Although Mandip belonged to family of Army officers who live in all sorts of difficult stations, still his mother was no different from all other mums who never want to see their children facing slight hardships in life. She asked Mandip to make a promise to not to go on any more mountaineering expeditions after his first one in school, but Mandip says he made such promises every year to break them again and again in last 50 years, only to make his mother proud of his achievements.
Receiving award from President of India Source: soin
Mandip says there were numerous occasions when he faced ‘life and death’ like situations, yet he challenged himself to even more difficult ones, immediately after overcoming them. Mountaineering has become a hobby for many these days these days, but doing it in a different and unique way is the way of Mandip e.g. spending night at heights without oxygen, finding new ways without using local guides, carrying all his stuff himself without using porters, crossing deserts first time on camel backs, strolling through thickest forests on bare backs of elephants without using ‘hoda’ to sit in comfortably etc are some of Mandip’s ways of doing things.
