Advaita Kala on the unsung heroes of the hills

A Sherpa earns around $125 USD per climb and can earn up to $5000 USD a year. In a poor country like Nepal where the average annual income is $700 USD, this is a princely sum.

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Advaita Kala on the unsung heroes of the hills

When Deepak Adhikari began as a journalist in Nepal, the country was still coming to terms with being a democracy.

It had only been a few years since the transition. During this time he donned multiple hats: reporter, copy editor, proof reader etc. A few years later he quit and moved to the UAE to work in a McDonalds for four years. On his return he resumed his journalistic career and worked for Kantipur, Nepal's largest selling daily before moving on to AFP and writing for amongst other publications - Time magazine.

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This April, Nepal was hit by a tragedy. Sixteen sherpas lost their lives in an avalanche near the Everest base camp. Other Sherpas offended by the government's meagre compensation, decided to boycott the rest of the climbing season out of respect for their fallen brothers. The hardy Sherpas, often relegated to the periphery of victorious photographs atop summits, are the unsung heroes in this oft told story of the triumph of the human spirit over natures grandest challenge - Mount Everest. For long they have accepted second billing in these tales, reduced to the footnotes of history. Paywise, a Sherpa earns around $125 USD per climb and can earn up to $5000 USD a year. In a poor country like Nepal where the average annual income is $700 USD, this is a princely sum.

Ignored

Deepak and his friend, journalist Adam Popescu, had been discussing this since Adam's visit to Nepal the previous year to do a story on the ecological footprint on the Himalayas. They agreed that there were a swathe of stories that were under reported and people who remained invisible. The Sherpas, were one of them.

This tragedy triggered the response they had been articulating. Together Adam and Deepak decided to tell the stories of the invisible people of the Himalayas by setting up a crowd funding project that financed these so far ignored stories and facilitated their dissemination over multiple formats. The contributions are to be used for expenses incurred in discovering, researching and telling these stories.

Adam asserts it is this need to tell these stories that are being overlooked or don't find the money, that has prompted him to take this leap of faith and reach out to the general public. "When I visited Nepal last December for the BBC", he says "I met a lot of brave men and women, Sherpas, Tamangs, Chhetris, Gorkas, Nepalis, all of them, many marginalised, invisible to the West. I want to share their stories, and hopefully, help bring outside awareness and ultimately aid to their lives." And the project intends to do that by directing a portion of the funding to the victims of the avalanche of 2014. Deepak reasserts this.

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Mountaineering expeditions run by western outfits are pricey and charge between $40,000 USD and $100,000 USD per expedition. At the bottom of the food chain are the Sherpas, who do the three Ds (dangerous, difficult, dirty) of Himalayan mountaineering.

The 2014 tragedy and the proffered compensation amply exhibited what their "value" was pegged at. He says, "Sherpas are heroes of mountaineering but they are unsung heroes because better educated and resourceful Western climbers not only steal the limelight but also live in the glory of the summit for the rest of their lives."

Reform

Nepal is in need of reforms not only at the base camps but also in the tourism offices on Darbar Marg. These stories that Adam and Deepak will work on will result in a multi layered multi layered narrative quite distinct from the unidimensional perspectives that we have had so far. So far the project - Everest Sherpas and the high price of tourism has managed to find only 40 per cent funding. With seven days to go, there is hope that with greater awareness the project will find more backers and meet its donor goal. Deepak tells me that as a young republic, Nepal has many challenges and is attempting to write a constitution that fulfils the aspirations of its 26-million-strong population and secures political stability.

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Aspirations

Nepal's young population has economic aspirations but most international publications refuse to look at Nepal except through the lens of India or China or the backpacker and the mountain climber. All too often he has been asked by editors, "Can you bring the China factor in this story". He would have liked to ask a counter question, "Can we just have a story about Nepal, its travails and travels?"

Adam and Deepak are not asking that question anymore but are starting with the answer. The Sherpas, mythologised by the West as honest, simple people and not much else have always held a romanticised appeal, as has Nepal. But this new Nepal believes in asserting its identity and its reality.

And it is this assertion the Nepalese who I have interacted with in my time in the country and my subsequent travels there have spoken of. This project intends to start with those most invisible, most marginalised. Nepal intends to emerge from the romanticised Shangri La it has become for the outside world. For those of us who engage with this friendly neighbour it is important to keep this in mind along with our avuncular good intentions.

The writer is an award winning screenwriter and best selling novelist. Her twitter hashtag is @AdvaitaKala