Question

As a child, Arjun had always dreamt of conquering Mt. Everest and his first chance to start
mountaineering came at the age of 10, when during a visit to his grandmother, he was invited
by a few friends to join a trekking expedition to Sahyadri in Pune. This three-day long outing
developed his liking for the sport. After completing the basic and advanced courses from the
Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (Darjeeling), Arjun scaled the India Garhwal Himalayas
DKD2 (19,000 ft) in 2009 and the Island peaks (21,000 ft) in Nepal in 2010. Impressed with
his performance, temperament and tenacity, his instructors motivated him to scale the
Everest. Arjun recounts that the greatest difficulty he experienced during the expedition to
Mt. Everest was breathing. Other difficulties like loss of appetite and tough living conditions
were nothing compared to the trouble of breathlessness, he believes. Fortunately for him, his
acclimatization course helped him overcome his breathing trouble. After panting in the initial
stages of the climb, he was able to maintain a steady and slow breathing. During the last
summit push, he was particularly short of oxygen. So, he played around with his mind and
kept talking to himself all the way up.
However, the toughest part of the climb for Arjun was the steep ice wall that stands between
Camp II and Camp III. He and his team were on a descend when they came up against the ice
wall. He held on to the ascending rope instead of the descending one and got stuck in a
crevasse. Unable to see anything below his leg, he thought his end was near when a sherpa
came to his rescue from nowhere. His best moment came when he dodged the Khumbu Ice
Fall which is a tricky glacier right after Base Camp. This tract puts one’s mountaineering
skills to test as the ice sometimes breaks and starts moving.
Arjun believes that mountaineering teaches a lot of things. The most important among them
is how to take failures on your stride and how to react in the face of death. He believes that
apart from the technicalities, members should back themselves because when people are up
against nature, it’s not about the individual anymore.
On the basis of the reading of the passage, answer the following questions in brief:
i. How did Arjun develop an interest in mountaineering?

Answer 1

Answer:

At the age of 10, during a visit to his grandmother, Arjun was invited by a few friends to join a trekking expedition to Sahyadri in Pune. This three-day long outing developed his liking for the sport.