<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131144/636a4f7a9c7e80680e04fd0cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Photo: LISA CHOEGYAL</figcaption></figure>Sir <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3170#.XShLWD8za71" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edmund Percival Hillary KG ONZ KBE</a> was born 100 years ago, on 20 July 1919. A big man in every way, Sir Ed is the Sherpas’ beloved Burra Sahib, a towering presence in the Sagarmatha story, the most celebrated New Zealander, with his profile enshrined on every Kiwi five-dollar bill.But I like to remember his shy ragged grin, the baggy corduroys, a gentle giant reclining during his latter years in the huge brown leather armchair in his Auckland home, surrounded by books and Himalayan mementos. Often one of Lady June’s cats would perch on his knee, and during the last of his many regular visits to Nepal my Labrador puppy strayed onto his lap on my Kathmandu sofa (pictured above).Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/highs-and-lows-of-sir-ed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Highs and lows of Sir Ed</a>, Kunda DixitFrom his bee-keeping origins throughout all his accolades and acclaim, Sir Ed remained the consummate Kiwi — humble and approachable, his phone number listed in the public telephone directory.Sixty-six years ago, that last step onto the pristine summit of Mt Everest catapulted Ed and Tenzing Norgay into the textbooks. Defying altitude and endurance they ventured beyond known human limits to the highest point on earth.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131144/636a4f7d9c7e80680e04fd0djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="768"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3165#.XShLcz8za71" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news of the 1953 expedition success</a> was announced on the morning of the young Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, thrilling a war-weary Britain with visions of conquest ‘high in the thin cold air’.Mountaineer, explorer, philanthropist, writer, Sir Ed recorded his adventures with an elegant turn of phrase in a shelf full of books. As well as mountaineering, he jet boated up the Ganges, crossed Antarctica on tractors, and was the first to reach the North and South Pole as well as the top of Everest.By the time I knew him, Sir Ed had hung up his boots, having lost his tolerance to altitude, but he continued to helicopter annually into the Khumbu and travel the world raising funds for his Himalayan Trust. Since 1960 he ‘gave back’ to the people without whom he would not have got to the top.The Sherpas led an uncertain life in those days, struggling for survival in the shadow of Sagarmatha as farmers scraping a living from the poor upland soil, traditional trade with Tibet and occasional expedition work. Sir Ed invested his time and energy to provide education and health to enable his Sherpa friends to cope with the impending changes of the modern world.To support the Himalayan Trust schools and hospitals that were constructed with his own hands and family help, Sir Ed built Lukla airstrip in 1964 on a steep hillside at 2,860m. A chorus line of Sherpa and Sherpani dancers were mobilised to compact the ground with their stomping steps. Surprised and alarmed by the visitor influx that he unwittingly unleashed with the new airstrip, Sir Ed was unflinching in his criticism of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/how-to-restore-the-lure-of-everest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">negative aspects of tourism</a>, and was never convinced by commercial mountaineering.‘The highest rubbish dump in the world’ was a phrase coined by him, and he never appreciated the benefit in terms of fees, royalties and employment brought to Nepal’s mountain communities by our 200,000 trekkers, 6,400 trekking peak climbers and 2,300 expedition members every year. Sir Ed would have hated the recent image of Everest summit queues that went viral online and on front pages around the world.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131144/636a4f809c7e80680e04fd0ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>This year we marked Sir Ed’s birth centenary with a reception on his <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/past-everest-anniversaries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sagarmatha Summit Day</a>, 29 May, on a humid evening in the warm yellow glow of the British Ambassador’s historic Kathmandu residence. The terrace was covered by a white sail to protect against the threatening monsoon rain, sparkling glasses clinked, and uniformed waiters circulated with promising plates of dainty eats.Amongst the guests dressed in their best who thronged the graceful rooms was Helen Clark, the new patron of the Himalayan Trust who, as New Zealand’s prime minister, had presided over <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/funeral-of-Sir-Edmund-Hillary,1100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sir Ed’s State Funeral in 2008</a>. Climbers recently returned from mountain summits jostled with expedition leaders, Everest guides, and a crowd of Nepalis, Sherpas, Kiwis and assorted others with an affinity to Sir Ed’s work and memory.British Ambassador Richard Morris sported a scrappy beard and adrenalin-fuelled vigour having raced the Everest Marathon that morning, choppering back just in time to host the celebration.I made a beeline for Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja, the stocky ex-Gurkha Special Forces soldier just back from climbing six 8,000m peaks within 31 days, including Everest, Lhotse and Makalu in 48 hours, as part of his extreme mountaineering feat to summit all 14 Himalayan 8,000m peaks within a single seven-month season. Last week, he climbed another, Nanga Parbat in Pakistan.Nims had taken that <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nirmal-purja-on-his-viral-everest-photo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">summit queue photo</a> that so shocked the world and prompted such moralising criticism, not as any sort of ethical judgement but, he grinned: “Just to prove why I could not break my own speed record for bagging Everest and Lhotse. I got slowed down by all those people and ended up directing traffic on the Hillary Step.”One hundred years on, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=14421#.XShL8T8za73" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sir Ed</a> might not have liked the orderly line <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/most-days-its-not-so-crowded-on-mt-everest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">queuing along Everest’s narrow summit</a> ridge on their way to his virgin spot on top of the world, but he surely would have admired the athletic ability and dedicated ambition of the amazing Nims and his Project Possible. I know I do.Lisa Choegyal is the New Zealand Honorary Consul General in Nepal, and has been writing this fortnightly column ‘So Far So Good’ in Nepali Times since 2016.

Lisa Choegyal

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

Hillary Centenary

<figure><img width="1500" height="1995" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131144/636a4f749c7e80680e04fd0ajpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum</figcaption></figure>How many of us knew that <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/funeral-of-Sir-Edmund-Hillary,1100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edmund Hillary</a> had written a novel called Call Not To the Gods under the nom de plume Gary Sankar about an expedition on Gauri Shankar that involved monks, memsahibs and mountaineers? Or that when Hillary’s permit to climb Makalu in 1961 was cancelled because he made an unauthorised ascent of Ama Dablam, it was British writer <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/the-lyrical-life-of-Desmond-Doig,1052" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Desmond Doig</a> who negotiated with Prime Minister <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/tulsi-giri-93/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tulsi Giri</a> to get the permit reissued.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/hillary-centenary/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillary Centenary</a>, Lisa ChoegyalThe Pilatus Porter that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/01/archives/hillarys-kin-killed-0in-nepal-plane-crash.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">crashed on takeoff from Kathmandu</a> airport in 1975, <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=3170#.XTANZ_IzaUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">killing Hillary’s wife Louise and their daughter Belinda</a>, was piloted by Peter Shand, a New Zealand bush pilot who was hired by Royal Nepal Airlines even though he had lost his job in Africa for carelessness. Shand did not perform a pre-flight check, and forgot to remove the wooden aileron wedges before taking off for Phaplu that morning.  These and many other nuggets of new information are embedded in the 544 pages of Michael Gill’s carefully researched new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Edmund-Hillary-A-Biography/dp/0947503382" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edmund Hillary: A Biography</a>. As a friend and climbing partner, Gill had unprecedented access to archival material, private correspondence between Hillary and Louise and hitherto unpublished details about his life.We know of Hillary’s mountaineering triumphs, his family tragedy and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/commemorating-edmund-hillary-in-nepal,4145" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devotion to the development of Khumbu</a>. But Gill fills in the blanks about what drove Hillary’s determination and ambition, the private details of his life, as well as how after climbing the world’s highest mountain, Hillary had to conquer his own personal Everests of grief and depression.The book starts with a lengthy account of Hillary’s grandparents and his father’s war experience in the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/gallipoli-and-the-gurkhas,2271" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brutal battle of Gallipoli</a> during the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/lest-we-forget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">First World War</a>, which turned him into a pacifist. When the next World War came around, <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/So-far-so-good/edmund-hillary-funeral,1127" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edmund Hillary</a> himself became a conscientious objector, later changing his mind to serve as navigator on a Catalina amphibian aircraft in the South Pacific.We discover how the challenging mountains of New Zealand’s South Island drew Hillary to climbing, and that his first trip to Mukut Parbat in Garhwal brought him to the notice of Eric Shipton and other legendary British explorers who then invited him to Cho Oyu in 1952 and Everest in 1953.The account of the first ascent of Everest has been told and retold many times, but Gill delves into early expedition history and the critical role that bottled oxygen played. As a climber himself, he objectively explores the dynamics among members of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-last-of-the-first/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Hunt expedition</a>. The ascent was all the more remarkable because of the clunky and unreliable oxygen cylinders, inadequate clothing and rudimentary tents, compared to today’s space-age climbing paraphernalia. We follow Hillary’s post-Everest trajectory, the South Pole (‘Where do you go after you have climbed Everest?’), <a href="https://nepalitimes.atavist.com/high-water" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barun Valley</a>, and jet boats on the Sun Kosi and the Ganges, as well as the Silver Hut expedition to research the impact on human physiology of prolonged exposure to high altitude. Here the book goes into first person, since Gill accompanied Hillary on those later expeditions. <a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=8301#.XTAcu_IzaUl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Desmond Doig</a> joins Hillary’s yeti-hunting expedition in the Rolwaling in 1973, where he imitated yeti mating calls and entered Beding announcing in Nepali that he would ‘pay for a yeti, dead or alive, or parts thereof’. But no luck.  Hillary overcomes personal tragedy by devoting his life to building schools, hospitals and airports in Solu Khumbu, and becomes New Zealand’s envoy to India and Nepal. In interviews before died, Hillary regretted building the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/everest-garbage-caravan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">airfield in Lukla</a> and the mass tourism it brought to the region.Edmund Hillary should not just be known as the first man to climb Mt Everest, he was a larger than life persona. In the words of James (later Jan) Morris, the correspondent from The Times who accompanied the first expedition in 1953, Everest was ‘...the last earthly adventure before humanity’s explorers went off into space’. And that is worth pondering on the week of Hillary’s birth centenary, and the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first landing on the moon.Edmund Hillary: A Biography by Michael Gill Vertebrate Publishing, 2019 £24.00, 560 pages ISBN 9781911342960<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131144/636a4f779c7e80680e04fd0bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="1154">

Kunda Dixit

Highs and lows of Sir Ed

Violations of Nepal’s airspace during WWII

At Budhanilkantha School Ujwal Thapa was a few years my senior. He was a quiet person who kept to himself; I didn’t know him very well despite being related to him because of that introversion and natural shyness. What we did have in common, coming of age in the 1990s, is our generation, GenX, which became weary, inured for the most part, to Nepal’s famously unstable politics.&nbsp; Counting the events of this past September, GenX has, astonishingly, lived through three people’s revolutions, one armed conflict, a flawed but hard won constitution, and a major earthquake. Ujwal Thapa, one of Nepal’s most cherished Gen Xers, despite his previous, youthful reticence, did not long remain a complaisant bystander against the backdrop of these extreme upheavals.&nbsp; By the mid 2000s he had become deeply political, but without the equivocation that so often accompanies politics. Thanks to his lived experience, he came to believe that the youth of Nepal are the key to our future. He believed in discerning wisdom (bibeksheelta), innovation, and nurture. He inspired entire generations, young and old, including GenZ, before his untimely death due to Covid in 2021. He was only 44.&nbsp; By the time of his passing he had started a tech company, and employed and mentored scores of youth. It is important to note that only after he had made a significant contribution to civil society did he turn towards politics, founding and then stepping back from the Bibeksheel Nepali party, which has now, after several complicated mergers and splits, been integrated into the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). When the Ujwal Thapa Foundation set out to make a documentary on his life three years ago, no one could have known that it would premiere at such a crucial point in Nepal’s social and political history.&nbsp; Everything that Ujwal Thapa believed in still holds true. I think he would have been proud to see the youth of our country, GenZ, stand up for themselves, peacefully. He would have been grieved at the state condoned bloodshed, and, believing in non-violent protest himself, been deeply shocked by the savage revolution that followed.&nbsp; Most of all, I wonder how he would have reacted to the publishing of the blatantly elitist RSP proportional representation list - the party that many had pinned their hopes on, and that Bibeksheel Nepali has ultimately been absorbed into. That party now seems like it may be a chip off the rotten old block, ruled by men endorsing rampant nepotism, and outnumbered by people without scruples.&nbsp; Many of the names on the list and the rankings, in particular, disrespect the very spirit of a provision that was created for those competent individuals who would not otherwise be able to contest elections, due to lack of monetary and social capital, but whose marginalised voices are vital for inclusive policy making. There is still time for real inclusion, to embrace a more bibeksheel path, before the March elections.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa’s own, firm, ethical stances are clear in the The Man Who Shook Our Minds, translated loosely from the Nepali title Dimaag Ghhochne Manchhe. While long, at almost two hours, it is filled with thought-provoking and sage counsel. The film also offers very real insight into how Ujwal Thapa evolved into the icon he is today.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_eb596eb063dcaf0f67840bfa4ffa39eb27df2bf9ec1a3f9a1f531824c1b7a569.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026011111018_eb596eb063dcaf0f67840bfa4ffa39eb27df2bf9ec1a3f9a1f531824c1b7a569" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> <figcaption>Stills from the documentary.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_65d9625d3a4865ca228425b7ce7b7b186ae5009313bbfab0ee65eada276aebd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2026011111018_65d9625d3a4865ca228425b7ce7b7b186ae5009313bbfab0ee65eada276aebd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026011111018_2ff455c55722d153cafbd2d650e19584e38d7c098b109271bd106a55201f4fa0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2026011111018_2ff455c55722d153cafbd2d650e19584e38d7c098b109271bd106a55201f4fa0" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="670" loading="lazy" alt="Ujwal Thapa"> </figure>  It isn’t easy making a documentary after the passing of the primary subject. While there are many talking heads, the people featured, friends, family, fellow activists and senior politicians are all eloquent in their descriptions of Ujwal Thapa and his transformation from an engaged, civic minded entrepreneur into a committed political leader who among many other commendable things, believed in putting women first, and understood the crucial necessity for a welfare state that would serve its people. The main man is not deified, he is humanised.&nbsp; The feature is punctuated, and leavened, with moments of real humour as his infamous bluntness and occasional domestic haplessness are gently exposed. Another strength of the film is the profound love story between Ujwal Thapa and his brave, brilliant, incredibly resilient wife, Erica Adhikary, the heroine to a real life hero, and a major force behind the making of this film, alongside many of his stalwart wellwishers and friends, old and new.&nbsp; Sushila Karki, the Prime Minister, was present at the premiere of the film with members of her Cabinet. Candid and sincere in her opening remarks, she said she had wanted to attend the moment she heard about the film. She had known Ujwal Thapa, and she had mourned his loss, praying for him during his illness. She wished that leaders like him were here today to show us the way forward in a time of need. The film opened in theatres on the 9th of January, and is an essential viewing experience for anyone who cares about Nepal’s future and wants some insight into how they might make a difference.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa was not perfect, but he was remarkable. He realised that being a civic minded citizen just isn’t enough. To make a real difference, one also needs to be principled, insightful, entrepreneurial, creative, self motivated, able to speak truth to power, uncorruptible, practical, well prepared, and, perhaps, most importantly, able to step back from holding power even after attaining it.&nbsp; The saying by Plato that goes “He who does not desire power is fit to hold it” was surely meant for people like Ujwal Thapa. One can only hope that in the near future more people embodying this description will, however reluctantly, come forward to lead Nepal. Ujwal Thapa worked hard to enable this, they must be out there. <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/veO1yVM4pS4?si=f0Lcbs1wasyqfnK1" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> The Man Who Shook Our Minds is being screened at QFX cinemas across town. Sophia L Pandé is on the Ujwal Thapa Foundation Advisory Board. She is a writer, art-historian and filmmaker, advising on the economic and social potential of the Cultural and Creative Industries. She is Director of Development at the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust, and Founding Director of The Kalā Salon, a non-profit space for the arts.

The Man Who Shook Our Minds

Did <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/1921-rendezvous-mallory-pumori-and-everest">George Mallory</a> and Andrew Irvine of the 1924 British Expedition reach the top of the highest mountain in the world? It has been more than a century after the two climbers were last seen just 300m below the summit. And 26 years ago Mallory’s remains were found on the North Face of Everest, while Irvine’s boot was located at its base.&nbsp; Some doubt that the two could have reached the top with the level of equipment and clothing of the time, but others are convinced that at least one of them made it but had an accident on the way down.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260108110148_26b4f6883ce3362c6f0c312d35422a57384c04aeb673f578d3ddb660761747fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260108110148_26b4f6883ce3362c6f0c312d35422a57384c04aeb673f578d3ddb660761747fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="George Mallory and Everest"> <figcaption>Panuru Sherpa on the top of Mt Everest with a client in 2002. He has climbed the peak 16 times.</figcaption> </figure>  Among those who believe Mallory and Irvine were the first to climb Mt Everest, and not <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/everest-70-years-on">Hillary and Tenzing in 1953</a>, are the Nepali guides who took part in the research expeditions in 1999, 2001 and 2004 to find clues about Mallory and Irvine. Mallory’s body was found 8,125m on the North Face in 1999, and Irvine’s detached foot and sock with his initials inside a leather hob-nailed boot was found in 2024 in the Rongbuk Glacier below the North Face. Various expeditions have recovered a mitten, an oxygen cylinder, and ice axe from that expedition. “I believe they reached the summit, and fell on the way down in the dark and bad weather,” says <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/sherpaland-co-usa">Panuru Sherpa</a>, who has climbed Mt Everest 16 times, including on the northern route taken by four British expeditions in 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1933. “They were making good progress past the Second Step from where it is a much easier hour-and-half to the summit. A climber who reaches that point below the final pyramid does not turn back.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260108110148_bdbdd01c5c12cb5bb022857f7ca871cc4ff95e02c2305f6bbf1a63d1d15de8e4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260108110148_bdbdd01c5c12cb5bb022857f7ca871cc4ff95e02c2305f6bbf1a63d1d15de8e4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1300" height="864" loading="lazy" alt="George Mallory and Everest"> <figcaption>Mt Everest North Face in China which early expeditions took because Nepal was closed till 1950. The red line is the classic route to the peak, the dotted line is probably what George Mallory and Sandy Irvine took in 1924 to avoid the formidable obstacle of the Second Step.</figcaption> </figure>  Panuru is convinced that the location of Mallory’s body and Irvine’s ice axe shows that the two had not lost their way on their descent. He told Nepali Times in Denver, where he now lives: “Mallory’s body was not decomposed even after 75 years, and his exposed back was white like marble. One of legs was broken, and there was an altimeter and letters written to his wife Ruth in his pocket.” He remembers the search team was happy to locate <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/mountains-of-books">Mallory</a>, but it was unable to find one of the three cameras believed to be with the duo that could have held the proof that the two, or at least one of them, had indeed been the first to climb Everest.&nbsp; There was a deep wound around Mallory’s waist, which could have been caused during the fall by the rope which was still found tied around his body. Mallory’s remains were covered in stone slabs at the site after a brief ritual, Panuru recalls. A 1975 Chinese expedition reported seeing the body of a Western climber, which was probably Mallory, near their Camp VI. There are rumours in climbing circles that the Chinese also found a camera, but that the negative could not be developed. Everest summiteers have said the Second Step’s 45m overhanging cliff at 8,610m would have been “essentially insurmountable”, and it is only possible today because the Chinese fixed aluminium ladders to the rock face in 1975.&nbsp; But Panuru agrees with other mountaineering historians who believe Mallory could have decided to take a route below the northeast ridge and bypass the Second Step, following the advice of fellow team member Ed Norton who set the then world record by reaching 8,572m. The other finding that could indicate that Mallory reached the top was that a photograph of his wife Ruth which he intended to place at the summit was not in his pocket.&nbsp; EVEREST CONNECTION Panuru is the son of Nima Tsering Sherpa, who was a part of the 1953 expedition to Mt Everest that made Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay the first climbers on the world’s highest peak. Nima carried loads for that expedition up to the South Col. Nima had eight sons and a daughter, Panuru is the sixth, and<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-most-prolific-mountaineering-clan"> most of his siblings are also climbers</a>. After the successful 1953 expedition, Nima spent time grazing yaks, growing potatoes and raising his family in Phortse. He joined expeditions to support the family. The young Panuru would meet mountaineers who stopped by at the family’s tea house in Phortse. He has walked the Jiri route to Kathmandu many times, and his eldest brother who worked for Mountain Travel Nepal got him a job as a trekking guide. Panuru ended up joining expeditions, climbing Everest from both sides multiple times. Panuru Sherpa’s brother Danuru was the youngest member of the 1999 expedition, and a year earlier had first climbed Everest from the Nepal side when he was only 18. The siblings are now chefs at the Sherpa House in Colorado.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260108110152_9275f617585d33f7324d087455de7c61fd3759fe4d44a7ebe604fa2eefc047df.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260108110152_9275f617585d33f7324d087455de7c61fd3759fe4d44a7ebe604fa2eefc047df" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="523" loading="lazy" alt="George Mallory and Everest"> <figcaption>Brothers Panuru and Danuru Sherpa are now working in Golden, Colorado, and lead occasional climbing trips in the Rockies and Alaska.</figcaption> </figure>  In 2001, both brothers were members of another expedition composed of 20 foreign and 21 Nepali climbers led by David Hahn that tried to find Irvine in the same area of the North Face, guided by the discovery of Irvine’s ice axe in a 1933 expedition as well as sightings of what was believed to be his body near the ridge above. No more clues were found then, or in 2004 when Danuru returned for another search expedition. Remnants of Irvine and Mallory’s Camp VI were found at 8,600m during the 2001 expedition, only about 300m from where Mallory’s body was located.&nbsp; “It was probably dark when Mallory fell because his snow goggles were in his pocket,” says Danuru, who has taken part in the three search expeditions on the north side and is also convinced the two fell on their way down after reaching the summit. Altogether 13 people died on Everest during the three expeditions that Mallory was involved in, of which nine were Nepali porters, cooks and guides who were hired in Darjeeling before the march-in. “Chomolungma and Sherpa are synonymous,” says Danuru. “It was Chomolungma that made the Sherpa people famous globally, and it was Sherpas who made it possible to climb Everest.” Konrad Anker, who led the 1999 team that found Mallory’s body, doubts that one or both the climbers reached the summit in 1924, mainly because of the difficulty of climbing a cliff at 8,600m with the kind of gear they had.&nbsp; “It is possible, but unlikely they climbed the Second Step with 1920s equipment, but even getting to that altitude back then was an incredible accomplishment,” he has said. After the expedition, Anker and Panuru worked together to set up the Khumbu Climbing Center to upgrade the technical skills of Nepali guides. Panuru has also trained hundreds of fellow Nepali guides, and many of them regard him as a mentor. Panuru knew the need for better training because he himself had been badly wounded during a fall into a crevasse in the Khumbu Icefall in one of his early expeditions in 1992 and had to be evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu.&nbsp; But the very next year, he was back on the mountain. He climbed Everest from the north with a Korean team in 1994, and a year later got to the top again from the north side with an American expedition. He summited again from the Nepal side in 1996, and nearly died in an avalanche on the north side that killed a fellow Sherpa in 1997.&nbsp; So far, Panuru has climbed Everest 16 times, Cho Oyu 14 times from both sides, Xixapangma four times, five other eight-thousanders in Nepal, and Ama Dablam six times. He was the first Nepali to ascend Gurla Mandhata in Tibet. After emigrating to the United States, he has climbed Mt Denali (6,190m) in Alaska three times while also being a part of a volunteer rescue team.&nbsp; Irvine’s boot was found by an expedition led by American climber Jimmy Chin in the Rongbuk Glacier, probably transported there from the base of the face by the movement of ice in the past 100 years. Asked why he climbed Everest 16 times, Panuru echoes George Mallory: “Because I was there.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Finding George Mallory

At the stroke of the midnight hour, it finally came to something everyone in Nepal’s oldest and biggest party had been dreading — a split.
Not that this was anything new. The Nepali Congress (NC) had splintered twice before and the main protagonist both times was five-time prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. After the GenZ uprising and being physically mauled and his house looted and set on fire on 9 September Deuba had said he was stepping aside, but it seems old ambitions die hard.
The showdown between the Gagan Thapa-Bishow Prakash Sharma camp and Deuba came to a head on Wednesday as the establishment leadership decided to suspend Thapa, Sharma, and Farmullah Mansoor for five years to punish them for daring to challenge the leadership and hold a special general convention.&nbsp;
Bhrikuti Mandap in the centre of Kathmandu is the venue for trade exhibitions, but this week it was where an exhibition of everything that is wrong with Nepali politics was on full display — lack of internal party democracy and an unaccountable gerontocracy clinging on to power.&nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma had gathered the support of 62% of the NC membership at their convention and chose Gagan Thapa as the new party leader and proposed him as a prime ministerial candidate after the 5 March election.
Deuba’s allies had refused to attend or endorse the special general convention, and were adamant about holding a general convention to choose a new party head after the election. Thapa, Sharma and their supporters argued that the party faced ignominious defeat in the polls if Deuba insisted on being prime minister again.
The events of September 2025 have cast a long shadow over Nepali politics, with many new parties and alliances pledging to represent the aspirations of the GenZ movement. However, that realisation does not seem to have dawned on the tried, tested and failed leadership of the NC, UML and the NCP where the party leaders have held on to power by sidelining all rivals. &nbsp;
Thapa and Sharma were NC general secretaries held multiple rounds of discussions to convince Deuba to accept their eight-point demand that for the party’s and the country’s sake his time was up, and he should cut and cut cleanly. Despite having already handed over the party leadership to Purna Bahadur Khadka in September, Deuba refused to step down.&nbsp;
‘What demands has the Nepali Congress been unable to reconcile that it is headed for a split? There is no ideological dispute, just a proposal to make it easier to go for the election,’ noted journalist and author Narayan Wagle. ‘If those who have been in politics for so many years cannot reach an agreement, what have they learned in life and what hope is there for the country?’
Gagan Thapa was elected unopposed as the new party president on Thursday midnight, with Sharma and Pushpa Bhusal appointed vice-presidents. Thapa has said backroom talks are still ongoing though mediators, but for all intents and purposes the split seems irreconcilable.&nbsp;
The million dollar question now is: who gets to be the real Nepali Congress? Who gets the NC’s tree election symbol at the polls?
Both the Thapa and Deuba factions have written to the Election Commission (EC) laying claim to the party and its symbol. Whatever the EC decides, with less than two months to go for the polls, the dispute over its legitimacy will almost certainly have to be decided in the courts.
Deuba and his counterpart K P Oli in the UML have been unwilling or unable to fathom the level of outrage that young Nepalis feel about their parties. They have shown an inability to heed the call for institutional overhaul within parties and in Nepal’s political culture post-September. Second generation leaders within those parties who have grown old waiting for reform, seem to have better internalised the need for internal restructuring.&nbsp;
Oli has managed to hold on to power after displaying increasing authoritarianism within his UML, while Deuba has shown an unwillingness to bow out of leadership with grace. Both have squandered away their legacy.
For Gagan Thapa, the events of Thursday was a culmination of his long-standing claim for leadership change within the NC coupled with a compulsion to address the demands of the youth movement to maximise gains for his party this election. Just like Deuba, Thapa’s house was also looted and torched during the September protests.
Thapa told Onlinekhabar on Thursday: “Our belief was that we cannot go into elections under the present circumstances under [Sher Bahadur Deuba’s] leadership and with him as the party’s prime ministerial candidate. We would lose.”
The special general convention has taken further steps for reform, endorsing amendments to the party statue, which has set term limits for key leadership positions, including a one-term limit for party president, two-term limit for prime minister, three for a ministerial position, and four terms for a directly elected member of Parliament. Meanwhile, party members are only allowed to become lawmakers through the Proportional Representation system for one term.&nbsp;
If Thapa’s leadership holds legitimacy, this new chapter for the NC might come as a welcome change to young Nepalis who have been calling for leadership overhaul and internal party reforms within the establishment parties. But it may also come at the cost of the NC’s core base. It remains to be seen which side tips the scale at the polls.&nbsp;
The NC’s infighting and institutional shake-up has also posed fresh concerns about how it will affect the election schedule just as it looked as though all the mainstream political parties were finally on board and preparing for the polls. With voting barely weeks away, Nepal’s political parties are still too busy cleaning up their own house to give too much time to work on their platforms, agendas and serious campaigning
Historically, political break-ups and make-ups in Nepal are not set in stone. Even the newest alliance between Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP and Kulman Ghising’s UNP did not even last 12 days. &nbsp;Balen Shah is set to resign from his mayor position in the next and has gotten into the thick of election preparation with the RSP. His next step will be to choose which constituency he is going to contest from.
Meanwhile, in the light of a new day, the two NC factions may still decide that breaking up is hard to do when they are so close to elections, and the political stakes are so high.&nbsp;

sir-ed

Hillary Centenary

Highs and lows of Sir Ed

Violations of Nepal’s airspace during WWII

The Man Who Shook Our Minds

Finding George Mallory

Grand split in Nepal’s grand old party