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TRAILBLAZER Bachendri Pal

“All the 12 members of the expedition were women. Some of them were housewives. I met a couple of them during my different expeditions and all of them were keen to do something interesting, and so I thought of the trip. On camel back, treading that gruelling route from the Rann of Kutch through the Thar Desert to the Wagah border, is not an easy task not only for women, even for men, so I salute all of them,” says Bachendri during a telephonic chat from Jamshedpur, where she heads the adventure team of Tata Steel. Bachendri, soon after climbing Mount Everest in 1984, was offered a job by J.R.D Tata in Tata Steel and her latest expedition was to celebrate the completion of 100 years of the company this year.

Born in 1954, Bachendri was 30 years old when she scaled Everest. Now well into her 50s, she says her strength lies more in her mind than in her body. “If you have the will you can do anything,” she states. Hers is the tale of a woman who not only had to break out of the fetters of a traditional society but also had to disprove those who often posed her the question after she climbed the first mountain peak: “ What will you gain by climbing mountains?”

“Now, I feel good when the same people tell me to train their daughters to become a mountaineer,” she says with a laugh. As a woman in adventure sports, she says she has had to face such questions at times. “Take the Thar Desert trip. At some point of time, we had to deal with the doubt, “Hope you won’t leave the expedition half way.” But she has a lot of praise for the Border Security Force which facilitated the 48-day trip. “DIG Batham Manohar was in charge of our trip and not only he but all those from the Force whom we met during the expedition were extremely helpful,” she says.

Having never done a desert safari, Bachendri and her group had to undergo three days of training at Bhuj. Starting from how to ride a camel, it gave them tips on how to handle the harsh weather, negotiate sand dunes, take precautions against scorpion and snake bites, etc. Ask Bachendri about the camel ride experience, and all she says with a loud laugh is, “My God!” As the camels get very lazy during summer, “the BSF suggested that we should do the expedition during winter. But winter is their breeding season, so it was difficult to control them at times.”

Backaches, joint pain, injuries and rashes, all showed up during the trip. “Still, we managed to do 60 km per day at times,” she says.

Not knowing what lies ahead thrills Bachendri. “When I was merely 12, I climbed a 13,000-foot mountain just for fun. I had to spend the night there, it was so scary. Even when we did the rafting expedition, I didn’t know much about rafting. The trip to Siachen also had the excitement of the unknown. Not knowing the dangers sometimes helps,” she says. But something that she has consistently honoured is nature’s will. “Nature ke saamne hum tinke hain. (Compared to the vastness of nature, we are a mere speck). I have never tried to offend nature during expeditions,” she says. “For if there were no nature, there would have been no Bachendri,” she adds.

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