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Book Name:Tenzing & The Sherpas of the Everest Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Price: Rs. 395

THE LONG HARD ROAD TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD

"It has been a long road...From a mountain coolie, a bearer of loads, to a wearer of a coat with rows of medals who is carried about in planes and worries about income tax." -- Tenzing Norgay

When Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest in 1953 with New Zealander Edmund Hillary, he had no idea how his life would change. From that moment onwards, Tenzing became an ambassador for his people, the high altitude Sherpas of Darjeeling and the Khumbu.

Known as the Tigers of the Snows, though they spent their lives in the mountains, Sherpas did not venture into the high peaks until European mountaineers began arriving to climb in the world's greatest mountain range. Mount Everest, known as Chomolungma or "Goddess Mother of the Land" to Tibetan language speakers like the Sherpas, was long revered as an abode of the gods. Its slopes were considered off-limits to humans.

Although Everest now sees many a human footprint, the Sherpas still regard the mountain as a holy place. All modern expeditions begin with a Puja ceremony in which Sherpas and other team members leave offerings and pay homage to the gods of the mountain, hoping to remain in their good graces throughout the climb. The morning of the first day of a climb is critical for sherpas. They first orient themselves toward the south, while drawing their mantras into their mouths. Privately, each begins to concentrate and invokes the three elements that will guide and protect them: the deities, our lama, and our parents. To do this effectively and genuinely, the lamas say, the mind should be relaxed and the meditation unforced. It is not a matter of actively emptying the mind as much as simply letting go, opening a door so that extraneous and disturbing thoughts can depart, allowing these three elements to take up residence.

Sherpas were first employed as porters, tasked with carrying large amounts of equipment to supply the military-style expeditions of the day. The British climbers were amazed at the strength of these people, from the fittest of mature men to the young and elderly. Arthur Wakefield described the team of porters on one early expedition as "a motley throng of old men, women, boys and girls." Yet their accomplishments astonished him. At 18,000 feet, how the Sherpas carried their loads "completely puzzles me," he wrote. "Some were 80 pounds!"

A British expedition was scheduled to attempt Mt Everest in 1953. This was the last chance for the British because a number of Everest expeditions from other countries were scheduled in the following years, and it was felt that one of them would surely make it to the top. The pressure to succeed was high, and this was evident as the leading British mountaineer Eric Shipton was replaced as expedition leader by the military mountaineer with a flair for organization, Colonel John Hunt. Under John Hunt's leadership, a very able group of mountaineers lined up for the expedition. Edmund Hillary and George Lowe from New Zealand, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, and others including Charles Evans, George Band and Tom Bourdillon.

With fantastic planning, the route was developed by setting up a number of camps. The frightening Khumbu icefall was crossed, the south face of another eight thousander, Lhotse, was traversed to reach the South Col. On the 26th of May, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, using artificial oxygen, launched the first summit attempt but were pushed back less than 300 ft from the actual summit due to malfunctioning of one of their oxygen sets.

Finally came the opportunity for Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, the strongest and fittest climbers in the team. They set up a high camp above the South Col, at a breathtaking altitude of 27,900 ft above sea level, and spent a very uncomfortable night there.

Twenty-nine years after Mallory and Irvine disappeared on the higher slopes of Everest, Hillary and Tenzing made their bid for the highest point on earth. And at 11:30 am on May 29, 1953, Tenzing Norgay of Nepal/India and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand became the first men to reach the top of the loftiest mountain in the world.

On the morning of their summit day, Tenzing and Hillary left their camp and proceeded up the southeast ridge toward the summit. Tenzing later wrote: "On the top of the rock cliff we rested again. Certainly, after the climb up the gap we were both a bit breathless, but after some slow pulls at the oxygen I am feeling fine. I look up; the top is very close now; and my heart thumps with excitement and joy. Then we are on our way again. Climbing again. There are still the cornices on our right and the precipice on our left, but the ridge is now less steep. It is only a row of snowy humps, one beyond the other, one higher than the other. But we are still afraid of the cornices and, instead of following the ridge all the way, cut over to the left, where there is now a long snow slope above the precipice. About a hundred feet below the top we come to the highest bare rocks. There is enough almost level space here for two tents, and I wonder if men will ever camp in this place, so near the summit of the earth. I pick up two small stones and put them in my pocket to bring back to the world below."

The most fascinating section of the book is when it is chronicling the struggles of the early Sherpa climbers, who had to battle not only their own physical limitations but also cultural and religious barriers. When the Himalayan expeditions began, Westerners tended to view Sherpas as strong and faithful load carriers, the backbone to any climb, but not as true contenders for the summit. For their part, says Tenzing, Sherpas were bewildered by Westerners' "fascination with these high, cold, dangerous places where the gods lived and men should not venture." Buddhist lamas, consulted before Englishman George Mallory's 1924 Everest expedition, told the Sherpas not to set foot on the summit, because calamity would befall their communities. The Sherpas obeyed; but despite their obedience, Mallory and Sandy Irvine disappeared during their climb.

Tenzing Norgay and his generation of climbers forged a path that the Sherpa people now navigate daily. Their pioneering accomplishments served as a bridge from the communities' isolated, subsistence past to the "relative affluence and sophistication that they enjoy today," writes Tenzing.

Rich with photographs, .a family tree of the Tenzings and a map, this book is full of insights into the lives of the Sherpas and their history, not to mention the insight it gives into the life of Tenzing Norgay.

Written by Tenzing’s mountaineer grandson, Tashi and his wife Judy, the book recounts one of the great untold stories of mountaineering and pays homage to the long ignored and overlooked Sherpas, without whom reaching the summit of Everest would have remained an impossible dream.

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