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TOMORROW marks the 50th anniversary of the conquest of Everest by two intrepid men — Mr Edmund Hillary (as he was then) and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

It was the culmination of almost a whole century of effort mounted by equally brave, but unlucky, mountaineers, many of whom died in the course of their attempt. Millions of words have been spoken and written on the glorious saga of human endurance and dauntless spirit.

In none of the celebratory articles that I have read is there a mention of two intriguing and potentially disastrous, offshoots of the achievement. I was a witness to, and participant in, both since I was the Sub-Collector of Darjeeling, Tenzing's home town, at the time and a close friend of Tenzing.

The news of the conquest was not as simple and sweet as it now seems. The first account put out with much fanfare by media credited only Mr Hillary with the victorious feat to the virtual blanking out of the part Tenzing played in the historic happening.

Some foreign commentators even pictured him as a mere paid sherpa meant to carry loads, and not a regular member of the team to be given any recognition for the final outcome. Tenzing felt belittled and humiliated, and refused to take part in any function connected with the event.

While this resulted in a reluctant acknowledgment of the fact of his climbing the Everest along with Mr Hillary, the foreign media kicked up yet another, and noisy, controversy, claiming that Mr Hillary was the first to step on the peak, followed by Tenzing.

There was, at the same time, a report doing the rounds that it was Tenzing who was ahead of Mr Hillary at the crucial moment. Anyway, finally, the unsavoury episode was given a quietus by a version making out that both stepped on the peak simultaneously!

Whenever I tried to prise out the truth from Tenzing, he used to flash one of those captivating grins of his without saying a word. Here is a whodunit which will not be solved till the end of time.

The second contretemps was over the bureaucratic bungling in setting up the Darjeeling Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had intended it to be a tribute to Tenzing and came specially and directly from his trip to China to inaugurate it in 1954.

I was shocked to find Tenzing missing from the group of eminent persons who had come to receive him.

The hero of Everest had been assigned a subordinate role as Chief Instructor in the Institute, and an army major had been appointed Director over him, ostensibly on the ground that Tenzing was uneducated and uncomfortable with English.

An angered Tenzing threatened to boycott the inaugural function and only my intervention to get him an honoured position in the Institute made him relent, enabling the function to pass off smoothly.

Incidentally, Nehru's stay and arrival and departure were totally free of pomp and ceremony, with no cutouts, arches or long convoys of vehicles. Today's politicians, please note!

B. S. Raghavan

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