Anmish Varma Bhupati Raju (28), of Visakhapatnam, is literally on top of the world after attaining his childhood dream of scaling Mt. Everest — a feat he achieved on June 1 (Tuesday).
His 50-day expedition to scale Mt. Everest began after reaching Kathmandu in Nepal in the first week of April. Over the next few weeks, Mr. Anmish and his team went up and down the mountain slopes several times to acclimatise themselves with the extremely hypoxic (low oxygen) environment at high altitudes.
“We reached the base camp on April 19. The adverse weather conditions of snow, wind and avalanches forced us to remain in camp-2 (at a height of 6,400 m) for six days. Some of the climbers returned as they did not want to take risks due to the bad weather. My Sherpa guide and I started from the last camp (8,000 m) at around 7 p.m. on May 31 and reached the summit of Mt. Everest (8,848.86m) at 5 a.m. on June 1,” Mr. Anmish, who is on his way back to the base camp in Nepal, told The Hindu when contacted over his mobile phone, on the afternoon of June 4.
Mr. Anmish has a keen interest in martial arts and trained in karate when he was 10 years old. He did his schooling, degree and PG (MBA) in the city. “I used to love climbing hillocks and hills surrounding the city from my childhood days. My training in martial arts ensured that I had a high level of fitness and I used to look for new challenges. Mountaineering was an obvious choice, and I completed Basic and Advanced Mountaineering Courses from some of the best institutes in India, in addition to the winter training programme in Ladakh, where the temperatures fall to as low as -40° Celsius,” he said.
He went on to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (5,895 m), the tallest peak in Africa, and Mt. Aconcagua (6,961 m), the tallest in South America; both in 2020 just before the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Anmish credited the Adventure Sports Academy at Gandikota in Kadapa district for helping him accomplish the feat.
Mr. Anmish established an NGO called Kalpavruksh in 2010, through which he has trained over one lakh girls and women in self-defence. “I used to go to schools, colleges and even some software companies in Visakhapatnam city and provide free training in karate to women and girls,” he recalled.
He is also a two-time champion of the World Kickboxing and Karate Union (WKU) Championships having won two consecutive gold medals at the WKU tournaments held in Greece (2018) and Austria (2019).