Satyarup Siddhanta suffered from asthma when he was in college. He always carried an inhaler in his pocket and could never run even small distances without gasping for breath.
This is a story of how he overcame his condition and went on to climb Mount Everest.
Satyarup felt that asthma was draining his life and decided to do whatever it took to fight it. When he was in college he started running, swimming and doing breathing exercises everyday. Once during an attack, he realised that he could manage without the inhaler and gradually reduced his dependency on the device.
As he felt better, Satyarup also started trying food such as prawns which would trigger allergic asthma symptoms in his childhood. Many of his attempts to combat asthma went against the advise of his doctor-father. But Satyarup says his techniques worked for him and in about four years he had overcome asthma.
After he became confident of his health, Satyarup went for a trek to Parvathamalai, in Tamil Nadu in 2008. That gave him confidence to try more strenuous activities such as mountain climbing. As a child Satyarup had gone to Darjeeling and Sikkim for vacation, and had always been fascinated by the mountains.
He visited the Everest base camp in 2010 and promised himself that he would climb the peak someday without even knowing the effort it would take. But he started training for the future expedition diligently.
Last year, he mobilised Rs 20 lakh through crowd-funding and went to climb the Everest. But the devastating Nepal earthquake and the avalanche forced his team to retreat. This year he went back and joined the elite group of mountaineers, who have stood on top of the world.
/
/