Everest Twins scale new peak

As they speak to the media to celebrate their extraordinary feat, 23-year-old twins Nungshi and Tashi look apologetic to be happy. In three years, the two have conquered the treacherous Adventurers Grand Slam by climbing all the seven summits and have even reached both the North and South Poles on skis since the day they conquered Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012.

Yet, they look worried about their friends stuck at the base camp and the advanced camp at Mount Everest due to the Nepal earthquake.

"The moment we saw the news update about the death of 10 mountaineers due to the avalanche two days ago, we were shocked. Most of the mountaineers were our friends. It is tragic," said Nungshi. "Another big loss is the death of the sherpas. They are a small community and we know almost everyone."

In 2013, the girls became the first twins to successfully conquer Everest. In India after hoisting the tri-colour at North Pole on April 21, they were not too enthused to celebrate. But their daunting feat is exemplary. Their last conquest, conquering the North Pole on skis, took seven gruelling days of sledding nearly 135 kgs in minus-30 degrees C.

This gave the Everest Twins the distinction of being the world's first siblings and twins, and the youngest women to complete the Adventurers Grand Slam that comprises conquering the seven summits and reaching the North and South Poles on skis. Only 41 mountaineers before them have completed the feat.

Along the way, the girls became the first Indians and the first South Asians to complete the Adventure Grand Slam, the youngest Indians and South Asians to conquer the seven summits, first Indian women to conquer all seven summits in the first attempt, and the youngest Indians to reach the North and South poles on skis.

"The weather at North Pole was extreme and it was very hard to manoeuvre the terrain because the ice keeps shifting, and so the locations are never the same," said Tashi. "When we started the journey, all we saw was a bare expanse of white. Even the compass does not work well there as it is bang on the North Pole," added Nungshi.

Their conquests include Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012, Mount Everest and Mount Elbrus in 2013, Mount Aconcagua, Mount Carstenz Pyramid, Mount McKinley and Mount Vinson Massif in 2014.

Tashi remembered setting foot atop Mount Everest as her most surreal experience. "There was no mission in mind then but I had an inner calling. Climbing the Everest became a spiritual process for me, and that made all the difference," said the lanky Tashi.

The girls' parents have been of great support. It was their father who insisted that the girls join the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering at hometown Dehradun. "I felt that the sport was too manly for them, I wanted them to be models instead," chuckled their affable mother Anju Malik. "I was scared of injuries. India do not have great facilities for the specially-abled. But, they took to mountaineering quite religiously."

Their father, Colonel Virender S Malik, takes care of the finances and also manages the Nungshi Tashi Foundation.

The girls, hailing from a village in Haryana, where the gender ratio is dismally skewed, said that it was not too easy to break social barriers. "Many people asked us to discontinue because they felt that there was no need for women to climb mountains," said Nungshi.

Today, they are ambassadors of the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programme. "We go to villages, and deliver talks on how every woman can choose to do what she wants. And, they listen to us with respect because, as women, we have done something that even the men would not have dared to," said Tashi.