The lure of mountains

INDIAN MOUNTAINEER SPRING NUMBER, 1979. Indian Mountaineering Foundation. Pp 135. Rs 6.

For The Tribune, Chandigarh | December 8, 1979

The Himalayas are nature's greatest gift to the subcontinent. Indians in the past, apart from a limited amount of pilgrimage travel, largely ignored them. It was the Europeans, particularly the British, who went out to these mountains for exploration and climbing. The Himalayan Club, founded in 1928, has been bringing out annually the Himalayan Journal, which contains excellent and scholarly writings on these mountains. 

Interest in these marvelous mountains was aroused after Tenzing's climb of Everest in 1953. The setting up of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute at Darjeeling and the coming into being of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation provided the structure for the encouragement of interest in the Himalayas among our young people. Indian mountaineers made rapid progress and made numerous climbs of difficult peaks. 

However, even more than the climbing is the necessity of  writing about these experiences so that a larger audience can share them. The start of "Indian Mountaineer", is there therefore a welcome step. It provides a forum to our young explorers to record their experiences and it supplements Himalayan Journal.

I have read this Spring Number, with profit and pleasure. Indian Mountaineer keeps much closer to the objective of the Himalayan Club by writing about the Himalayas in all their varied glory. The Journal is excellently produced and the photographs are vivid.

– Manohar Singh Gill

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