Kohli, king of adventure

Subhash Rajta

Mohan Singh Kohli spent his childhood climbing mountains and crossing streams in Haripur, his birthplace, in North West Frontier Province, now in Pakistan. He did pretty much the same in his youth and beyond, just the mountains and their altitude changed. From climbing the small neighbourhood hillocks as a child, he went on to scale the highest peaks of the Himalayas and become India’s leading mountaineer. For an autobiographical account of a life spent ascending steep, icy mountains, enduring bone-chilling blizzards and escaping avalanches, there could not have been a title more apt than A Life Full of Adventures. The highest point, literally as well as figuratively, of the book comes when, in 1965, nine Indian mountaineers, under Kohli, scaled Mount Everest, India’s first successful expedition.

Incidentally, Kohli wasn’t among the climbers who reached the top. As the team leader, he offered others the chance to attempt the ascent first, and nine of them made the most of it. Like a true leader, nowhere did Kohli express even a hint of regret or disappointment over not making it to the top. Nevertheless, one can’t help but feel he deserved to be on ‘top of the world’, having spearheaded two failed attempts in 1960 and 1962. In the second attempt, he was just a few hundred feet away from the summit when inclement weather forced him to return. On their way down, Kohli and his companions lost their way. Totally drained, all three of them had resigned to the impending fate of remaining frozen forever on the slopes of Everest. Miraculously, when they were perhaps minutes away from the looming death, they found their tent. 

Like his life, his career graph, too, has been interesting and extraordinary. He started off with the Indian Navy, moved to Indo-Tibetan Border Police, and eventually to Air India. But no matter where he was, the mountains always pulled him back. Even while working with Air India, he found a way to be associated with the Himalayas — he was tasked with popularising the Himalayas as tourism hub globally. Not surprisingly, he passed this test, too, with flying colours.

Being an autobiography, the book understandably fails to devote much space to his breakthrough summiting of Nanda Kot, Annapurna III and, of course, Everest. All these expeditions merit a book each, something Kohli has already done. The book races past his successful and failed ascents, without dwelling much on sights and sounds of these mountains, and the gamut of emotions one feels on coming face-to-face with the best and the worst of nature. 

Nevertheless, knowing the pioneer of mountaineering in India and his extraordinary life is a rewarding experience.