When A Book Becomes A Trophy

 As a youngster, possibly when I was in class XI (though at that time I did not think I was a youngster) which would make it 1982/3 I had attended a rock climbing course at Purulia's Susunia Hills. This was with Mountaineers' Youth Ring (or was it Wing) - a club where our local grocer Bolu-da was one of the founder members. 

At the camp one of the evening activities used to be to sit together in a group and listen to various stories from the elders. There a gentleman came, perhaps on the second day, whom every one was calling as Sadhu-da. He had reddish beard, short and had a stout figure. One look at him and you would know he was perhaps a mountaineer or trekker or at least an adventurer. He did not need an introduction. 

It was this Sadhu-da from who I first learnt the name of Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler. He said, if you can read a book by Peter Habeler called Everest An Impossible Victory. It is the story of their impossible conquest of Mt Everest without oxygen. In fact they were the first to do this on an 8K peak. It was a heroic feat and much as lot of people these days do it, they were the first ones who did it going against the conventional wisdom of those days.

Upon return to Calcutta I went to National Library - I was a new member then - and discovered that the book was available there. I promptly requisitioned for it. National Library had a rule back then. If a book is out of print it is not given out to be taken home. You had to read them in their reading room on table and chair. I was just not used to reading in this way. It felt very artificial and forced. I loved reading while lying in bed. 

Anyway, I had to accept that I would need to read it in the reading room. 

Another problem with National Library was if you gave a book for requisition it would take hours for it to arrive. But going against all odds of this nature I laid my hand on a copy of this rare book. A hard bound book and I was awestruck by the handsomeness of Peter Habeler who had a full page picture of himself in the book. He had his sunglasses on and Everest was reflected on it. Possibly taken by Messener.

I flipped through the thick pages and looked at all the pictures. And then I started reading it. Habeler said that he was writing the book because although Messner and he did the expedition, but if you read the book that Messner wrote after this you would think only he alone did the expedition !!! This is the problem with narcissistic megalomaniacs and Messner is one of the worst examples of that perhaps. No wonder later in life he started climbing alone. An extremely competent and accomplishe mountaineer that he is, he is not a nice man and you could marvel at his achievments but never be his friend. 

I loved Habeler's honesty. He wanted to set the record straight. He did not denigrate Messner in any way in the book but it is also true that after this they never climbed together. They climbed a lot of peaks together before this as a team.

Now, back to the National Library reading room. That first evening after finishing a few pages it was time for me to leave for the day. Instead of returning the book at the counter, which would mean another stupid wait of a few hours next day I hid the book behind other books on a shelf of the reading room. So that the next day I could come and straight away get on with reading the book.

I did that and over the next few days I kept at this game. After a few days