If god closes one door, he opens 10 other doors. I believe Im alive today to achieve something. Set the goal and work relentlessly without fear.Collection: Fear
I had to figure out a different way of walking to ease my journey to the top, surviving in mountains, and more importantly, I learnt patience.Collection: Patience
Obviously, after the accident, I felt let down. Questions arose: Why me? Why was I the one to suffer? People around me started giving me looks of sympathy which made me feel worse. But then, I pulled myself together and decided to win over the disability.Collection: Sympathy
I knew that there would be climbers around me who would reach the summit faster. I was warned not to be hasty.
I wanted to tell everyone that I'm on top of the world, especially to those people who thought a woman and an amputee couldn't do it. I took off my mask and screamed, and my sherpa just stared at me.
By conquering all the seven summits I will prove that physical disability can never be a hindrance in achieving your life's goal if you have mental strength, strong willpower and firm determination.
I would not have climbed Everest had I not met with the accident in 2011. Though I lost my leg, it made me a stronger person.
I never sat on a wheelchair during my recovery, never wanted to sit at all. Its also a bit psychological. I thought if I sat on a wheelchair once, itll remain stuck to me for a lifetime.
When I was in the hospital, everyone was worried for me, and I realised that I had to do something in my life so that people would stop looking at me with pity. I spoke to my elder brother and my coach about climbing the Everest, and they encouraged me.
Yes, i will - i will fight for my right and what i believe to be mine. People from the middle class have a right to live their lives with dignity. I have nothing to fear.
My life from the railway track to Mount Everest has been one of struggle. Bachendri Pal and Tata Steel believed in me at a time when I couldn't even walk so I'm very grateful to them.
I wanted to live further but wanted to do something special. I took it upon myself to remover the tag of being 'helpless'.
My left leg had to be amputated from below the knee immediately to prevent gangrene from setting in. I was losing blood alarmingly. Here I was informed that the hospital was out of anaesthesia. With no choice, I instructed them to go ahead with the amputation. The limb was sawed off while I was fully conscious.
During my Mount Everest journey, I have gone through a lot many troubles, but at the end, I completed my journey and created a history for India.
I was a sportsperson and had always been so independent. And then suddenly, I had lost such a key part of my body.
I come from Ambedkar Nagar, a small district in Uttar Pradesh 200 kilometres away from Lucknow. My father was an engineer in the army and my mother, Gyan Bala, a health supervisor in a government primary health centre. My father passed away when I was three.
Everyone in my family enjoys sports and I was naturally athletic as a child. I have been cycling since I can remember, had previously represented by school in football and later my college at national level volleyball.
They say our lives are scripted in advance. We just play our part and fate intervenes in mysterious ways to ensure that no one deviates from the script. It was a wrong date of birth on my CISF interview call later that led me to my taking the train journey that changed the course of my life forever.
I stubbornly chose the most difficult sport for myself. When I reached the summit, I felt like screaming at the top of my voice. I wanted to tell the world: here I am. I have saved that moment inside me.
I was a volleyball player. After the accident, I played the sport in a wheelchair but never liked it. I wanted to live my life like a queen.
Mountaineering helps in developing confidence and when I scaled Mt. Everest, I saw many people connecting with me which inspired me to scale all peaks across the globe.
I have already done seven highest peaks. Now, I want to open a sports academy for children, people with disability and help them rise as I did.
But I didnt feel like an invalid even for a second. I knew that I could never be the player that I was, so I wanted to do something different - so different that everybody would say that it would be impossible.
I had bought some land in Unnao with the money I got after the accident. I plan to build a sports academy for the disabled there.
I used to feel bad when people called me crazy, when I was on my hospital bed and planning to climb the Everest. But now when people call me crazy about my goals, I feel happy. Now I understand, if people say you are crazy about your goal that means your goal is very close.
Ever since I lost my limb and started walking with a prosthetic leg, I had been working only on my goal of conquering the 29,000 feet summit. Now that it has been achieved, my next goal is the Seven Summits.
The injuries and subsequent incidents inspired me to do something. I converted my weakness into my strength and made it my weapon.
Mountaineering isn't as solo a sport as one may think. While the main goal is to reach the peak, one also keeps an eye out for others on the way. Nobody is left behind, and until everyone in the group reaches the summit, the mission isnt accomplished.
Whenever the national para-athletic games are held, information does not reach the athletes. Whether the physically-challenged athletes participate or not, is a different question. But, we should be informed at least by emails.
On a mountain covered with ice, the sharp points in front of your shoes help cling and climb. But on Carstensz Pyramid, I had to pull my body upward.
I have successfully completed the 5th summit of the Mission 7 Summits. I have climbed Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, South America. This is also known as second Everest.
Banging my feet against the snow to get a grip on the ice, I damaged my artificial leg stump. On several occasions my artificial leg turned 180 degrees and I had to put it back to its normal position which slowed me down. I had to crawl along the slope to move forward, annoying the climbers behind me.
I have seen hard times in my life. I lost my foot and was badly injured after a gang of thieves threw me out of the running train. I laid down on the tracks for hours and later was hospitalised. I could have failed and died.
My artificial leg was very unstable on the ice so I had to be before careful. I couldn't tend to my wounds because my amputated leg would have suffered frostbite. I couldn't even remove my gloves.