I work for the women in my country who
are facing crazy mountains without even
having to step on a mountain and I
thought of a campaign to go climb the
highest mountain of every continent in
the world knowing that the struggle in
the mountain was so parallel to the
struggle that women face in society I
like to get outside and climb things
mainly mountains but when I was little
the climbing scene was very different I
was about six or seven and I was living
in this part of Bangladesh called Khulna
which is very near the Sunderbans the
largest mangrove forest in the world
that you may have heard of and this is
the first time when I saw white people
when my father’s office received these
foreigners and I didn’t know how to
speak English at that time I was overly
excited the officer had a little girl
who had a very nice ring like thing
around her that she was playing with
later on I found out it was a hula hoop
many years later so I wanted to be cool
I wanted to fit in and I was you know
obviously very excited and started
playing with it with her in sign
language whatever and this auntie we
have a lot of auntie’s in our society
who dictates things for us snapped at me
and said Maya dear como de la Nicoise
Pina which is so derogatory in Bangla
that it cannot even be translated in
English but what it sums up is that a
good girl shouldn’t be shaking their
hips and I wanted to be a good girl and
I kept down the hula and I never played
with it I was also asked to stop biking
cycling because I would lose my
virginity and there are many other
taboos that I believed Bangladesh it’s a
land of extreme it is light and darkness
it’s a nation of 170 million people
approaching we don’t have many mountains
as you can see um we don’t have any
mountains we live in water but when I
was a child some amazing crazy
disasters events happen in my life I
lost my home at a very even before I was
a teenager my parents divorced and there
was a custody battle and I was homeless
as a result very early on I had to as a
child become an adult take
responsibility of basically my existence
but it was these experiences that I’m
very grateful for these mountains that I
climbed because those are the
experiences that made me pursue a better
education I went on to pursue another
career fighting for other people’s homes
whether that was for women who were
severely abused or ostracized or for
indigenous people living under crazy
regimes or refugees without a nation and
it was my one particular friendship and
connection that got me into a lot of
trouble not just in China or Tibet but
at home in Bangladesh as an activist who
was working and was very involved with
human rights work in Tibet me and my
distant relatives colleagues my tribe
basically in Bangladesh was being
hounded by intelligent forces in
Bangladesh all the time for years my
family was basically very ashamed of me
but it was during this period when I
found the mountains as a refuge to heal
myself but also it was during this time
that I really understood the definition
of what home means and I asked myself
what is it about Bangladesh that really
inspires me that I feel proud of and it
was the women who are in the forefront
of every movement whether it was our
liberation movement our independence
movement or other movements women were
what define Bangladesh so as a
Bangladesh approached 40 years in 2011
there were all kinds of celebration
being planned and I thought of a
campaign to go climb the highest
mountain of every continent in the world
because I thought symbolically it was
taking Bangladesh to all corners of the
globe and also personally just knowing
that the struggle in the mountain was so
parallel to the struggle that women face
in society so the Seven Summits was
first postulated by Canadian
Mountaineer Patrick Morel in the early
80s and after he finished in 1996 almost
hundreds of people have accomplished it
but out of that only 32 to 35 were women
mostly Westerners when I first thought
of this I obviously didn’t have the
monetary funds
I ended up convincing the board of two
different banks to give me banknotes
totally based on trust this magical
thing started happening all this
guardian angels and you know just people
who wanted to help out in their small
ways started reaching out a rich woman
who recently got out of a relationship
and we get a lot money launches a
divorce some that you get from your
husband she gave that all to me and said
please go free my soul on the summit I
was like wow and I was so inspired and
then I got an email from my former
colleague in the Tibetan movement Nima
Dorji says oh by the way Patrick Moore
who lives just by me do you want to hook
up with him
so I write to him and Patrick and Bible
his wife invites me to Canada to train
with them he said this really hardcore
regime for me and then he connected me
to different people in the seven
continents which made things easier but
mind you Bangladesh doesn’t have a
diplomatic relationship with almost
majority of these places so going to a
lot of these places was just huge
logistical barriers but I ended up
finishing five of the seven summits in
the next one and a half years including
Chomolungma or Mount Everest I was so
inspired
it was personally very healing for me it
was brutally lonely journey to say the
least but in the last four years I’ve
gone through every extreme situation
from eating my own and poisoning myself
because my camp got daughter destroyed
and my toilet got mixed with my food too
getting health captive in Papua and held
for ransom to losing my best friends I
lost four of my best friend the last
years waking up to earthquakes and
having everything that you knew being
lost to getting frostbites and ending
out with medical bills in a country like
the states without a medical insurance
and going through intense physical pain
but this whole journey gave me a vantage
point to see the Earth from a
perspective that one out of 170 million
in my country has been able to see so
I’m very grateful and I learned a lot I
got to reflect a lot on the human
experience nothing will ever be the same
for me
I took as you can see a bunch of selfies
which is a pure indicator how lonely you
are while this is this is the time when
I was stuck in the infamous Hillary step
in a traffic jam and I thought you know
traffic jams only existed in Bangladesh
but whenever I would hit rock bottom I
would remind myself of the women at home
and the struggles that they would go
through and that would hug me with the
newfound energy and I finally managed in
2015 to accomplish a feat which by
default made me the first Bangladeshi
that was not my goal
remember that hula I took this hula hoop
to the Seven Summits I have a waist now
I can shake it but it was not about that
it was about reclaiming back what was
taken away from me as a girl child and I
want to make that possible for every
other girl that exists in my country and
in my region the other transformation
that happened is when I came down
Everest everyone who detested me came
back in my life
family members politicians who sent
intelligence and that’s exactly when I
realized wow that climbing mountains
solve so many problems in this society
had I known that I would be you know
pursuing this probably a year many moons
ago and I got all kinds of company
offers banks wanted to pay off the debt
by themselves I got a lot of marriage
proposals marriage proposals at home
come with a bio-data how you would apply
in a job so I made my own bio-data and
because it comes with a mug shot of the
groom and how much they earn and what
their father does in
mother does so mine looks like this and
every time this works to sum it up there
are many other girls who need to climb
their own mountains and what I’m going
now is using the momentum of the
campaign to gain support towards my
foundation yousell it’s an alternate
education center which combines the
latest scientific finding about mind
training and mindful combines it with
mindfulness and training in nature
through various activities usul is a
conscious movement to bring balance to
mother nature by empowering women to
harness their inner luminosity thank you
so much
you
are facing crazy mountains without even
having to step on a mountain and I
thought of a campaign to go climb the
highest mountain of every continent in
the world knowing that the struggle in
the mountain was so parallel to the
struggle that women face in society I
like to get outside and climb things
mainly mountains but when I was little
the climbing scene was very different I
was about six or seven and I was living
in this part of Bangladesh called Khulna
which is very near the Sunderbans the
largest mangrove forest in the world
that you may have heard of and this is
the first time when I saw white people
when my father’s office received these
foreigners and I didn’t know how to
speak English at that time I was overly
excited the officer had a little girl
who had a very nice ring like thing
around her that she was playing with
later on I found out it was a hula hoop
many years later so I wanted to be cool
I wanted to fit in and I was you know
obviously very excited and started
playing with it with her in sign
language whatever and this auntie we
have a lot of auntie’s in our society
who dictates things for us snapped at me
and said Maya dear como de la Nicoise
Pina which is so derogatory in Bangla
that it cannot even be translated in
English but what it sums up is that a
good girl shouldn’t be shaking their
hips and I wanted to be a good girl and
I kept down the hula and I never played
with it I was also asked to stop biking
cycling because I would lose my
virginity and there are many other
taboos that I believed Bangladesh it’s a
land of extreme it is light and darkness
it’s a nation of 170 million people
approaching we don’t have many mountains
as you can see um we don’t have any
mountains we live in water but when I
was a child some amazing crazy
disasters events happen in my life I
lost my home at a very even before I was
a teenager my parents divorced and there
was a custody battle and I was homeless
as a result very early on I had to as a
child become an adult take
responsibility of basically my existence
but it was these experiences that I’m
very grateful for these mountains that I
climbed because those are the
experiences that made me pursue a better
education I went on to pursue another
career fighting for other people’s homes
whether that was for women who were
severely abused or ostracized or for
indigenous people living under crazy
regimes or refugees without a nation and
it was my one particular friendship and
connection that got me into a lot of
trouble not just in China or Tibet but
at home in Bangladesh as an activist who
was working and was very involved with
human rights work in Tibet me and my
distant relatives colleagues my tribe
basically in Bangladesh was being
hounded by intelligent forces in
Bangladesh all the time for years my
family was basically very ashamed of me
but it was during this period when I
found the mountains as a refuge to heal
myself but also it was during this time
that I really understood the definition
of what home means and I asked myself
what is it about Bangladesh that really
inspires me that I feel proud of and it
was the women who are in the forefront
of every movement whether it was our
liberation movement our independence
movement or other movements women were
what define Bangladesh so as a
Bangladesh approached 40 years in 2011
there were all kinds of celebration
being planned and I thought of a
campaign to go climb the highest
mountain of every continent in the world
because I thought symbolically it was
taking Bangladesh to all corners of the
globe and also personally just knowing
that the struggle in the mountain was so
parallel to the struggle that women face
in society so the Seven Summits was
first postulated by Canadian
Mountaineer Patrick Morel in the early
80s and after he finished in 1996 almost
hundreds of people have accomplished it
but out of that only 32 to 35 were women
mostly Westerners when I first thought
of this I obviously didn’t have the
monetary funds
I ended up convincing the board of two
different banks to give me banknotes
totally based on trust this magical
thing started happening all this
guardian angels and you know just people
who wanted to help out in their small
ways started reaching out a rich woman
who recently got out of a relationship
and we get a lot money launches a
divorce some that you get from your
husband she gave that all to me and said
please go free my soul on the summit I
was like wow and I was so inspired and
then I got an email from my former
colleague in the Tibetan movement Nima
Dorji says oh by the way Patrick Moore
who lives just by me do you want to hook
up with him
so I write to him and Patrick and Bible
his wife invites me to Canada to train
with them he said this really hardcore
regime for me and then he connected me
to different people in the seven
continents which made things easier but
mind you Bangladesh doesn’t have a
diplomatic relationship with almost
majority of these places so going to a
lot of these places was just huge
logistical barriers but I ended up
finishing five of the seven summits in
the next one and a half years including
Chomolungma or Mount Everest I was so
inspired
it was personally very healing for me it
was brutally lonely journey to say the
least but in the last four years I’ve
gone through every extreme situation
from eating my own and poisoning myself
because my camp got daughter destroyed
and my toilet got mixed with my food too
getting health captive in Papua and held
for ransom to losing my best friends I
lost four of my best friend the last
years waking up to earthquakes and
having everything that you knew being
lost to getting frostbites and ending
out with medical bills in a country like
the states without a medical insurance
and going through intense physical pain
but this whole journey gave me a vantage
point to see the Earth from a
perspective that one out of 170 million
in my country has been able to see so
I’m very grateful and I learned a lot I
got to reflect a lot on the human
experience nothing will ever be the same
for me
I took as you can see a bunch of selfies
which is a pure indicator how lonely you
are while this is this is the time when
I was stuck in the infamous Hillary step
in a traffic jam and I thought you know
traffic jams only existed in Bangladesh
but whenever I would hit rock bottom I
would remind myself of the women at home
and the struggles that they would go
through and that would hug me with the
newfound energy and I finally managed in
2015 to accomplish a feat which by
default made me the first Bangladeshi
that was not my goal
remember that hula I took this hula hoop
to the Seven Summits I have a waist now
I can shake it but it was not about that
it was about reclaiming back what was
taken away from me as a girl child and I
want to make that possible for every
other girl that exists in my country and
in my region the other transformation
that happened is when I came down
Everest everyone who detested me came
back in my life
family members politicians who sent
intelligence and that’s exactly when I
realized wow that climbing mountains
solve so many problems in this society
had I known that I would be you know
pursuing this probably a year many moons
ago and I got all kinds of company
offers banks wanted to pay off the debt
by themselves I got a lot of marriage
proposals marriage proposals at home
come with a bio-data how you would apply
in a job so I made my own bio-data and
because it comes with a mug shot of the
groom and how much they earn and what
their father does in
mother does so mine looks like this and
every time this works to sum it up there
are many other girls who need to climb
their own mountains and what I’m going
now is using the momentum of the
campaign to gain support towards my
foundation yousell it’s an alternate
education center which combines the
latest scientific finding about mind
training and mindful combines it with
mindfulness and training in nature
through various activities usul is a
conscious movement to bring balance to
mother nature by empowering women to
harness their inner luminosity thank you
so much
you
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