On Saturday, Edmund Hillary turned 100.
Calcutta remembered him with stories and anecdotes of not only as the mountaineer who became the first to climb Mount Everest in 1953, but a person who went on to love the Himalayan nation.
Stories of philanthropy from the villages in Nepal emerged at a programme in the city held to celebrate Sir Edmund Hillary’s birth centenary through a series of illustrated talks amongst Everesters and mountain lovers on Saturday evening.
He, along with Tenzing Norgay, was the first to summit the 8,848m peak on May 29, 1953, but his association with Nepal did not end with scaling the Everest.
In 1961, Hillary went on to build the first school in the area in Khumjung village and started the Himalayan Trust in the 1960s and had led the trust until his death in 2008.
“Hillary went on to build 27 schools and the first school was set up in Khumjung. Most of these sherpas were not able to read and write and they were porters something that Hillary had seen. He wanted to give them education so that they do not remain porters and many of the people who hail from the sherpa community are now well placed,” said Sujoy Das, author and expedition photographer, who spoke on “Hillary — Everest & Beyond” on Saturday.
Das shared pictures of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s climb to the Everest, an image of Hillary shortly after his wife and daughter died in a plane crash and also one where a sherpa boy is requesting him to open a school in Khumjung village.
The programme was organised by a non-profit trust The Himalayan at Asutosh Mookerjee Memorial Institute. The other speaker of the evening was Bhanu Banerjee who spent months in 1960s with Hillary in the Yeti-hunting expedition as the only Indian member.
Banerjee spoke on “A Year in Sherpaland with Ed Hillary” starting with his meeting Hillary at “The Grand Hotel” and the mountaineer requesting him to buy certain things for the Yeti expedition.
“He gave me a list of things that he wanted for the expedition — 200 pairs of walking boots from Bata, 50 trays of biscuits from Britannia, some cigarettes, ropes and kitbags,” said Banerjee.
Both Bata and Britannia gave the supplies for free. But a twist in the tale happened when Hillary said goodbye to Banerjee in Kathmandu. Banerjee told Hillary: “You are going to the mountains without me?”
Hillary then got permission for Banerjee to be included in the Yeti expedition and that’s how he became the only Indian member.
Das said when Hillary formed the Himalayan Trust he took the help of the sherpas to manage schools and hospitals. “One of them was Phurba Sherpa’s husband. Phurba later became close to the Hillary family,” said Das. Phurba, whose late husband went to New Zealand to study with a scholarship from The Himalayan Trust, has also instituted scholarships in Nepal as a “way to pay back to the society”.
Recollecting his lone interaction with Hillary in October 1998 at the school in Khumjung, Das said: “Draped in white ceremonial scarves from head to toe, he walked to the school. As he was about to cross me, he stopped and waved at me. I waved back and took his picture.”
Phurba was invited to the centenary celebrations in New Zealand, Das said.
A Facebook post claims that in New Zealand, recollecting her family’s association with Hillary, Phurba said: “He is a great mountaineer who did not come to only to climb Mount Everest… more than that he was a humanitarian…I am honoured to be here with you to celebrate Edmund Hillary’s life and legacy which is important for me and the people in the Himalayas.”
