Determination has no limits: Arunima Sinha and Károly Takács

ARUNIMA SINHA: the girl who defeated the mountain.

World's first female amputee to scale Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus, Mount Kosciuszko, Mount Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid and Mount Vinson.

As a national level volleyball player, Arunima from Ambedkarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, was an unstoppable soul.

In 2011 , she was travelling in a train from Lucknow to Delhi. Some robbers came to her for the gold chain she was wearing but she tried to fight with them and nobody in that compound tried to intervene and the robbers threw her out of the train. Unfortunately another train was coming from the adjacent track and first she banged with that train and then she fell on the track. Both trains passed. After a while she tried to lift herself up and saw that her leg had cut off. She lifted her thigh and saw it was hanging with jeans, blood flowing profusely and bones of other leg were all broken and had come out. All night she kept shouting in pain on the tracks and crying for help. Nobody came to rescue her.all night because of shouting so much she could no longer see. When the train used to pass the track would vibrate and small rats were chewing on her injured leg. Every second she was thinking how I could save myself. The whole night passed, in the morning some villagers took her  to a hospital.

Now the doctor , pharmacist and everyone were discussing that they don’t have anesthesia or blood and how they could start her treatment. Though she couldn’t see but could hear all this. She said, “Sir, my whole leg is crushed , and for so long I was on the tracks and I endured my pain, but for my good you will cut off my leg.” And after that they gave their blood and amputated her leg without any anesthesia.

This all things spread in the media and the sports minister shifted her to AIIMS Delhi. When she got well after 25 days she came out and read all the twisted stories in the newspaper, “Arunima Sinha didn’t have a train ticket , and jumped from the train.” And “ She was rejected by her family” and even , “Arunima Sinha attempted sucide.at that point she decided its ok today is your day say how much you want to but a day will come when I will prove myself.this when she decided to do mountaineering.

She contacted Bachendri Pal in 2011 by telephone and signed up for training under her at the Uttarkashi camp of the Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) 2012. Sinha climbed Island Peak (6150 metres) in 2012 as preparation for her ascent of Everest. Nothing could falter her from her dream. On her first deed while in transit to the summit, she was so cheerful to have achieved the base camp that she lost balance and tumbled to the ground, injuring herself in the process.

On the day she endeavoured to summit Mount Everest, she and her Sherpa were the first to leave the camp. When they were very close to the summit, her Sherpa gave her some terrible news. Their oxygen levels were quickly exhausting, and they needed to return the following day for another attempt. Sinha was adamant on completing the summit that very day. With the help of the Sherpa, after two hours, they were at the pinnacle of Mount Everest, and of her success at 10:55 am on 21 May 2013. Those 7 minutes atop the summit were the best moments of her life. She just wanted to shout out to the world that she had done it.

Arunima Sinha has been included as one of the ‘People of the Year’ by Limca Book of Records in 2016. She is now dedicated towards social welfare and she wants to open a free sports academy for the poor and differently-abled persons. She is donating all the financial aids she is getting through awards and seminars for the same cause. In her website arunimasinha.com, she is noted as saying, “I have achieved my goal but now I want to help physically challenged people to achieve their goal so that they can also become self-dependent and nobody looks at them with pity.”

Károly Takács-the man who gave his best shot

Károly Takács  was the first shooter to win two Olympics gold medals in the 25 meter rapid fire pistol event, both with his left hand after his right hand was seriously injured. 

 

This story is from 1938 of a person named Karoly in Hungarian army. He was the best pistol shooter of the country. By 1936, he was a world-class pistol shooter, but he was denied a place in the Hungarian shooting team for the 1936 Summer Olympics on the grounds that he was a sergeant, and only commissioned officers were allowed to compete. This prohibition was lifted in Hungary after the Berlin Games.  He has won all the national championships in the country. All was sure that he would get gold in the Olympic which was scheduled in 1940. He was practicing for many years . He has only one goal he wants to make his hand as the best shooting hand of the world and he almost achieved it, just two year are remaining. During army training in 1938, his right hand was badly injured when a faulty grenade exploded and that hand was gone.

 

All his dreams and focus was destroyed by this incident. Now he had two options :

1) Give up and cry for his  whole life and hide somewhere.

2) Or what he has thought , what was his goal should stick to that and achieve it.

 

He focused on what he has , not on what he didn’t. He had a left hand. A hand from which he can’t even write. For 1 month he went through treatment of his injured hand. After 1 month he started training with his left hand. After 1 year of training that is in 1939 he came back, National championship was going on in Hungary and many pistol shooters were there. They all went to Karoly To congratulate him they said that this is called sportsman’s spirit , after going through everything you are here to support us by cheering us. No one was aware that he was training for 1 year with his left hand and he answered “I AM NOT HERE TO SUPPORT YOU; I AM HERE TO COMPETE WITH YOU BE READY.” Competition started, everyone was competing with their best hand but Károly was competing with his only hand. Who won? The man with the only hand, he won. He didn’t stop here, his goal was clear: he wanted to make his hand world’s best pistol shooting hand. He focused on the 1940's Olympics but unfortunately the 1940's Olympic canceled due to world war. Then he shifted his focus on 1944’s Olympics but that also got canceled due to world war.

 

He again started focusing on the 1948 Olympics. In 1938 he was 28 year old and now he was 38 year old in 1948. Now he has to compete with younger players. He went there,  the world's best shooters were competing with their best hand but Károly was competing with his only hand. Who won? The man with the only hand, he won. He didn’t stop here he again went to 1952 Olympics and again won the

  Gold  medal and made history.

 

LEARNING

 These two stories always motivates me , this both gives an great example of focus , determination and never give up attitude.

If you go to any loser he will have a list of excuses I failed due to this and that. But if you go to the winner he will have a thousand reasons that he can’t do but he will find one reason to do that thing and will achieve it.

 

So NEVER GIVE UP and NEVER LOSE HOPE.

 

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