Daily wage worker from Kerala who turned into a professional mountaineer

In May 2006, Maneesh from Kannappuram village in Kannur district, Kerala was reading his newspaper when his eyes fixed on a tiny news story about Mark Inglis, a man without legs who had conquered Mount Everest. The 26-year-old  young man froze reading it. He looked at his fine built body, chiseled by the heavy work done at the construction site. Suddenly, his life made no sense to him. "If a man with no legs can conquer Mount Everest, What was I wasting my life for," asks Maneesh, while recollecting that moment.

14 years later, this Keralite has successfully scaled 19 mountain ranges in India and is among the leading professional mountaineer of India. "The journey was not easy," he says. With no plans in mind, Maneesh packed his bags to Delhi.  At Delhi where he took up odd jobs to get himself trained in mountaineering. "I worked for six months and got trained for the remaining 6 months, " says the 5.2 feet tall bachelor.

The first peak he climbed was Friendship Peak, the popular summit in Burma ranges of Himalaya at Manali in 2006, as part of the training at Atal Bihari Institute of Mountaineering. Later he went on to conquer Mt Mulkila I in Himachal Pradesh where he faced near-death moment.

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During the climb, while walking behind the expedition team, he got restless and decided to take a short cut, which ended up in a dire situation. These mountains had crevices that are covered by powder snow and it remains invincible. The loose moraines, make it more dangerous. "So, I drifted off the team and began climbing an elevation when suddenly the stones slowly began to move down along with the snow," he says.

As he looked down he knew he will drop down to at least 2000 feet below.  As he looked up, he could see a small avalanche that was being formed. He could hear the grinding of the stones against each other.  "All I could do was use my ice axe and go to absolute stillness, which is called self-arrest," he says. As time ticked, he shouted for help. The party which he had followed didn't realise their team member had wandered off the track. "I was shouting in Malayalam as I didn't know any other language then," recounted Maneesh. But to his luck, the team members rescued him after an hour. "I learnt an ultimate lesson of patience," says the man who was shortlisted recently for an Everest expedition camp which got postponed due to the current pandemic.

Since then Maneesh has gone further to conquer high altitude mountains like Mt Frey Peak, Mt Rudugaira, Mt Gangotri, Mt Shivling, Mt Jaonli, Mt Khorcha Kund, Mt Nanda Devi East, Mt Rio kangri, Mt Mulkila IV, Mt Kasketet, Mt Kedar Dome, Mt Kolohoi and Mt Tullian. In 2019, he conquered Mt Trishul, which is considered the harshest terrain.

Maneesh is back in Kerala where he opened a welding unit two years ago. He had undertaken the government's skill development workshops. Back at this village, while Maneesh welds iron and steel together to eke out a living,  his heart pounds for snowy mountainscapes of the Himalayas.