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| Arunima Sinha is the first female amputee to climb Mount Everest and also the first Indian amputee to climb the tallest peak. inspireicons.com |
Though women gain equal rights and better treatment in many conservative societies like India in the last few decades - thanks to women empowerment, being a woman itself is a disadvantage in many respects if she is out to prove her worth right from her school to college and later employment. If she is an adventurous type and keenly interested in difficult outdoor sports activities such as mountaineering, mountain skiing, long distance swimming, etc.,besides encouragement from her family, she has to tackle many hurdles, leaving aside her physiology and inherent health problems normally associated with women.
Through out history, nothing has stopped courageous women to fight relentlessly to assert themselves as competent individuals in their chosen fields. For inspirational women, such a task is not a difficult one. Being a woman amputee, with limited mobility, just imagine the daunting task and comments she might face in the society if she undertakes the most difficult adventure - to be top on Mt. Everest, tallest peak in the world in the Himalayas. Such a dangerous expedition will invite criticisms and discouragement. It requires hard work, planned training and enormous mental preparation.
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| . Maya Angelou... www.azquotes.com |
foot ball events. Right from her early school days she had been physically active and had keen interest in outdoor activities. On the fateful night, she boarded the Padmavati Express train at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh for Delhi on 11 April, 2011, to write an entrance examination to join the CISF, a government service. All of a sudden a bunch of hoodlums (thieves) pounced on her and snatched her bag and her gold chain despite her stiff resistance. Mercilessly she was pushed off the running train and in the next moment she was lying on the opposite parallel train track near near the town Bareilly. Dumbfounded and shocked over the terrifying incident, initially she could not get up, upon seeing the train coming on that track, she managed to get up. Before she could clear the track , the train had run over her leg and she became unconscious. She was immediately rushed to the hospital with serious leg and pelvic injuries. To save her life, as a last resort, doctors amputated her injured leg.
After this gruesome incident, the state government gave her suitable compensation and got her a job with the railways. She underwent medical treatment for several months at a reputed central government hospital and was was provided a prosthetic leg free of cost by a private Delhi-based Indian company.
While undergoing treatment after loosing her leg Arunima's fighting spirit never stopped working over time. She wanted to do something difficult a physically challenged woman could never dream of. Being a national level volley ball player and good physique, she wanted to be on the top of Mt. Everest, an expedition even an able bodied man would think of twice, considering the inherent dangers on the mountain such as gaping crevasses,rock falls, avalanches, steep cliff, etc. For a woman amputee with artificial leg and limited mobility, it was a daunting job as she had to make every step forward carefully. She joined the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi and successfully underwent training. Her expenses were met by the swami Ramakrishna Mission,
With her TSAF instructor Susen Mahto, on 1 April, 2013, Sinha began her climb under the guidance of Bachendri Pal. Earlier she and Susen Mahto climbed Mount Chhamser Kangri (6622 meters tall) in 2012. On her last leg and final ascent, Sinha, after 17 grueling hours on the treacherous mountain along with her team, reached the summit of Mount Everest at 10:55 am on 21 May, 2013, thus taking the honor of becoming the first female amputee to scale Everest. To achieve this remarkable feat - a tough challenge to human endurance and guts, she took nearly 52 days.
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| Sinha with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the launch of her book.en. wikipedia. org |
''A Tamil saying goes some thing like this: It is the rarest among rare things to be born as a human in this wonderful world, that too with out being blind, dump, deaf and other physical impairment.''
If a person becomes physically handicapped in his /her youthful age, it is just awful to get over the fear and mental barrier to accept the truth, Ms. Arunima has proved that for a highly motivated woman, any thing is possible if her mind and heart are set firmly on the goal.
Tit -Bits:
Tom Whittaker, a British mountaineer, became the first person with a disability to scale the peak in 1998 after a car accident almost two decades earlier that had forced him to have his foot amputated.
Ang Tshering Sherpa, the founder of Asian Trekking, the company that organized the expedition, told the AFP News Agency about the organizer.
The expedition was sponsored by the Tata group, India.
Incidentally, ''gold chain-snatching'' in the early morning hours and in the late night is a menace in unsafe places in the cities. The targets are women, who as a custom, wear gold chain(s). The motorbike- borne culprits with safety helmet on their head ride very close to a lonely woman waling on the road side and snatch the chain in a flash and then speed up. It is something like mugging in the unsafe parts of American cities.
Ref:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/nepal/10072600/Indian-woman-becomes-first-female-ampute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunima_Sinha
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