In 1984, Siddharth Kak landed a ringside view into an expedition to Mount Everest as part of a film crew—at the heart of all the action, yet at a safe distance from it. Or so he thought.
India was looking to put the first woman on the summit. The newspaper advert that Kak, then 36, stumbled upon seemed too good to be true. A guided trip to the highest mountain in the world and an opportunity to find his feet in the world of filmmaking. Kak knew he had to go, ready or not.
Kak revisits all the drama that ensued, both on and off the mountain, in his new book, A Fire Over Mount Everest. “Forty years ago, Everest was dangerous and nothing like the assisted climbing of today. Not more than 200 people had set foot on the mountain, so it was at its most challenging during those days,” he says.
The expedition ended in success after Bachendri Pal reached the summit on 23 May, only the fifth woman in the world at the time to do so. She was showered with adulation on her return and became a household name. But it wasn’t the same for her teammates (Sharavati Prabhu, Rita Gombu, Chandraprabha Aitwal, Rekha Sharma, Dr A, and P) women as hardy and determined, who put in equal effort on the mountain, only to be denied the summit due to circumstances. Most held on to the bitter memories that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
“What the expedition primarily needed was communication, instead, what it had was command,” Kak, 76, recalls. Then, there were the struggles of the filming team. Just one of the four had any mountaineering experience. The rest were amateurs, relieved to simply walk away, bruised yet enriched with the experience of a lifetime.
The expedition was planned almost two decades after Indian men first climbed the mountain in 1965—only the fourth team to meet with success and a record at the time when nine members reached the summit. To put a woman on the summit, the Indian Mountaineering Foundation gathered their best climbers. Most were men were from the Armed Forces, who either gave orders or complied with them. The women were to simply follow commands.
“The expedition was run by men who had no experience of working with women and didn’t consider them equals. The female members were never involved in decision-making nor were they asked for feedback. They were there simply as a requirement since one of them had to be put on the summit,” Kak says.
Until then, Kak’s only connection with the mountains was the many summer holidays he had spent in the picturesque Kashmir Valley. And a few hikes he had taken as a student at Lawrence School, Sanawar. He had embarked on a promising career with the Tatas, until he realised the need for stimulation and an outlet for his creativity. A personal connection and a confident pitch landed him the chance to go to Everest, even though he was still a greenhorn in both the world of filmmaking and climbing.
Kak assembled a team of equally driven individuals. The plan was to capture every moment while going as high as they could, well aware that there would be no second chances. This was the time of analogue filming with the portable 16mm Arriflex camera, and the spring-operated Bolex camera that required no batteries.
In the sub-zero temperature and extreme weather, they had to be ready for anything. Kak tapped into every resource at his disposal and innovations such as the use of aviation grease to prevent the cameras from freezing. Some situations needed jugaad like the time their film snapped due to the cold and was held together by chewing gum.
“Few moments come close to filming Everest from a single engine Pilatus Porter plane with the cockpit door open. The howling wind that made communication impossible, the fingers numb from the chill. Then to survive crashing into the Western Cwm thanks to a skilled pilot, make a safe landing and hear from the cameraman—which one was Everest?” Kak says, laughing.
By the time the team arrived at Everest Base Camp, the cracks were starting to show. The dynamics had created factions in what was to be a team effort, an under-pressure leader, Darshan Khullar, only making matters worse. It would lead to situations (like climbers ignoring orders from the leader, and lack of communication between the leader and deputy leader) that would only get more perplexing as they made their way up the mountain.
The film team too realised their shortcomings, like a fish out of water at times, uncertain as to how they would survive the weeks on the mountain. The question of proceeding to higher camps gave Kak sleepless nights, until he knew he had to go. He even wrote his wife, Geeta, a letter and left it with the leader in case he didn’t get back safe.
“The sponsor had told me to make the best film that I could, so I knew I had to climb and shoot myself. The life and death situation was related to my sense of integrity and honour,” he says.
Kak landed in terrifying situations on a few occasions, lucky to escape unharmed and not be a liability on the climbing team. The elements tested his survival instinct and required all the physical conditioning he had developed as a college athlete to make it to the safety of camp.
“Just two days of training and then we had to manage as best as we could. That is why I got a few things wrong (including one of his crampons coming loose while walking up from Base Camp to Camp 1 and another time falling into a crevasse),” he says. It all came to a head once they were ready for the summit attempt. The world knows that Bachendri Pal got to the top; but few know that her teammates could have scripted histories of their own. There were Padma Shris for some, and heartbreaks for others. And a certain discord that has lasted to this day.
“For the women, it was an amazing opportunity which never came again. It was really unfair how they were simply ignored. Some of them took it to heart and stepped away from mountaineering,” Kak says.
The title of the book comes from a spectacular shot that the team filmed at Camp 2. A storm over Everest that was as gorgeous to witness as it was terrifying—a prized capture that was lost in transit and, as Kak suspects, due to sabotage. He leaves it unanswered, much like a number of other incidents that shaped the expedition over those weeks.
The learning was invaluable for Kak and his crew, who won the Best Exploration/Adventure film at the 32nd National Film Awards. It marked the start of his journey as a successful documentary filmmaker that led him to producing and hosting the enthralling TV show, Surabhi (1993-2001). More importantly, it handed him lessons that he holds on to even today. “I was lucky to survive, but it changed my attitude towards life. I learned that if you desire something deeply, the world conspires to give it to you,” he says.
Kak reconnects with old mates and tracks down those who slipped under the radar to understand how the expedition shaped their lives. He revisits old wounds and makes an effort to heal some along the way. And perhaps provide closure to the climbers on the team after years of distress.
The book is less mountain literature, more memoir—Kak’s frank admission of visiting an environment where he didn’t belong, discovering his own Everest along the way and returning home wiser.
Shail Desai is a Mumbai-based freelance writer.