Tired of walking home from the bus stop? Injured while playing? What next? Our next move is to rest, recover and get back to same old shenanigans. Arunima Sinha, a former national volleyball and football player, battled death and lived to become the worlds first female amputee to climb Mount Everest. What is our excuse? If she can complete such a risky task why cant we! This is how she inspires us to move forward and not look back.
Arunima boarded the Padmavati Express train from Lucknow and left for Delhi on 12 April 2011 to give her exams for entering the CISF (Central Industrial Security Forces). Unfortunately, she encountered some robbers trying to steal her belongings, to which she bravely resisted. But the robbers threw her out of the running tracks where she could move and stayed down between running tracks for hours. A running train on the parallel track crushed her leg. She was rushed to the hospital and some days later shifted to the All India institute of medical sciences. After spending a few months there under treatment, she decided right there to climb the Everest. She was motivated by Yuvraj Singh, Indian cricketer who battled cancer. She approached Bachendri Pal, first Indian woman to climb Everest and shared her views. Pal told her that she has already climbed the Everest when she decided to do so in her condition, now only the world needs to know. Sinha then took mountaineering courses and climbed the Mount Everest in May 2013.
She wrote a message on a paper thanking almighty God for her success and shoved it in the snow. She showed severe perseverance and dedication towards her goal. Her disadvantages didn’t let her lose her belief. She never gave up, not even after climbing Everest. She later waved the Indian flag on some of the highest peaks. Recently in Jan 2019, she became the first female amputee to climb Mount Vinson in Antarctica. Her stories have immense pain and yet displays her vision and self-belief. If this doesn’t inspire us, nothing will!!
