Isha Thakur on the Everest. File picture

Jamshedpur, Feb. 20: Those boasting of living in the same city as Bachendri Pal, the first woman to scale the Everest, have another name to brag about.

In Jamshedpur now is 28-year-old Captain Isha Thakur nee Parmar — the first lady officer from the armed forces to scale the Everest, according to army records. Thakur is pursuing an executive management programme at XLRI, a six-month course designed for defence personnel, started in 2007. Two years before the course was started, the lady officer had led a 10-member, all-women group to the Everest.

“Around 2001 the Union government called for women volunteers interested in climbing the Everest and I applied. To my greatest surprise, I was selected instantly for a training programme at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi,” said Thakur, who “originally” hails from Himachal Pradesh. Then started the gruelling tests and training. “Only 28 women were selected from the group of 140 that made it to Uttarkashi, and I was one of them,” the captain said. She made it to the 18-member women’s team that reached Siachen glacier in the second round of the mission and also into the 10-member team that reached the Everest.

“We are about 28 officers and some Sherpa guides, out of which 10 were women and I was the team leader,” she said.

Two teams of women set out to scale the peak but one had to return due to technical difficulties. But Thakur had to face other insurmountable odds. In 2005, Nepal was facing Maoist disturbances and the team had to go up via China. “The Indian army did not permit us to climb from Nepal so we had to take the route through China, which was more difficult,” said Thakur, who received the Vishisht Seva Medal.

Before joining XLRI in January, Thakur was in Ranchi. “My last posting was at the Deepatoli cantonment and my husband, an engineer, in Shimla, is a former student of NIT, Jamshedpur. I do have some associations with this place,” she said.

But does Thakur know that her present residence is not too far from Pal’s office? Yes, she replied, but “I am yet to meet her”.