IMF to honour Hilary, Norgay

The Indian Mountaineering Foundation will honour Everesters Sir Edumnd Hillary and the late Tenzing Norgay at a function to be held at Vigyan Bhavan on May 20.

A statement from the IMF said the two men who climbed Mount Everest on May 29,1953, will be honoured for their outstanding contribution to the field of mountaineering.

A scroll of honour will be presented to the two. Jamleing Norgay, son of Tenzing, will receive the honour on behalf of his father. Jamleing has climbed Mount Everest four times.

Strangely the statement does not mention who will present the scroll to the Everesters.

"We are in the process of finalising the details of the chief guest," Col. Ravinder Nath, director IMF, told rediff.com.

He expects more then a hundred summiters to gather for the two-day Golden Jubilee celebrations in Delhi.

Besides inaugurating an exhibition on mountaineering at the IMF, Sir Edmund will autograph the largest painting of Mount Everest at the Indian Spinal Injury Centre in Vasant Kunj on May 21.

"This is the largest painting of Mount Everest on canvas," Major H P S Ahluwali, chairman of the centre, said.

Ms Amargeet, the painter, said she is honoured that Sir Hillary has agreed to sign the painting.

"It is 12 feet high and 9 feet wide. It took me two months to do the painting. The canvas was so large that I could not place it within my house. So I put up a tent on the roof of my house and painted there almost everyday without fail. Everester Major Ahluwalia was the source of inspiration for this painting," she said.