What next? Getting into Indian Police Service.
The answer comes like a bullet from Malavath Poorna when asked about her next goal. She made the country proud by becoming the youngest girl in the world to scale Mount Everest three years ago. She was just 13-years-old when she conquered the highest peak — a dream for many.
Poorna didn’t stop at that. Leading a team of 16 boys and girls, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on the Independence Day last year, creating yet another record of sorts.
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By then, film actor and director Rahul Bose was making a biopic on her. The teenager unveiled the first look of the biopic ‘Poorna’ atop Kilimanjaro. Executing tough tasks have become a time pass for this teenager.
Starting new life
She is excited as her biopic is likely to hit the screens sometime next month. Right now, Poorna is occupied with her Intermediate second-year exams beginning in a fortnight.
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After her exams, Poorna has to leave the residential campus of Telangana Social Welfare Residential School and College at Tadvai in Kamareddy.
This was her second home for the past seven years.
She is clear about her next goal of getting into the coveted IPS. “My mentor R.S. Praveen Kumar is an IPS officer. Want to emulate him and serve people like him. Naturally, IPS is the next target,” smiles Poorna.
She vividly remembers how Mr. Praveen Kumar motivated and introduced her to the right people, be it trainers at Bhongir Rock Climbing Club near Hyderabad or guidance from experts of mountaineering institutes.
“When sir is doing so much to the society by being an IPS officer, it is natural for students like us to follow in his footsteps,” she says.
She is moving to Hyderabad for graduation.
“I am told it is tough to crack the civil service exams, but I learnt a lot from the expeditions to Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro,” she says thoughtfully.
Learning experience
The teenager recalls how the trainers at a mountaineering institute in north India first refused to consider her even for training for the Everest expedition. She still remembers the words “how can this lean and tiny girl” get trained let alone join the team for scaling the Everest.
On seeing her fitness levels — Poorna could jog almost 25 km everyday as part of the training — they simply took back their words.
Later, the trainers themselves vied with each other to get photographed with her.
Successful Everest and Kilimanjaro expeditions instilled mountains of confidence in her and she feels getting selected for IPS is another such challenging task.
Her biopic poster reads ‘courage has no limits’ and Poorna wants to prove it again.