Kolkata to mark Hillary’s 100th birth anniversary through yeti trek tales

KOLKATA: Edmund Hillary would have turned 100 had he been alive today. The man who first saw the view from the top of the world along with Tenzing Norgay in 1953 did not live to see the day as a heart failure claimed his life 11 years back. But unknown stories and anecdotes of Hillary’s heroics continue to surface till date, many of them from those who had accompanied him on several daring expeditions.
On the eve of Hillary’s 100th birth anniversary, TOI caught up with Bhanu Banerjee, who got the lifetime opportunity in 1960 to accompany Hillary on the famous expedition to Nepal.“Yes, it is famous. The odyssey was not about mountaineering but a hunt for the ever-elusive yeti,” the 82-year-old, who did seven summits till 1965, said.

Banerjee who part of two Hillary expeditions — the one in 1960-61 and the schoolhouse expedition in 1963. He first met Hillary in Kolkata: “I was freelancing with a newspaper when Desmond Doig, then assistant editor, introduced me to Hillary.” He remembers everything about their incredible pursuit for the abominable snowman. “When I sit back and close my eyes, everything unfolds. Back then, I was a young lad of 23. World Book Encyclopedia had sponsored the ‘Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition’,” Banerjee, who now lives in Kharagpur, recalled.
The intense trek from one remote village to another started from Kathmandu on September 13, 1960, and was headed to Beding (12,000ft) in Rolwaling Valley, where yetis ‘lived’. The nine team members and 50-odd Sherpa guides and porters had laid camera and other traps in the snowy heights of the valley. But no yeti came by.
Kolkata-based lensman Sujoy Das, who has been photographing the Himalayas for 30 years, also had a brush with “Sir Ed” in October 1998. Sharing his “Sir Ed” moments, Das said“On a sunny morning in October 1998, I stood outside Khumjung school in the shadow of Mount Everest. A helicopter from Kathmandu landed and out came its celebrated passenger, a weather-beaten gentleman of around 80 years. He was immediately surrounded by villagers who presented him with katas (ceremonial scarves).” Sir Edmund Percival Hillary then strode down to the school he had founded in 1963. “It was as though the god of Solukhumbu had returned home,” Das reminisced.
On Saturday, the two men will come together to present their photographs and reminisces of Hillary in an event organized by NGO Himalayan. The Hillary centenary actually kicked off in Kathmandu on May 23, when Das and British writer Lisa Choegyal released ‘Everest, Reflections on the Solukhumbu’, their photo book on the Everest region, dedicated to Sir Hillary.