Kathmandu : Most expedition writings celebrate climbers who reach the summit. But some heroes reveal their greatness not through the ascent they complete, but through the adversity they face and the courage they show.
Nirmal Purja also known as Nimsdai is such a name in the history of the world mountaineering who not only scaled the world’s tallest peaks but also made attempts to subvert the entire narratives of the world to look at Nepali mountaineers.
Born to a poor family at Dana village in Myagdi district, Purja lived a very struggling life; hardship plagued his childhood.
Purja, who had a tough health issues like tuberculosis and asthma, rarely imagined to set world records by climbing the world’s most dangerous peaks.
Growing up in a rural life, Purja joined the British Army in 2003. Also in the British military force, he became the first Gurkha solider to join the prestigious Special Boat Service (SBS) in the British Army.
The military life taught him discipline, risk management, leadership quality and the life skills to translate impossible things into possible ones. This offered him self-confidence, which ultimately caused a major shift in his life — expedition.
His first journey to the Everest Base Camp in 2012 brought a vital change in his mentality. Mountain is not just a scenic beauty but a lab to test the limits of one’s strength. Then, for him expedition was not merely an occupation but the purpose of his life. He then resigned from the job of the British Army in 2018.
In 2019, he announced the Project Possible initiative, aiming to climb 14 tallest peaks of the world within seven months, which many considered an impractical and impossible dream.
Many of the sponsors turned naysayers when he approached them for their support. Purja also went through severe economic hardships and he had to mortgage his house to take loan to manage his expedition plans. He has mentioned this story in his memoir “Beyond Possible”.
The word ‘impossible’ itself became a source of inspiration for Nimsdai. Such inspiration drove him to successfully climb all these 14 mountains in 6 months and 6 days.
His another remarkable part of his expedition was a campaign to transform the identity of Nepali mountaineering. For decades, foreign climbers were celebrated as ‘heroes’ of the expedition by international media while Nepalis Sherpa and high mountain guides were confined just to backgrounds.
Nimsdai repeatedly said, “A successful expedition is not about individual effort or personal achievement, rather, it is the collective achievement of the entire team.”
He demonstrated his belief through his actions. The momentous first winter ascent of ‘K-2’ in 2021 remains a landmark chapter in the mountaineering history. During the expedition, when his team was only a few metres below the summit, Nimsdai asked everyone to stop and wait. The 10-members team then gathered together and took their final steps on the summit simultaneously, singing the national anthem.
The photo with its caption ‘traffic jam’ on Sagarmatha went viral globally in 2019. For others, it was a click of crowd on the peak, but for Nimsdai, it became a document that set off a global debate about mountain management, limited weather opportunities, and the rise of commercial climbing.
Another aspect of his mountaineering career is his commitments to a rescue campaign for which he sometimes rose above the chances for personal records in mountain climbing above the humanitarian supports and needs.
His life philosophy sounds simple which is ‘possible’. The Netflix documentary ‘Fourteen Peaks: Nothing is Impossible’ based on the same philosophy took to him millions of viewers in 2021.
In his life, Nimsdai could not escape flaws and foibles, leading to a host of allegations. He faced disputes. In 2019 ascent to Mt Amadamblam, he was alleged of placing Kuwait’s flag in a way to cover entire pinnacle. A foreign female climber accused him of sexual harassment, while he had to face the dispute after a person died in a fire occurred in the house his company had taken on rent at Kapan, Kathmandu. The mountaineering fraternity complained of Purja’s highhandedness in climbing. However, Purja had been refuting such series of allegations.
He established Nimsdai Foundation in 2022 and launched activities for education, environment, disaster management and inspirational campaign. Even a ‘porter house’ was set up for porters at Lobuche of Solukhumbu.
To establish the porter house at the height of 5,030 metres, Purja managed monetary assistance from various local levels and organizations. It was opened just two months back. The porter house, built at a cost of Rs 60 million finely accommodates over 100 porters. The facility was set up in view of the shortage of well-equipped hotels and lodges in trekking route.
Mountain gives pride and prestige to climbers, but some climbers add meaning to mountains. Nims Dai is such unmatched representative, who gave a message: If we have courage and resolution, there is everything possible.
The photo for this write-up is taken from Purja’s Facebook.
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