After they came down the mountain late last month, they came home to the plateau on Sunday. But it was no ordinary mountain – it was Mt. Everest, the world’s highest. And Hyderabad in the Deccan plateau didn’t look ordinary either, with hundreds cheering their arrival, the atmosphere almost carnivalesque.
As 13-year-old Malavath Poorna, the youngest female to scale the treacherous peak, and fellow achiever S. Anand Kumar (18) made their way out of the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in the city, past and present students of the AP Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (APSWREIS) let out loud cries of approval, clapping and cheering wildly.
APSWREIS secretary R.S. Praveen Kumar and other officials received the young achievers and their trainer Sekhar Babu.
“This is an emotional moment for people like me who studied in social welfare society school. There were times when I was looked down upon for studying there but these two students have changed that perception with their feat,” said 32-year-old P. Krishna, a Ph.D student at Osmania University who came along with 100 other students from the campus.
Victory rallyA specially-decorated mini-bus was arranged to transport the young heroes, led by a large convoy of hundreds bikes and dozens of cars. The white flags of Swaeroes (past and present students of the society are known thus) and the tricolour filled the air.
A rally was taken out from Shamshabad through Charminar, M.J. Market and Public Gardens, culminating at Lower Tank Bund where the Ambedkar statue was garlanded late in the evening by the team members.
