At first glance, Premlata Agarwal looks like any normal Indian married woman. She hails from Jugsalai, a suburban area of city of Jamshedpur in India. But under that simple demeanour lies steely determination and guts. My encounter with this great woman surely proved the above.
She is an ace mountaineer and the fascinating fact is that the bug of mountaineering bit her pretty late. At the age of 35, she happened to go for a trekking trip in Dalma hills in Jharkhand. She successfully completed the trip and received great reviews from everyone. Seeing her potential, India’s champion mountaineer and the first Indian woman to scale Mt. Everest- Bachendri Pal urged her to try mountaineering.
Premlata was hesitant and perplexed. She was not a typical adventurous sort of person. But she wanted to restore the faith showed by the great Bachendri Pal. And so she started mountaineering and completed basic and advance mountaineering course successfully.
One incident that she shared was that when she went for the mountaineering course, the trainers had asked her that whether she was actually serious about mountaineering given her age or was it just a break from her humdrum life. As a fit reply she became the best performer in the course where there were several young men and women, that too some from athletic background!
After several expeditions under the tutelage of Bachendri Pal she started training for Mount Everest (Nepal). And in 2011 with a group of 22, she reached the summit of Mount Everest at around 29000ft, highest peak in the world and every adventurer’s dream. She became the oldest Indian woman to scale Everest at the age of 48. After that she scaled the Seven summits in seven continents becoming the first Indian woman to do so. She received Padma Shri that is the fourth highest Civilian award given in India by the President of India himself.
What is interesting is she was not from sports background, never had the ambition to be a mountaineer but was a simple housewife. She enjoyed her time with friends and family. She stresses that she was never the athletic type but made it a point to participate in the sports in school for the spirit of participation. But when destiny gave her a chance to try out something new, she took it with all enthusiasm.
Here I would like to add that in India it is quite difficult for a housewife who has to look after her children, husband and ageing in-laws to break free from her daily responsibilities and pursue her goals and that also of something of the sort as mountaineering which many would call a frivolous activity and a whimsical wish. And there are lots of other societal conundrums.
But she did and how!
She won everyone’s heart with the dedication she showed to achieve her target. Her accomplishments show that anything is possible if we truly want to achieve something in our life. She demonstrated that leadership is not always about academic or career goals. Achieving excellence in other fields is just as important, and the same principles apply in both. She showed us that true grit and optimism always leads to one’s goals.
-Written by Trisha Sarkar, PGP-2 at IIMA
She is an ace mountaineer and the fascinating fact is that the bug of mountaineering bit her pretty late. At the age of 35, she happened to go for a trekking trip in Dalma hills in Jharkhand. She successfully completed the trip and received great reviews from everyone. Seeing her potential, India’s champion mountaineer and the first Indian woman to scale Mt. Everest- Bachendri Pal urged her to try mountaineering.
Premlata was hesitant and perplexed. She was not a typical adventurous sort of person. But she wanted to restore the faith showed by the great Bachendri Pal. And so she started mountaineering and completed basic and advance mountaineering course successfully.
One incident that she shared was that when she went for the mountaineering course, the trainers had asked her that whether she was actually serious about mountaineering given her age or was it just a break from her humdrum life. As a fit reply she became the best performer in the course where there were several young men and women, that too some from athletic background!
After several expeditions under the tutelage of Bachendri Pal she started training for Mount Everest (Nepal). And in 2011 with a group of 22, she reached the summit of Mount Everest at around 29000ft, highest peak in the world and every adventurer’s dream. She became the oldest Indian woman to scale Everest at the age of 48. After that she scaled the Seven summits in seven continents becoming the first Indian woman to do so. She received Padma Shri that is the fourth highest Civilian award given in India by the President of India himself.
What is interesting is she was not from sports background, never had the ambition to be a mountaineer but was a simple housewife. She enjoyed her time with friends and family. She stresses that she was never the athletic type but made it a point to participate in the sports in school for the spirit of participation. But when destiny gave her a chance to try out something new, she took it with all enthusiasm.
Here I would like to add that in India it is quite difficult for a housewife who has to look after her children, husband and ageing in-laws to break free from her daily responsibilities and pursue her goals and that also of something of the sort as mountaineering which many would call a frivolous activity and a whimsical wish. And there are lots of other societal conundrums.
But she did and how!
She won everyone’s heart with the dedication she showed to achieve her target. Her accomplishments show that anything is possible if we truly want to achieve something in our life. She demonstrated that leadership is not always about academic or career goals. Achieving excellence in other fields is just as important, and the same principles apply in both. She showed us that true grit and optimism always leads to one’s goals.
-Written by Trisha Sarkar, PGP-2 at IIMA