Santosh overcame social hurdles to scale new heights

NEW DELHI: Santosh Yadav is famous for her two-time feat of climbing the Mount Everest and is the first woman to have achieved this success. But she could make this journey only after a pitched battle against orthodox traditions that prevailed in her village in Rewari district of Haryana. She has walked the distance from being a thin, lean girl with a delicate physical constitution - who was seemingly unfit for a task like mountain climbing - to a woman who built herself to be a mountaineer of repute.
On the occasion of International Women's Day, Santosh is geared up to raise awareness about good nutrition among women. With experience as her teacher, she is now part of the Women's Health and Empowerment for Prosperity and Social Change programme that seeks to go into the slums of Delhi to emphasize on nutrition for women.
An initiative of Vigyan Prasar of the Union ministry of science and technology in partnership with Institute for Gender Justice and Sudinalay - Centre for Women, the week-long awareness programme will be launched on Women's Day on Tuesday with the slogan "Bharat se India jurega jab, mahila sashakt hogi tab".
The programme will focus on consultations with stakeholders at Vigyan Bhawan on Tuesday and then move on to grassroot session between March 10 and 14 at Fatehpuri, Kabir Basti, Chandni Chowk, Lahori Gate, Phool Mandi, Jama Masjid, Nehru Camp and Bhoomiheen Camp. A consultation on mental health is scheduled at Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied sciences at Shahdara. The programme concludes with a national meet of women on March 15 to draw up a plan of action. Delhi's women and child development minister Kiran Walia emphasized that good nutrition for women is the key to a healthy family and pointed that the state is planning to collect primary data on malnutrition and anaemia to focus on nutrition.
Sharing her journey from being a young adolescent in Joniyawash village of Rewari to a mountaineer, Santosh says that soon after she turned 14 she was under constant pressure to marry. "My parents gave the best and never differentiated between me and my five borthers. But the society we lived in was orthodox, where girls did not study and early marriage was the norm. But I was determined to study and fought the system with my will power and succeeded," she said.
To reach her school, Santosh would walk five kilometres one way. "I use to be a thin, lean and delicate girl. At that time walking 10 kilometres would sap my energy. When I decided to train for mountaineering I appeared unfit for the tough task. That is when I realized the value of good nutrition. Determined to pursue my ambition I ate well and trained with conviction to become a mountaineer. The high mountains gave me spiritual energy that strengthened my resolve to do better," Santosh recalls.
Santosh is a graduate in economics and has been an assistant commissioner of police in Indo Tibetan Border Police for seven years. A mother who dotes on her eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter, Santosh says Women's Day also happens to be the most special day of her life. It was on March 8 that she married her businessman husband, Uttam Kumar. She was 24 then. Santosh has set an example for not just the girls in Joniyawash, but also for all women to come out and achieve their dreams.