Interview | Muthamizh Selvi, the first woman from TN to summit Mount Everest

N Muthamizh Selvi is back to Chennai after her exhausting climb over the highest peak in the world, scaling 8,850 metres. She recounts her 56-day journey full of grief, grit, mercy, and exhilaration

At 12.20am on May 23, N Muthamizh Selvi, a teacher of Japanese from Tamil Nadu, was among the first people to summit Mount Everest for the day. Nobody scales the peak during this hour though. Summit ascents usually occur at three and four in the morning after mountaineers begin from the fourth camp at Everest about 12 hours before.

“I had no choice. We were running out of oxygen in my cylinder and the cold winds were relentless. I had to begin summiting and head back down soon to ensure I could return alive,” she says.

Through the dark and the biting cold, Muthamizh Selvi could only remember her foreign co-mountaineer’s hysterical cries after her summit and return to Camp 4. “This is not a game. It is literally, ‘do or die’’. I had to power on. How else would I see my children?” she asks.

At a time when summitting the highest peak in the world is popularly advertised as being more safe to climb now, stories like that of Muthamizh Selvi show that it requires a lot more than intent and fitness to return safely. What was her 56-day journey of near-death experiences, grief, grit and exhilaration like? She answers.

“The reason why the climb is tedious and takes 50 odd days is because we are made to climb to the four camps that lead to the summit and back to ensure that we acclimate to the altitude. It is only the last climb that takes us to the top of Everest,” she says.

Trekkers are required to get familiar with their paths and learn to function well with ropes that are tied around the mountain. For Muthamizh Selvi who was born in Virudhunagar and subsequently moved to Cuddalore and Chennai, mountains are not a familiar day-to-day sight. She learnt the basics quickly and was intent on ensuring that her health remained intact. Her body however, did not always cooperate.

Her climb from Camp 2 to Camp 3 was tedious as her oxygen mask malfunctioned midway but she says that she was determined to scale the mountain only because she had promised several people — her family, the Sports Ministry in TN which had helped her secure funds, and her sponsors.