New Delhi: Anurag Maloo is back on his feet after almost a year of slow and patient recovery. Trapped in the ice of Mt. Annapurna in Nepal, the 10th-highest peak in the world, in April 2023, he now shares what the future looks like for him. And it’s likely to be an expedition up the mountain again.
“My instinct tells me I will,” said Maloo. But it will be a while before he attempts the feat again. He knows that. “I just have to wait and have enough patience for that day when I can, when the mountain can allow me to climb. I would love to,” said Maloo at a lecture titled ‘Mountain Dialogues- Surviving Annapurna’ and held at New Delhi’s India International Centre earlier this month.
“If my body allows me, if my family allows me and if Mt. Annapurna allows me,” said Maloo.
That he survived was a miracle. And now, he’s on the road sharing his experience. It’s a story of rebirth, faith, and resilience.
“We have never heard him say, ‘if my family allows me’,” said his brother Ashish Maloo, who accompanied his brother for his lecture.
For now, Maloo is working on a book on his rescue. “It was a series of miracles that unfolded that day,” said Maloo. He’s painstakingly putting together the pieces of what happened when he lay trapped in the crevasse.
“It will take time to put the whole story together. I don’t know many parts of the story and I am having conversations with people and discovering new parts myself,” said Maloo, adding that the book will be out in early 2026.
As the snow thawed
In April last year, a seven-member team of five sherpas and two mountaineers had pulled Maloo’s unconscious body out of a deep crevasse. They had assumed he was dead.
But Maloo survived — and spent nearly six months at AIIMS, New Delhi.
“My weight came down to 43 kg from 65 kg,” he said. “Just bones.”
He underwent nine surgeries; 50 per cent of his skin was regrafted and he was in a coma for 12 days. His doctors feared that he would remain in a vegetative state.
“But surprisingly, my brain is still intact,” said Maloo, eliciting chuckles from the otherwise sombre listeners.
Maloo celebrated his “rebirth-day” on 13 June 2023. He marks the day came out of his coma as the beginning of a second chance at life.
“I don’t remember the time I learnt to walk as a kid. But now I remember when I took my first step, when I climbed my first stairs, when I ate food for the first time from my hands, when I wrote for the first time in the hospital,” said Maloo.
This relearning and rediscovering is a second chance. The smallest steps forward were the biggest wins. That it was tough is an understatement, but for Maloo, it was about post-traumatic growth and gratitude.
“I don’t feel any trauma or negative energy. In fact, I feel completely on the other extreme—only positive, only hopeful.”
After he was discharged from AIIMS Delhi, Maloo has been on the move, touring Delhi and Kathmandu, holding talks and events to meet and thank his numerous supporters and well-wishers who were involved in his rescue and recovery.
“I’ll be forever grateful to the mountain for protecting me, nourishing me, for taking care of me like a baby inside the crevasse,” he said.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)