- Talk-Think-Shishir Ramavat

- 'If you want to reach the top-of-the-world, you have to make your body and mind also top-of-the-world. Physical strength is 10 percent in climbing Everest, the rest is all about mental strength...'

An obese boy from Mumbai weighing 110 kg. He studies in an engineering college. Class bunks more than studying. He went to America to study further. Became a software engineer. got married Went to Shimla with wife. The wife had seen the snowy mountains only in movies. He had never touched snow like this. By taxi they went to a small place called Narkanda near Shimla. From there the driver drove towards Hatu Peak (peak means peak). Even before the arrival of Hatu Peak, snow began to appear. The taxi driver stops the car at a place and says: Do you want to see the snow? Snow is snow all around here, enjoy as much as you want, I'll be back in an hour. Then we will turn back.

The husband and wife got lost in the snow. The young man says: It is so much fun here, so let's go up, there will be even more snow. The young man and his wife reached the top of Hatu Peak after climbing for four hours. The amazing view from here, the moment of reaching the peak... the young man seemed to be frozen in the blissful present. The past and the future have moved to one side. Never before had he experienced such aliveness, such awareness of the sheer present. It occurred to the young man that this trance-like state of mind would persist... But the next day, after returning to Mumbai, he sat down to code for his American company and felt no emotion. Days passed, weeks passed. That sense of consciousness was left behind. Whether it happened to the young man or not, no, this should not happen. That feeling has to be experienced again. He opened the laptop, typed 'weekend hike for Himalayas' in the Google bar, selected an agency and booked the flight tickets to Dehradun. Climbed a mountain again with the group and on reaching the peak again the same feeling, which he was longing for.

This realization, this feeling changed the life of this Kutch youth named Kuntal Joyshar. It was here that the seeds of his intense love for mountains were planted. He had to feel that divine consciousness again and again. So he started climbing small hills. He didn't even imagine that his love for mountains would take him all the way to Mount Everest. Not once, but twice. Yes, absolutely. Kuntal Joyshar has successfully scaled Mt Everest twice - first in 2014, then in 2016...and yes, he is the world's first vegan to scale Mt Everest!

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Vegan, simply put, is a form of vegetarianism. Not only eggs-meat-machchi, milk and milk products like curd-milk-butter-cheese etc. and milk sweets like Shrikhand should also be avoided. Do not use animal skin products (belts, purses etc.), do not touch clothing with fur. It has been more than twenty years since Kuntal became a vegan. In the beginning he was told that how can you do mountain climbing, brother? You don't eat meat-fish-eggs, you don't even take milk, where will you get the strength to climb the mountain? Kuntal was very clear about one thing: I would not compromise my veganism for mountaineering.

The idea that I want to climb Mount Everest came to Kuntal Joyshar for the first time in October 2010. His expedition coach said that Kuntal, if you want to reach the top-of-the-world, first you have to build a top-of-the-world body and a top-of-the-world mind. Kuntal started preparation. Start doing hard workouts to develop a great level of cardiovascular endurance. Running, cycling, stair climbing, hiking are options to develop cardiovascular endurance. To do all this, the body needs strength, which comes from weight training, pullups-pushups, planks, etc. Needless to say, Kuntal's body fat began to melt away quickly due to this exercise. When Kuntal started training, he could not recover quickly after exercise. Heavy exercise causes body pain for four days. He changed his vegan diet with the help of a dietician. Focused on fruits, vegetables, pulses etc., started taking meal shakes like protein shakes.

No one from Kuntal's Bhansali family has climbed even two floors, but Kuntal used to climb 300 floors daily. Yes, 300 flights of stairs to climb and 300 flights of stairs to descend. That is, if there is a ten-storey building, then to ascend and descend 30 times. When two and a half to three hundred floors are completed, Kuntal, panting with sweat, feels that he will faint... But in such a state of mind, he whips himself and says, "Brother, don't faint, you still have to climb another fifty floors!" This level of physical fitness is absolutely essential for a Mt Everest climber. Kuntal says in an interview, 'But this level of physical preparation is only 10% of the whole adventure of Climbing Mount Everest. The remaining 90 percent is mental fitness.

Kuntal once went to a camp in Panvel when he was in the eighth standard, where he fell from a height while rock climbing. Fortunately, there were no major injuries, but fear crept into his mind. They are afraid of going to heights, afraid of looking down from heights, afraid of hanging. Imagine, a man suffering from such fear had to climb Everest! The first mental obstacle was this fear, which had to be overcome. Kuntal's expedition coach taught him: Focus... focus! If you don't have focus while climbing or descending a mountain, you are dead! Gradually, Kuntal realized that there would be panic moments while going up or down. To let it come, but not to get distracted, to keep the mind quiet and then go ahead with the technique... and repeat this so often that it becomes your nature. 'When you have such a big goal in front of you,' he says. Your focus should be razor sharp. Climbing Mount Everest is a 3 to 5 year project. However, I had six-seven years of mountaineering experience. You have to build a fit body and also have different experiences. Like, how do you climb a mountain in the dark? Suppose you have a broken arm and a broken leg, how do you climb? Can you knot a rope with one hand?

The entire program of climbing Mount Everest lasts about 65 days. Out of this, 30 to 35 days have to be spent at the base camp without doing anything. You have to read books, listen to music and sit and wait for the weather to improve and the next climb to start. The actual climbing is hardly ten-twelve days. During the waiting period at the base camp especially the youngsters become impatient, their temper becomes irritable. At this stage, they sometimes do not take care of themselves, rush up the mountain too fast, develop altitude sickness, get injured and sometimes have to turn back from the base camp.

'When you are in the middle of the Himalayas, all your arrogance evaporates,' says Kuntal, 'you realize that your place in this vast universe is more and more subtle. I realized that no man in the world ever 'sirs' any mountain. The mountain decides your journey, the mountain decides whether it wants to let you reach the summit. In such a situation your ego gets completely crushed.'

What happened then? Have they managed to climb Mount Everest before? They saw death in the blink of an eye - and not once - many times, what was it? What was the first thing he did after stepping on Everest? Kuntal Joishar's stories fill us with passion. We will finish talking next Saturday.