BANGLADESH NEWS
Nishat Majumdar is your everyday Bangladeshi girl. Small, slight, petite and initially shy in conversation, it would almost be impossible to tell her apart in a crowd.
Bangladesh's first women ascender of Mount Everest is not outwardly recognizable yet; no one in the shopping mall where we meet stops to say hello, and the only outward indication of her pioneering achievement is a mobile phone that keeps ringing off the hook. She looks flustered every time it rings and politely asks permission to answer -- this is clearly someone not yet used to her recently acquired celebrity status.
Neither, it seems, is Wasfia Nazreen, the second Bangladeshi woman to conquer Everest, only a week after Nishat, marking a remarkable feat of human achievement by two Bangladeshi women in the short span of seven days in May.
In contrast to Nishat's timid demeanour, the slightly younger Wasfia is much bubblier and very willing to share her experiences on Mount Everest, illustrating them with video gaming metaphors and sweeping hand gestures.
The stories of both these women are intriguing.
On face value, Nishat's profile looks decidedly normal. With a Masters degree in Accounting from City College and a job at Dhaka WASA, she fits the mould of the modern yet progressive Bangladeshi female.
Even as a child growing up in Dhaka, she was never rebellious or even particularly adventurous. “I was always quiet and focused on my studies,” says the softly-spoken Nishat. “I used to read stories of amazing achievements and event though I always dreamt about emulating these great people, I never thought that I would become one of those adventuresses that I read about,” she continues smiling.
Mountain climbing was a total non-issue, until 2003 when a chance expedition to Keokradong in Bandarban opened her eyes to the possibility of mountain climbing.
“The feeling was enthralling,” recalls Nishat. “The feeling that I could conquer a mountain made me feel empowered and powerful. I wanted to keep on doing it.”
And so she did.
Less than ten years to the day of her first ascent, Nishat had reached the top of the world. “It's a wonderful feeling,” says Nishat, but you can tell that the depth of her achievement has not sunk in yet.
The typical question to ask Nishat would be whether she was scared at any point in her long expedition. “Oh yes!,” she says. “It was a struggle.” There was the point when we had been stuck by an avalanche and I had become so sick that I had to come down to Base Camp to see a doctor. I was scared then,” says Nishat. But interestingly, she was not scared for her life. “I was more worried that I would not be able to complete the summit, something I had been dreaming of for so long.”
Then there was the point at the infamous Hillary Step where Nishat found herself questioning whether the whole thing had been worth it. “I wasn't scared, I wasn't angry, the feeling is hard to describe,” says Nishat. “I was just worried whether I had made the right decision to come into something so dangerous. I was wondering whether I was right in trusting myself physically and mentally.”
Wasfia too found the Hillary Step difficult to negotiate. But for her, the biggest challenge was the Khumbu Icefall, a particularly dangerous glacier segment that moves at such speed that large crevasses open with little warning.
“It was like the video game Mario,” she recalls. “There were crevasses that opened up to deathly falls and from up top, seracs could fall down on any moment.”
But particularly shocking for Wasfia was near the end of her climb when she suddenly came across the body of Scott Fisher, a mountaineer who had famously died on Everest in 1996 but whose body still remains to this day, preserved by the bitter cold.
“I was completely traumatized and taken aback at seeing the remains of Fisher,” says Wasfia. “I had read about Fisher's demise in a book [Into thin Air] but in the determination of my ascent, had completely forgotten about it.”
Fisher's body and the news of a number of deaths in the same week served a brutal reminder to the clear and present dangers to climbing a mountain of the magnitude of Mount Everest.
But the behemoth of a mountain was not the only challenge facing both these mavericks. Hailing from Feni, Wasfia was fiercely independent in nature and grew up in Chittagong before moving to Dhaka when she was a student of class six. Unlike Nishat though, Everest, for her, is the means to an end and plans are already underway to set sail for her next adventures on her amazing seven summit campaign. The far flung destinations of Oceania and Antarctica beckon invitingly.
“For me, I just want to rest for a while now and then it's back to planning the next summit,” she says.
That in itself presents another sterling challenge, comparable in scale to the physical strain of Everest.
Sponsors are extremely hard to come by, they both say. Nishat's campaign was sponsored mainly by Plan Bangladesh through their “Because I am a Girl' campaign, but to foot the bill for the other member of her expedition, they required another 11 sponsors.
Wasfia too smiles ruefully at the struggle they face to raise funds. For her City Bank and Renata have been steadfast supporters, but there is no assurance yet of how she will sponsor the rest of her summits. But showing some of the steely determination that perhaps pushed her to the summit, she remains optimistic.
So what was it like for two Bangladeshi girls to stand, quite literally, on top of the world? A smile breaks out on both the women's sun-burnt faces at that staple question. There is a familiar glint in both their eyes.
“Amazing,” says Nishat, “Spectacular,” concurs Wasfia.
But immediately you get the feeling that these are just words, hastily put together to provide some semblance of a coherent reply. The truth, as the saying goes, is that some things are beyond imagination.
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