Malli Mastan Babu - India's unsung Hero

 


Last week saw the announcement of discovery of the body of Malli Mastan Babu, one of India's top mountaineer. He is unique in a way that very few of the Indian mountaineers were solo climbers and he is one of them. He has the distinction of conquering the summits of the tallest peaks in each of the 7 continents in 2006 in a short span of 172 days and made to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Apart from this he has several achievements like,

In 2007, he accomplished through trekking and climbing a high-altitude traverse of the four major Hindu dhams of Uttarakhand. During the same year, he had run 8 full Marathons and 3 half marathons in 13 days, spanning 10 Indian States. In 2008, he completed a 75 day High altitude trek from the Mt. Everest region to Kanchenjunga, climbing all the high passes between them, covering a total of approximately 1100km of Himalayan terrain. 

He was an alumnus of IIT and a motivational speaker.


He lost his life after summiting Nevado Tres Cruces (6749 meters) in Andes in South America.  He went missing on 24th March 2015 and found dead after a search on 3rd April 2015. It appears, the mountains kept back their lover with them. Sadly the body is yet to reach his home country at the time of writing this.

Another sad thing about this entire episode is that there is very little media coverage about this missing and only  customary 5 minute capsule of his life after breaking the news of his death. I believe this man who achieved such greatness through grit and determination needs to a bigger coverage and the government should constitute an award for mountaineers in his honour.

Rest in Peace Malli Mastan Babu

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