Mulund to Mt Everest: Meet 22-yr-old who danced before summiting peak

A string of prayer flags flutters above a poster of Mount Everest in this Mulund home. Nearby hangs a dreamcatcher and a whiteboard scribbled with the coordinates of the world’s highest peak. “I manifested Everest,” says Saanika Shah who was 17 when she wrote in her journal that she would one day climb the mountain.

Six years later, she has returned not only having celebrated her 22nd birthday on Sagarmatha — the Nepali name for Everest — but also having summited it. On May 20, the soft-spoken film school graduate planted a flag and took selfies at 8848.86 m. Like hundreds of climbers this season, she encountered a traffic jam near the summit, but what made her stand out was a moment at Everest Base Camp that you likely have already caught online.

A few days before her summit push, at an altitude of over 5,300 m where “even walking makes you breathless”, Shah — who has trained in Bharatanatyam since the age of four — donned her blue costume, gajra and temple jewellery to perform on a mat laid out on the uneven snowy ground. “I had decided long ago that whenever I reached Base Camp, I would perform Bharatanatyam as an offering to Sagarmatha,” says Shah. “My body was struggling in the wind and cold. But emotionally and spiritually, I felt connected in that moment.”

Growing up, dancing and acting were her world. During the lockdown in 2020, however, she found herself drawn to mountaineering. “I watched the 2015 film ‘Everest’, based on the 1996 disaster. The mountain looked terrifying but also beautiful.” Soon came the journal entry. After that, she was sprinting up staircases and hauling herself up hills in the Western Ghats while training with Parth Upadhyaya, a mountain fitness coach who summited Everest from the treacherous Tibet side in 2019.

Film school meant balancing acting, dance and mountaineering. “There were Sundays I woke up at 3 am while everyone else was sleeping,” she says. From dance reels in ghagras to videos featuring her with a hiking stick and trekking gear, the transition appears seamless on her Instagram page. Her teachers allowed her to leave rehearsals early to train, while her parents funded a dream that cost well over Rs 50 lakh this season after Nepal increased Everest permit fees. Despite the higher costs, nearly 500 permits were issued from the Nepal side this season.

Clad in a black T-shirt that read ‘Everest 8848.86m’, Shah — who looks up to British mountaineer Adriana Brownlee who has completed all 14 “eight-thousanders” by age 23 — announced her expedition plans in an online video. “I made it my only focus,” she says. In the lead-up to the climb, she would run from Mulund to Siddhivinayak temple in Prabhadevi at 1 am.

What convinced her that she belonged in the world of high-altitude mountaineering was the Himlung Himal, a 7216m mountain she scaled in Nepal’s Annapurna region last year in Oct. Before that, she had summited Mount Elbrus and Mount Kilimanjaro but “Himlung Himal was my stepping stone to Everest,” she says. “Before every mountain, I always tell myself: ‘If I can climb this mountain, I can climb Everest’. During Himlung, my entire mindset was ‘this is my Everest right now’.” Shah says she later verified with Himlung authorities that she had become the youngest Indian and the first Indian woman to summit the peak.

At Everest Base Camp, where days blended into each other through meals in tents and downloaded films during snowstorms, she battled a bout of loneliness when she turned 22 on May 12. “That was the first day the emotional weight hit me,” says Shah, who still shudders at the memory of avalanches rumbling through the mountains at night. “I deeply missed my family.”

The summit push proved harsher than expected. The cold and wind were relentless. She was also menstruating during the climb. “I could feel my body not functioning at its best,” she says. “But I never looked at it as something unfair. It’s part of being a woman.”

Soon after beginning her descent, Shah lost consciousness. Her oxygen mask had frozen internally, cutting off airflow. Her Sherpa guide, Lakpa Tenjen Sherpa, whom she calls “Lakpa Dai”, removed his own mask and placed it over her face. “Without Lakpa Sherpa, I would not be standing here safely today.”

Two Indian climbers died on Everest on May 20 and 21, including one whom Shah knew personally. “Hearing that news was devastating,” she says. “But at that altitude, you also have to remain mentally calm because your responsibility is to get yourself down safely.”

Shah returned to Base Camp at 3.30 am on May 21, exhausted. Tearful hugs with her parents and coach followed at the airport. Now back home in Mulund, Shah — who hopes to complete the Seven Summits challenge — is catching up on sleep and spending time with family. “I am thinking of learning a musical instrument.”