Santosh Yadav, the first woman chief guest at RSS’ Vijayadashami; Know her

Once former President APJ Abdul Kalam had said, "Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career". This quote goes well with Santosh Yadav, an Indian mountaineer who actually achieved both of the aspects. Mountaineer Santosh Yadav scripted history as the first woman to climb Mount Everest, not once, but twice. In one of her interviews, she said nobody thinks she is a mountaineer. It is because of her simplicity.

Santosh Yadav first woman mountaineer scaled Mt. Everest twice RSS chief guest

Hailing from the Joniyawas village of Rewari district in Haryana, Santosh Yadav took up climbing Earth’s highest mountain in 1992. The then 20-year-old Yadav scaled Mount Everest for the first time, making her the youngest woman to achieve the feet at that time. She was also the first woman to climb the 29,035 feet high mountain from its Kangshung face — the eastern-facing side of the peak, one of the Chinese sides of Mount Everest.

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In 2006, the Government of Haryana, in Gurgaon, a satellite city of India’s capital Delhi, named a very busy road after her name to honor her rare achievement as “Smt. Santosh Yadav Marg”.

Coming from a conservative family, her parents wanted to get her married at the age of 14. However, she decided to stay in a hostel in Jaipur and continued with her studies. From her hostel room, she could see the Aravalli range, which fascinated her and also prompted her to learn mountaineering. She paid no attention to the complaints by her instructors at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi about her ‘tiny lungs’ and her being underweight and continued with her training.

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In 1989, when Santosh Yadav got her first opportunity to join 9-Nation International Climbing Camp-cum-Expedition to Nun-Kun area, among 31 members, she was the only woman member of the team. This being her first expedition and a very complex one, she displayed a unique climbing potential and natural inbuilt climbing aptitude and scaled Mount White Needle (21,653 ft).

Many mocked her that she would be not able to achieve her dreams. "When I landed up at the institute, I was thin, underweight and had low lung capacity. All the instructors thought I would never make it. They thought I would opt out of the course within a few days. Not only did I manage to finish the course, I managed to top my batch," she said. It was not that she wanted to prove anyone anything but her curiousity led her to become of what she is now.

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Her achievement of becoming the first and only woman in the world to scale Mount Everest twice has been recorded in the “Guinness Book of World Records in 1994”.

Her determination to not surrender to the circumstances and play the victim for the rest of our lives, she accepted the circumstances as a challenge and tried to overcome them. "All my life, I have made my own choices, whether it is climbing the highest mountain in the world or choosing to put raising my children first, above all other priorities. My attire, my career, my decision to quit it, every decision has been a result of a conscious choice."

Now, this woman is the first female chief guest to be invited to a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Singh (RSS) at its annual Dussehra function held in Nagpur. Yadav’s invitation marks the first time in its 97 years of existence a woman chief guest was invited to the occasion.

For years, Mount Everest has beckoned people to its summit. Many have lived to see the dream and push forth with all their might and willpower to finally scale the peak. She has persevered to reach the top and has been victorious.