BOOK REVIEW—THE SHERPA TRAIL
A HIMALAYAN
CALLING
[ This review was published in THE TRIBUNE on 7th July 2024 ]
Authors: Nandini Purandare and Deepa Balsavar
Published by: Roli Books
Price: Rs. 695.00
This book is a well deserved and long overdue tribute to
perhaps the most recognizable group in the community of mountain climbers, but
about whom next to nothing is known apart from their climbing exploits. The
Sherpas are almost synonymous with the Himalaya and the 8000ers and their
histories cannot be separated. This wonderful book, many years in the
researching and writing, based on visits, interviews and documented records,
finally does justice to this most intrepid, strong, courageous and loyal of our
species.
The Sherpas (like the Bhutias) were originally residents of eastern
Tibet and migrated to Nepal many hundreds of years ago. Subsequently, in the 19th
and 20th centuries, there was a second migration to Darjeeling in
India, once a part of Sikkim but annexed by the British in 1850. For Darjeeling
was a two-way gateway: north to Nepal and Tibet for expeditions to the Himalaya
and south for trade and other employment.
The age of climbing in the Himalaya began in the last two
decades of the 19th century, as an extension of European and British
imperialism, and that is when the Sherpa came into his own. Nepal was closed to
foreigners till 1949 and so initially all attempts on the Himalayan peaks were
through Darjeeling and Tibet. It soon became clear that the Alpine style of
climbing and European supporting staff were unsuited for these altitudes and
conditions, and so hundreds of native Lepchas, Bhutias and Sherpas were hired
as porters and guides for these expeditions. A new profession was born and the
Sherpas dominated it.
The book is a fascinating account of the history of
mountaineering in the Himalaya, the various expeditions to different peaks like
Everest, K2, Kanchenjunga, Nanda Devi, Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat; the conquests,
failures and tragedies that resulted; the famous climbers associated with them
and the roles played by the Sherpas in these attempts. It traces the evolution
of the Sherpas from unnamed individual porters to their recognition as mountaineers
par excellence, sealed by the achievement of Tenzing Norgay on Everest on 29th
May 1953. The Sherpas now acquired names, faces, respect-and fame.
The book traces the establishment of THC (The Himalayan Club)
in 1929 (out of its 250 members only one Indian, the Raja of Jubbal in HP,
found a place in it!) to coordinate all climbing expeditions in the Himalaya
and to extend the knowledge of the Himalayan ranges for the benefit of science,
literature, art and sport; it also acted as a bridge between the Sherpas and
the expeditions. We learn of two British ladies- Joan Townend and Jill
Henderson- who as honorary secretaries of the THC contributed a lot to the
recognition of the Sherpas as more than mere porters and did much for their
welfare. Sadly, as much of the mountaineering (and Sherpas) shifted to Nepal
after 1949 the THC’s role began to diminish. The process was speeded up by the
setting up of the HMI (Himalayan Mountaineering Institute) in Darjeeling by
Nehru in 1954, the Sherpa Climber’s Association by Tenzing in 1955 and the
Indian Mountaineering Federation in 1961. But it had done its job well by then.
There are chapters on some of the legendary Sherpas such as Pasang
Dawa, Ang Tharkay (probably the greatest of them all), Khamsang Wangdi, Nawang
Gombu (the first person to have climbed Everest twice, Dorjee Lhatoo (the Clint
Eastwood of Darjeeling!), Pemba Chorty (he has summitted Everest an incredible
seven times), and Ang Tsering (who is reported to have discovered the footprint
of a Yeti and received a hundred rupee bonus for it!), whose achievements
matched that of Tenzing Norgay even as all the glory went to the latter. There
is a full chapter on the Sherpanis, Ani Lhakpa Diki (“the most gorgeous woman
in all of Darjeeling”) and Ani Daku Sherpa, to remind the reader that the women
of the tribe matched their male counterparts step for step, load for load, at
least till base camp. These thumb-nail vignettes bring the reader into the
homes of these doughty heroes, to give us a glimpse of their past, present and
future. Their’s was a hard life: almost all of them were migrants from Tibet or
Nepal, childhoods spent in poverty; they raised themselves to unprecedented
heights, literally, by dint of sheer hard labour and commitment, and then
reverted to humble retirement. Most did well by their families. They were
legends in the climbing world, but are almost unknown outside of it. One achievement of this book is to have made them
known to the larger wo rld.
The authors also do their best to
profile Tenzing himself, to contrast the pre-Everest and post-Everest hero.
Where the former was an amiable, fun-loving, helpful individual the later
Tenzing comes across as one full of grievances, petty jealousies and even
vindictive. There is a strange
bitterness that imbues his post-Everest innings: his autobiography, Tenzing After
Everest, is a “litany of the injustices he faced”. All the adulation, success
and riches appear to have gone to his head; he even turned against his former
friend Ang Tharkay and had him evicted from HMI. In fact Captain Kohli, a
member of the Indian Everest Expedition in 1962, went so far as to tell the
authors in 2014: “ as a human being Ang Tharkay was a step further than
Tenzing.” Some feel that he became “a slave to his greatness” but in
extenuation it must be said that it could not have been easy for him , an
uneducated man from a humble background, to have faced his global celebrity
status and the pressures, demands and expectations that came with it. Though
not a Sherpa himself, he made the Sherpa a household name. That, along with
Everest, will remain his lasting legacy.
The book ends on a somewhat sombre and despondent note: that the
golden age of the Darjeeling climbing Sherpa is now almost over, in fact , it
quotes one great mountaineer as saying that in a decade from now there will be no Sherpas
on the mountains. There are reasons for this: major expeditions to Everest
(still the fulcrum of most climbing activity in the Himalaya) have shifted to
Nepal and the younger Darjeeling Sherpas have followed suit, the present
generation of younger Sherpas are not interested in doing what their fathers
did- they are educated, ambitious and do not see either climbing or high
altitude portering as a viable future, the HMI in Darjeeling has lost much of
its lustre to the IMF (Indian Mountaineering Federation), its original Sherpas elbowed
out by bureaucrats and army personnel,
both as administrators and instructors. The elegy for this unique breed
of mountaineers is perhaps best provided by Nima Norbu, an Everester himself
and the brother of Tenzing Norgay’s third wife; this is what he told the
authors of this book:
“Ninety nine percent of the educated Darjeeling Sherpas are
not going into mountaineering…There is no future for the climbing Sherpas of
Darjeeling. When HMI opened-that was a different time. The whole system has
changed. There are very few Sherpa instructors in HMI, and none in other
institutes like Uttarkashi and Manali.”
This book ensures that when the Sherpa goes, he will not go unsung-
or be forgotten.
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