CHENNAI: When Rajasekar Pachai won one achievement after another in the surfing field, even though there was a lot of appreciation, a few people ridiculed his success by telling that since he has always been around the ocean, water sports might be easy for him. This was one of the reasons that made him take up mountaineering and become the first civilian from Tamil Nadu to climb Mount Everest in May.
“I come from a family of fishermen. My brother, Sekar Pachai, is a 25-time champion at the SUP national championship. I am a fitness and surfing coach. Since all our achievements were in the water field, people used to think that it is some sort of innate talent and not hard work. So I thought of achieving something in this as mountains and ocean are opposites. This was the first step of my journey,” shared Rajasekar at an event organised by the Cosmopolitan Club and the Shakespeare Millennium Club on Friday.
Tracking the hardships
The seventh child of his family in Kovalam, Rajasekar always had the support of his family for the adventures he chose. Since climbing Mount Everest was a dangerous task, he didn’t want his family to worry about him. So he only informed two of his siblings about the journey.
About his preparations, Rajasekar said, “Since I have always been into fitness, training my body was easier than training my mind. I started by watching YouTube videos of people climbing mountains. Initially those videos used to scare me as it would be of people falling down and deaths happening. Gradually, I mustered up the courage to pursue training and start slow.”
Seeing his grit and determination his friend Veera, and Sabareesan, the owner of Kyn, a infotainment platform pitched in to sponsor him. The trek cost almost Rs 45 lakh, he shared. From August 2022, he began his preparations and the journey on the field started with a trek in Manali in September 2022. After a series of treks with some breaks in between, the final journey began on April 8, 2023. “There were 250 people trekking with me. Almost 70 people got sick in between and 17 passed away. Finally, eight people from India climbed the summit,” he said.
The days and nights of trekking were filled with hardships. Rajasekar shared that he often thought of quitting but he persevered hoping to set a record and make his family and dear ones proud. “My boots alone weighed six kg. I often fell down. I used to miss my family and cry thinking about them, because the nights in the mountain can be very lonely. Every day we used to walk for eight to ten hours carrying a minimum of 20 kg. At 2.30 am while walking, I could see dead bodies on my path. The journey was sometimes horrible. After the trek, my weight went down from 73 kg to 61 kg,” he said.But when he finally reached the summit on the 42nd day, on May 20 at 5.30 am, he felt all the hardships were worth it.
At the 256th meeting of the Club his efforts were lauded. Dr Jamuna Kalyani Sridharan, coordinator, Shakespeare Millennium Club, Ramesh Venkatachalapathy, joint secretary Cosmopolitan Club along with the members of the club honoured Rajasekar and presented him with a cash award. Ramesh said, “To touch the peak is probably every human’s dream. He fought the fear of heights. I wish him all the best.”
After conquering Mount Everest, Rajasekar hopes to set more records. His focus is now to become the first Indian to climb all the seven summits.