‘Mountaineering encourages people to strive for their biggest dreams’

TOI speaks to Nagpur Heroes Avnish and Bimla Deoskar on their plans and the way ahead.
How do you view the Nagpur Heroes award?

The award is special as it acknowledges our efforts. We work in far flung areas and forget appreciation, what we do is not even acknowledged by people back home as they don’t get to know about it. But this award has earned us both, appreciation and acknowledgement for us.

The year 2018 has been a very significant one for both of you.

Yes. Bimla missed reaching the Everest summit twice due to circumstances beyond her control. But she had the immense satisfaction of seeing five persons trained by her reach the summit in May 2018. Training tribal youths to accomplish this has been a very gratifying experience for us. It was not just physical training that we imparted. We took charge of both external and internal development too.

Bimla: 2018 was also the silver jubilee year of the first all-women Everest expedition and I am so glad that we celebrated it by once again returning to the mountains. I lead a group of women some young and those who were part of the expedition and we could once again conquer different peaks.

How are you taking these achievements forward?

We are already busy with the second edition of Mission Shaurya. This time we have picked up tribal students from across the state. They have surprised us with their fitness levels and physical stamina. Our challenge is to structure their dreams and help them to become role models for other tribal children. The mission is not just about making them successful mountaineers. We want to establish them in a position of power in the domain of their expertise.

Scaling Mt Everest has become a trend now and many are taking up this challenge. How do you view the trend?

There is a mountain of a difference between passion and fashion. But the fundamental truth is the process of reaching the summit and returning. Once a person is on top the next step is to come down. This philosophy can be applied in our daily lives and it can help us in coping with the highs and lows. The activity is also gaining popularity maybe because mountaineering is not a monotonous activity. At every step the view changes and there are new challenges. Also reaching the summit is the ultimate landmark of human achievement.

Do you think government should also be taking some steps to promote this activity?

Mountaineering encourages people to strive for their biggest dreams. Good health is its by-product. Visiting the mountains give us first-hand information about how environment is getting impacted. One can see how the glaciers are moving backwards. Once that understanding comes, efforts to delay the process can be implemented.

Having reached this stage how are you planning your future course?

We started with adventure sports and that has grown in terms of being imitated. But it is difficult to imitate a vision. We are now trying to move to another orbit. Our focus and study is on how the experiences that we have garnered and those acquired by others trained by us can be reflected in daily lives.