THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: He has scaled the summit of the Mount Everest on multiple occasions, but Hyderabad-based professional mountaineer, guide and adventure sports promoter Bachinepally Shekhar Babu says the real work begins once the formidable task is achieved and you begin the descent from the highest mountain on earth.
“The first time I reached the peak in 2007, I was literally crying. After years of hard work, I was elated to have made it to the top,” said Shekhar who delivered a speech on ‘How to Lead in Critical Circumstances’ during a programme organised by city-based Thoughts Academy here the other day.
But as someone who frequently leads teams to peaks in India and abroad, there is no time for Shekhar to bask in glory as the safety of his team is his priority now.
“Once they reach the top, most of them are super excited and get carried away because of the tremendous feat,” said Shekhar, who guided Poorna Malovath, the youngest to reach the Everest summit, in her historic triumph. “When you look at the accidents and deaths that have taken place on the Himalayas, you see most of them happen when the team travels downhill. So, my job is to get them to focus on the job at hand and not get complacent until they return to safety.”
Shekhar took to adventure sports as an NCC cadet at 17. In 2002, he completed the Basic and Advanced Mountaineering Course from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Nehru Institute of Mountaineering.
Now 26, Shekhar is a champion of adventure sports and runs Transcend Adventures, a company for mountaineering logistics. A recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, the highest national recognition for outstanding achievements in the field of adventure on land, sea and air, Shekhar said there is a lot of buzz in the country when it comes to mountaineering.
“When people tell me they want to climb Everest, their expectations of how tough it is going to be at that altitude are far from what is the reality. What we try to do is to bring down this gap between their expectation and reality at the end of which only a few remain interested,” said Shekhar. “We will then invite them over and see their skill set. We train them at different heights and see how their body reacts. The preparation varies from person to person and could last for a year or two.”