Entrepreneur Aditya Gupta shares what he has learnt by scaling the highest peak on the planet through his book, 7 Lessons from Everest, in an attempt to help others. By Christy Varghese
At the age of 50, on May 22, 2019, Aditya Gupta was coming to terms with the overwhelming joy of being at the summit of Mount Everest. Just five days after being on top of the world, he was back home in Delhi and could not help but revisit the memories of the past few weeks. Replaying the dicey situations, he tells us that things could have gone south real quick.
“Climbing Mt Everest is a constant battle. You are walking past dead bodies which serve as landmarks for those who are alive. It teaches you that there is something deeply unexplainable which is helping you. It also serves the reminder that you are not alone while enforcing the power of good wishes of my family and friends. You know, it is not recommended for people to stay on the summit for more than 10-15 minutes, because getting there is only half the job. The summit push can’t be regarded as a successful one until you get back, but I was spellbound, and could not help myself. Since I am an avid photgrapher I was constantly looking around, overcome by gratitude since we were treated with clear skies on side while the other half of the sky was cloudy. It was an extraordinary view and we ended up staying on the summit for over half an hour. We should not have overstayed, however, God was kind and we made it back without any untoward incident,” Aditya recounted.
Ace mountaineer, TEDx speaker and founder of a leading sustainable homegrown decor brand, Aditya was overwhelmed by the admiration and adulation that came his way after getting back, but he quickly got over it. He told us that he wanted to do a lot more with his experience than just acknowledging compliments.
“As someone who had a considerable reach on social media, I quickly got accustomed to people congratulating me. I had climbed Mt Everest and yes, it was no mean feat, ‘thank you very much’ but I remember thinking that surely there was a lot more that I could do with my experience. Following up on this though process, I accepted offers to give talks at schools and other organisations. After I came back and put up my story on social media, someone from Baroda reached out to me, seeking permission to use my experience in the formulation of a management based game. I eagerly agreed and they successfully developed that gamified experience, which is now used to train management folks. Such interactions happened to be very fulfilling and lent substance to the purpose of sharing my experience. Thinking back, even three months after coming back I could not not get over my feat and kept thinking that I need to do more. That is when I decided that I should put together a book highlighting my journey,” said Aditya thoughtfully.
In August 2019, he started piecing together his experience, bit by bit. And he tells us it was not as easy as it might have seemed. Shortlisting over 300 photographs from 3,500 - 4,000 was just one humongous task among many others but, behind the scenes, he felt that the book was about so much more than scaling Mt Everest.
“I was documenting almost every critical juncture on the way to the top. Revisiting those images rekindled my memories. Whole thing was playing in my mind. The weeks that led to the climax of the summit push, all those dicey situations. That is when I realised that the book couldn’t simply be about climbing Everest. Okay, Everest is the content but the context is about life, in a larger sense. And when I went down this path, I did not realise the effort it would take. It was like climbing another mountain altogether. It took me more than a year to finish the whole thing and the pandemic slowed the process down, but I am glad I took my time since it helped enhance my vision. It is just like that saying, ‘all good things take time’,” Aditya shared with a smile.
On April 2021, amid the raging pandemic, he launched 7 Lessons from Everest, as a colourised, coffee table book. While the book in itself was about so much more than scaling the highest peak on the planet, Aditya’s appreciation for life was underlined by the fact that all proceeds from the sales of the book went to CRY (Child Rights and You), an NGO which has been helping vulnerable children survive and thrive in a post-Covid world. We ask him whether there is any one lesson that he would say is more prominent than the others. His response?
“I cannot possibly explain how hard it is to pick, which is why I just elaborated on seven. I could have just as easily mentioned 25 lessons. You have to understand that the prominence of the lesson depends on the circumstances you are dealing with. Everest is just a metaphor. The book serves the notion that life need not be about climbing a mountain called Everest. It is about taking on large goals which others would not even consider pursuing. Bottomline is, if someone as ordinary as me could climb Everest with a body that was half a century old, anyone can do anything. You just need to apply yourself according to the need of the moment,” Aditya wrapped up nonchalantly.
That last statement piqued our curiosity and we can’t wait to flip through his book to see what other pearls of wisdom he has in store for us.