In pitch dark conditions with a battery light strapped to his forehead to guide him in minus 25 degrees Celsius temperature and braving strong winds, Khasim Raza from Vijayawada made it to Africa’s Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world, on August 8.
Mr. Raza, who did his schooling in N.S.M. Public School, is now a British citizen and works with Dubai as his base. He, along with a group of mountaineers, walked up the slopes of Kibo Volcanic cone, summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. The ground was most suitable for trekking during the night in sub-zero temperature, he told The Hindu .
Mr. Raza was in the town during Ramzan to visit his parents and two of his sisters. His father, owner of Metro Opticals in Gandhi Nagar, is one of the earliest opticians of the town. “I may hold a British passport and my wife, daughter and son are also British citizens, but in my heart I am a Bezawada boy,” says Mr. Raza.
The altitude of the summit is 5,895 metres above mean sea level (that is nearly 20,000 feet). Sharing his Kilimanjaro experiences with great gusto, he says he planned to scale all ‘Seven Summits’ of the world. Scaling the Kilimanjaro requires stamina and will power, but climbing the other mountains needs mountaineering skills, he felt.
Altitude sickness in the form of headache, giddiness, churning in the stomach and breathlessness was acute. Every step was painful and it took six-and-half hours to reach the Uhuru Peak, summit of the mountain.
“The extreme pain is shortlived and it goes away, but the glory that it leaves behind stays on and is permanent,” — with these few words Mr. Raza justifies the torturous experience. He wishes to share his experiences with the youth of India to inspire them to go on such adventures.
Mr. Raza is giving final touches to a documentary he has made about this trip — from shopping for adventure right up to stepping on to the Uhuru Peak. “We have very few people from here taking up such adventure trips,” he laments.
