Answer the following questions.

(i) What are the three qualities that played a major role in the author’s climb?

(ii) Why is adventure, which is risky, also pleasurable?

(iii) What was it about Mount Everest that the author found irresistible?

(iv) One does not do it (climb a high peak) for fame alone. What does one do it for, really?

(v) “He becomes conscious in a special manner of his own smallness in this large universe.” This awareness defines an emotion mentioned in the first paragraph. Which is the emotion?

(vi) What were the “symbols of reverence” left by members of the team on Everest?

(vii) What, according to the writer, did his experience as an Everester teach him?

(i) The three qualities that played a major role in the author’s climb are endurance, persistence and will power.

(ii) Adventure is risky, but pleasurable. Though it presents great difficulties, man takes delight in overcoming such hurdles. Everest is the highest, the mightiest, and many attempts have been made to climb it. According to the author, when the summit is climbed, there is the feeling of “exhilaration, the joy of having done something, the sense of a battle fought and won”. There is a feeling of victory and of happiness. The physical conquest of a mountain is only one part of the achievement. It is followed by a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction. The experience is not merely physical, but it is emotional and spiritual also.

(iii) Everest drew him towards itself by its beauty, aloofness, might, ruggedness and the difficulties encountered on the way. That is why he found it irresistible.

(iv) Climbing a peak means endurance, persistence and will power. The demonstration of these physical qualities is exhilarating for a climber. The experience, apart from being merely physical, is also emotional and spiritual. It surely presents great difficulties. However, man takes delight in overcoming obstacles. Therefore, it is not for fame alone that one climbs a mountain. It is actually for the feelings of exhilaration and satisfaction.

(v) “He becomes conscious in a special manner of his own smallness in this large universe.” This awareness defines the emotion of humility.

(vi) On Everest, a picture of Guru Nanak was left by the author; a picture of Goddess Durga was left by Rawat; a relic of the Buddha was left by Phu Dorji. Apart from these ‘symbols of reverence’ there was also the cross that had been buried by Edmund Hillary.

(vii) According to the writer, his experience as an Everester provided him with the inspiration to face life’s ordeals determinedly. It taught him that the conquest of the internal summit is as worthwhile as climbing the mountain. He also concluded that perhaps the internal summits are higher than Everest.