scaling new heights: Malli Mastan Babu plans to open a national and international adventure tourism company for children. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Bachendri Pal, his one time trainer, describes his spirit as the necessary element required in all Indians. Although Malli Mastan Babu seems deceivingly ordinary, Babu is the first Indian to climb the seven highest peaks in seven continents in a record time of 172 days.

Babu, who was in the city to visit his alma mater NIT and teacher Bachendri Pal, has completed his M.Tech from IIT Kharagpur and PGDM from IIM Calcutta. In 2004, he abandoned the corporate world (he had worked as a software engineer for three years) to fulfil his childhood fantasy to climb the Everest.

He undertook the Everest base camp trek by himself in April and attended a basic mountaineering course in Manali. He trained himself alone in the Gangotri glacier and on the Sikkim Himalayas. By the end of 2004, he was planning to become the first Indian to climb the seven summits and not just be an Everest Summiteer.

“He has achieved a lot in a very short period,” says Bachendri Pal, the legendary mountaineer. He has climbed Vinson Massif, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Kosciuszko, Everest, Elbrus and Denali between January to June 2006. Through meticulous planning he has managed to cover each of these peaks every month, that too one on each on different days of the week. His guide to these climbs have been diaries of other mountaineers, internet and intense research.

After being denied sponsorship by the sports ministry and the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, Babu found help from the funds raised through Sainik School Korukonda Alumni association (his school) and help from friends in NIT and IIM Calcutta.

His difficulties range from getting permits to limited visas, frost bites and snow blindness in extreme climates. “Most mountaineers know that climbing the Everest needs practice. I climbed the other mountains in different continents for practice,” says Babu.

His future plans include starting an adventure tourism company both in India and abroad for children and corporates.

Babu would like to climb the fourteen 8,000 feet peaks in the Himalayas and also visit the north and south poles.