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Youngest Indian atop Mount Everest

Delhi boy Arjun Vajpai, 16, created history on May 22, 2010 as he became the youngest Indian to step atop world's highest peak, 8,848 metre high Mount Everest via the traditional South Col route in Nepal.

Vajpayi climbed the peak at 6.33 am on morning of May 22, in the company of Apa Sherpa, 50, who became the first man to climb the peak for a record 20th time. Sherpa broke his own record of climbing the world's highest peak the maximum number of times.

Text: Onkar Singh

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'Top-of-the-world' feeling

Young Arjun  -- a Class XII student at Noida's Ryan International School -- may have scaled the Everest with ease, but back home his parents had been sending up silent prayers ever since he and eight others set out on the grueling mission.

"We were waiting for the call right from early in the morning. Finally, when the call came, we were crying and laughing," said his father Sanjiv Vajpayi, teeming with excitement.        

A rare feat indeed

Vajpai was accompanied by a 12-member team, among them three Indians. Nine of the 12 belonged to US, Denmark, Switzerland and Australia.

Interestingly, when Arjun scaled the 8,884-metre peak, he was the youngest in the world to have achieved the unique feat. But the record did not last long as hours later a 13-year-old American boy, Jordan Romero, broke Arjun's record.