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Appetite for adventure

Photo: Anu Pushkarna

Brew for the brave Bachendri Pal

What do you offer someone who has already conquered time and space? When she climbed Mount Everest, she was a relatively unknown mountaineer, but as soon as Bachendri Pal became India’s first woman to reach the summit of the world’s highest peak, her fame took an ascendant path that has never looked down. Recently she returned from an all-women’s expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro, a feat that was accomplished in record time. And yet Bachendri’s feet remain firmly and endearingly on the ground.

Bachendri, 54, admits, “I ought to watch what I eat, but I don’t. My excuse is I’ll go to the mountains and burn off the calories!”

Bachendri reveals that she has been a vegetarian for many years now. And she explores on more than her two legs. “I love to drive. I love visiting remote places, eating at dhabas, in a place where it is just me and nature.”

On mountain climbing expeditions, though, says Bachendri, who heads the Jamshedpur-based Tata Steel Adventure Foundation, she takes particular care of her own and her group members’ diet requirements. “One has to take a high calorie diet and be particularly careful about liquids. Because of the altitude and faster breathing, you require more liquids.”

On Everest expeditions, cooks accompany the group. “Now there is dehydrated stuff available — halwa, pulao, curries, etc. — to which you can add water.” On long trips they carry only the raw materials. During international expeditions she is particular that the climbers should have Indian food available for their comfort. On the Kilimanjaro expedition, they packed snacks from Bihar like thekua — “It’s a sweet made from atta” — besides pickles. “People prefer spicy food as they suffer from altitude sickness and loss of appetite.”

Expansion of gases within the system causes discomfort, she explains, and to avoid this it is necessary to climb gradually. “Climb high and sleep low is the remedy,” she says, sipping hot lemon tea from the Lobby Lounge’s range of Asian teas and coffees. Bachendri hails from Uttarkashi in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, and like most paharis, is a rice eater. “That I can never get past. I love rice.” Bachendri says people brought up in the hills don’t necessarily have an edge as mountaineers. She was able to persuade her own sister, also in her 50s, to complete a climb up to 15000 feet only recently. “She was always hesitant, saying, ‘I have aches here, pains there.’ Arre, mountaineering means everything will hurt! But now her self esteem has gone up so much, she says ‘I must be the only woman in Gopeshwar to have accomplished this at my age.”

Indeed, mountain climbing was an unheard of calling when Bachendri started her career. “When I was selected for Everest, I would train by jogging. The women in the fields would ask me, have you lost something?” The question irked her so much, that the next time she saw someone approaching as she jogged, she would look the other way.

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