Bengal: Piyali Basak Makes a Mark as Woman Mountaineer, Inspires School Students

Kolkata: Piyali Basak was six years old when she started trekking, holding the hands of her now departed parents. Now, at the age of 35, she has summited Mount Everest and six of the 8,000m plus peaks of the Himalayan range, many of them without oxygen. 

Piyali says her dream now is to summit the treacherous Mount Kanchenjunga on whose steps still lie the remains of Chhanda Gayen, one of the bravest woman mountaineers from West Bengal. Gayen, 35, along with her two Sherpa guides was killed in 2014 while climbing down amid bad weather.

It’s not even a week ago that Piyali had to return home to Chandannagar, when she was just 1,000 meters away from the Kanchenjunga summit, owing to inclement weather and health issues. However, in this expedition, she has achieved something that a few can.

Her climbing style and adventurous nature was felicitated by the Indian Army-Nepal Army’s joint expedition team. At the event, one of the rock-climbing teams, aspiring to summit the Kanchenjunga, said they were impressed by the mountaineering style of Piyali, an alumnus of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) in Darjeeling.

Colonel Sarfraz Singh, leader of the Indian side of the joint mountaineering expedition team with the Nepali Army, handed over a medal to Piyali. She was also felicitated by National Cadet Corp (NCC) team leader Colonel Amit Bisht by a team of mountaineers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, and by Colonel Rajneesh Joshi, HMI Principal. Colonel Ranbeer Jamwal, Principal and team leader of National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports also commended her.

Unfortunately, Piyali, who was one of the route openers of the Mount Kanchenjunga expedition this year, fell ill and had to return to the base camp for medical evaluation. She rejoined the expedition, but then her team members fell sick. In order to save precious lives, she had to climb down again. She decided to go for the summit again, but inclement weather had already set in the mountains.

Speaking with NewsClick, Piyali spoke about her passion for mountaineering that started from a very early age, inspired by mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, the sherpa in the world to have scaled Mount Everest along with Edmund Hillary in 1953.

Piyali is a primary teacher in Chandannagar’s Kanailal Bidyamandir, a government school. She is an inspiration for future mountaineers from Eastern India, especially for school students, who she encourages to take mountaineering as a sport.

She spoke of her deep admiration for ‘Bengali braveheart’ Chhanda Gayen, whom she got to know personally before the latter’s last expedition to Mt. Kanchenjunga. “She was firmly rooted to the ground and treated me like her younger sister,” she recalled.

Getting sponsorship for a cost-heavy sport like mountaineering, was a roadblock. For Piyali’s expeditions, some fund managers and Bandhan Bank came forward to help. Partha Pratim Sengupta, CEO of Bandhan Bank, told NewsClick, that his bank came forward to support the “genius of mountaineering sport” to prove that Bengali girls too can become achievers if they get proper opportunities. Prior to the expedition, Piyali was handed over the logo of Bandhan Bank that she will carry in her next 8,000plus expedition.

Piyali, who is single, said her first love was the mountains. “I get respite amidst the Himalayas. The day-to-day rigour of life does not excite me. I get oxygen in the snow clad peaks, amidst the mountains. I will go back there again and again, no matter what.”