At times you find something
precious in piles of rubble, though it wasn’t piles of rubble, this book was
found in a second hand book shop and cost only 100 rupees. May be no one knew
the importance of this book and sold it in a second hand book shop, and there
it lay for someone to take it. “Facing up : Bear Grylls” that’s what the people
saw when passed by the book stall, but one of my friend picked it up and only
then I realized that it was a book by Bear Grylls. As soon as she bought it even before she had a time to read it, I asked
her to lend me the book. I wanted to read the book by the most fearless guy we
have ever known, at least that’s what we see. A confident, fearless and a mad
ex British army who’s now a survivor expert and runs a TV show of similar
manner. I wanted to read this book even more when I learned that it was about
his Everest adventure.
Like I said before, the Bear
Grylls most of us know is what we see in the TV, a strong, confident and a bold
man who does things we can barely think
of doing. He is a superhuman of the real, non-fictional world for us. I was
looking forward to reading his bravery on Everest, how he conquered Everest and
how arrogantly he has written about it in his book. But only at last chapter of
the book I learned that how he didn’t Conquer the Everest, rather how Everest “
The Goddess of the Sky” let him Live! This book has to be one of the most
inspirational book that I have ever
read. I learned about a different side of Bear Grylls, and his story has
inspired me a lot.
I had previously heard the story
of Bear being an ex-army but I didn’t know why he had left the army, I had
thought he just left the army to run a tv show dealing with survivor skills,
but the book starts with his horrific accident with faulty parachute that
crashed him in dessert floor in Africa. The accident had left him seriously
injured, just cheating death by a narrow margin, and ending his career as an
army, the doctors on the other hand thought he’d not be able to run again. But gradually,
he got better with time and one day out of nowhere he decided to make an
attempt on the summit of highest mountain on Earth. That decision shows the
mental pressure he had to go through after coming from that accident and how he
promised to never do anything reckless and would a normal life to his parents
were soon about to change. It took a long time for him to convince his family,
and in the end he got a green signal and a good support. But his desperate
attempt to get a sponsor to get him going is something that laid him back, but
still he was determined to scale the mountain. The few early chapters deals
with how he thought about climbing and
his struggles with sponsorship and training. The main part starts after
he leaves England and starts the long journey towards the Highest Peak.
I was eagerly waiting for the
part where he starts the trek, I was expecting him to go on about how easy it
was for him to trek to the Everest Base Camp after he got off from the
Helicopter in Lukla, but to my dismay, I learned that he suffered much on his
way, fighting the altitude sickness. He is a man after all, but what I had
expected was a result of my comparison of the Bear Grylls that we see now in TV
with the Bear who was 23 and on the way to the Summit of Mount Everest. It was
intriguing to see the fearless Bear Grylls as I knew afraid and shocked to what
lay ahead of him. The major shock was how he writes about getting altitude
sickness even before he reached the Base Camp. I was hoping for an arrogant
write up where he goes on about how easy the trek was for him, but instead the hardship
he had to go through changed my view. The best thing about the book for me is I
saw a different Bear Grylls, and a new found respect for him.
A new insight on Bear Grylls was
laid in the later chapters, specially dealing with his time in the Base camp’s,
his strenuous training back and forth the different camp sites on the way to Everest.
He goes on to describe how, on his first attempt to high camp, he fell down
into a Crevasse and nearly lost his life, the struggle he faced during his stay
shows a different Bear Grylls that we know off. That determination he had at an
age of 23 is something worth the praise. Half of the book shows his struggles
and how he coped and made the right decision, how patience pays off in the
mountains. His spirit to never give up is scattered around in every single
chapter. It’s a story about a 23 year old kid, who went on the climb the
Everest successfully, younger people have done it now but still to have done
that with minimal and low budget gadgets as he describes is something
extraordinary. Now as people say it’s easy to climb Everest, back in 98 it was still a tough job and just
two years before, 96 saw death of so many acclaimed mountaineers including the
experience and expert Climber Rob Hall.
Even after climbing Everest, the
arrogance part, which I was expecting doesn’t show up in Bear Grylls, Instead a
profound respect is all he shows to the Everest, ending the last chapter with. “It
was not me who Conquered the Everest, it was Everest who allowed me to crawl up
to her and let me live. Also he mentions in the book that he’d never ever climb
any of the 26000+ mountains again. May be he forgot about that dialogue later
when he went on above Everest in a Parajet Paramotor setting a new record,
sailing above Everest at around 9000 meters altitude which was a reckless thing
to do, still he did it well.
The book motivated me well enough
that I will definitely give Everest a try once in my life time, not sure when
but I will try at least once. I remember the line where he said, he brought a
small stone from the summit of the Mount Everest, I once brought a small rock
from around 5000 meters for a friend but all I got was “What do I do with that
Ugly rock” may be the one that Ill bring from the summit of Everest will make that
Friend happy, that encourages me more! Plus I want to see what it feels like to
be in Hillary Step, to watch over vastness of Tibet on one side and the plains
of Nepal on the other. How it feels to see the curvature of the earth from the
highest place on earth, how it feels to run out of Land to walk on, stepping on
the summit of mount Everest.
Post Script: I know it sounds
idiotic, but I wanted to write this, not being arrogant or anything but it gave
a little confident when I read that Bear Grylls had hard time coping with
altitude sickness at 4000 meters, I have been to around 5500 meters without of
feeling anything! I know it’s nothing but still it encouraged me, with enough
training and determination, I feel like I can do it too. I’m not sure if I ever
will, I’m not going to make a promise, but if things work out, I will
definitely try it once, I really want to! But climbing Everest takes a lot more
than saying “I will Climb Everest” once! But nonetheless, I have a dream to
climb it once!
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