Brigadier (Retd) Darshan Kumar Khullar who has come to the steel city to help with Bachendri Pal?s second book. Picture by Srinvas

Jamshedpur, Jan. 31: Brigadier (Retd.) Darshan Kumar Khullar wasted little time in dropping anchor in the city to help in giving final touches to legendary mountaineer Bachendri Pal?s second book.

The book will have reflections about the Trans-Himalayan all-women expedition, which Pal marshalled in 1997. The final editing, selection of sketches and pictures still remains to be done on the untitled book. ?The work is almost complete. I am here to help Pal in giving final touches to the book. We hope to complete the job before March,? said 65-year-old Khullar.

He added that he was happy to be associated with a personality like Pal. Khullar said he had been working on the book for quite some time now, but it was now time to complete the job without further delay.

?The book will run to about 300 pages. The write-up will take 200 pages while appendices, sketches and pictures will take care of the rest,? Khullar, who took premature retirement from the army in 1993, said.

?I think the seven-month Trans-Himalayan feat of the eight-member women?s team overshadows the 1992 expedition of Crane brothers (Richard and Adrian) who travelled from Darjeeling to Srinagarm,? said Khullar.

?Theirs was an expedition on the lower reaches of Himalayas. Compared to the one undertaken by Pal and her team, it was a light expedition by the Cranes,? added the former principal of Darjeeling-based Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI).

According to Khullar, the all-women?s team did its job meticulously and in an organised manner while trekking the 4,500-km route from Arunachal Pradesh to Siachen glacier.

?They team never lost momentum and covered the distance on a low budget of about Rs 14 lakh, he said, adding that inputs from the expedition would form part of the book.

Pal did not look entirely satisfied with the work done so far on the book.

?It does not contain my personal feelings. I have communicated this to Khullar. I am keen to put my personal feelings on the book,? she said, adding that she was currently going through the draft roughly prepared by Khullar.

Incidentally, Pal?s maiden book Everest: My journey to the Top was also completed with help from the late brigadier Gyan Singh.

Khullar was the team leader on that expedition to the Everest. Pal was the first Indian woman to have climbed the Everest in 1984.

On when the book would be published, Khullar, who originally hails from village Bassi Pathana in Fatehgarh district of Punjab and now settled in Ambala, added: ?It depends upon the Tatas. They can publish it on their own.?

Khullar was educated in Rashtriya Indian Military College and commissioned into the regiment of artillery in 1961. He was part of the 1962 war against China.