struck me, ‘why can’t I’ and this keeps me going and I won’t rest till I climb Everest.”
Paul lives in a rented apartment in Dabri in southwest Delhi and makes a living by giving motivational lectures in schools and colleges.
“I teach students about how Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon and Lal Bahadur Shastri fought all odds to become successful. I tell them they should dream big and work hard to achieve their goals,” signs off Paul.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at [email protected])