02/05/2024
On the right is Krishnaa Patil, the youngest Indian climber to ever summit Mount Everest. And what a presence she is.
Krishnaa was 19 at the time and is now 28. Younger Indian climbers have now eclipsed that record.
What sets Krishnaa apart besides her age is her background. Especially at the time, climbers from India who summited Mount Everest came from moneyed families and had a elite educational backgrounds. Their families were able to buy the best equipment and hire the best coaches and guides.
Krishnaa on the other hand, came from a middle-class, single mother family with limited resources.
Her mother, Ranjana, however, made many sacrifices to lay a path for her daughter to become a physically effective and mindfully adept athlete capable of enjoying the training of goalless workouts.
Ranjana fed her daughter organic vegan meals from an early age and set her on a mental discipline of regular exercise and movement. Not a day was missed and Krishnaa seemed to thrive in these disciplines. this went on for well over a decade until Krishnaa decided one day that her real desire would be to climb Mount Everest.
Without a plan in mind as to how this whole thing would be financed, the mother-daughter team moved forward with training and a belief in a reward in the trust of uncertainty and risk.
They met a man who seemed captivated by their efforts and invested just enough money to get Krishnaa ready for the climb. The day came to start off for Basecamp. And now it seemed that the public started to take notice.
I don’t have a lot of details on the climb itself. But I do know that once Krishnaa reached the summit, she became a national hero.
Suddenly people realized that you didn’t have to be rich and you didn’t have to be well educated to achieve a goal if that was truly what you want. This country of India had a moneyed class and then there was everybody else. Krishnaa represented the everybody else. She was written up in all the national newspapers and met many elected leaders and well-known celebrities.
From there, she found sponsorship to climb the other six highest peaks in the world in one year. This has been attempted by few, and accomplished by even fewer.
She claimed five more of the Seven Summits leaving just Mount McKinley in Alaska. With little time left within the year time frame, she set off for Alaska.
I do not have a direct description of what happened at Mount McKinley. This is only based on what I heard through others.
Krishnaa, her guide, and her small climb group headed up the mountain. When they were within a short distance of the summit, her guide instructed her to head down the mountain. Krishna did not understand. Why was he saying this? He gave no reason, but he made the command once again. She questioned him again and again. But Krishnaa followed the rules of the mountain and headed down through tears of frustration and despair. Again, these are my words based only on what I heard from others.
This ended what could’ve been a world record as youngest climber. We ask now why this guide would do this. Was he sexist? Was he resentful of her age? Her nationality? Her ability? Was he jealous? All of the above? On that day, Krishna was healthy, capable, and ready to make the last short leg of what could’ve been a monumental climb.
These days, Krishna is a happy go lucky, full of energy, and ready for anything woman of the world. People from all backgrounds are attracted to her vibrancy. Myself included in a big way!
I stayed with Ranjana and Krishna at their Airbnb in Mumbai for a few days. Krishnaa was here, there and everywhere, so in particular, I got to know Ranjana very well. She is the steady state behind the big presence . You might say, the wind beneath Krishnaa’s wings. Which is not to say, Ranjana doesn’t have wings of her own!
I’m grateful to meet these two women who really star in their lives. What a mother Ranjana must have been to see the way forward for her daughter by asking for so much, but never too much. By pushing hard, but never too hard. By loving through a fierce vision of limitless possibility for krishnaa’s future without creating a pressured strictness that creates resentment and limits motivation. It’s a fine line sometimes. Ranjana’s instincts allowed her to play it like music.
What love there is in this. What wonder. What power. A dynamic only a woman can give the world.
