The Man I Met Yesterday, and Lost Today

There are some people you spend years, and they never leave a mark. Then there are those discover for barely a day, and somehow , they stay with you forever.

That was Nirmal “Nims” Purja for me.

Yesterday, Instagram decided to introduce me to him. One reel led to another, all carrying the same audio: “Giving up is not in the blood sir “ . At first, I thought it was just another motivational teen. Then i started reading about the man behind those clips.

A Nepali mountaineer. A former Gurkha and UK Special Forces soldier. The man who claimed as 14 mountains above 8,000 metres in just six months and six days in 2019- a feat the previous record holder had completed in over seven years. He didn’t just break the record; he redefined what people believed was physically impossible.

Some people collect achievements. Others expand the limits of human imagination.

Then came the videos from Broad peak , an avalanche.

I remember watching those clips last night, genuinely hoping he would somehow make it through. It sounds strange because, until yesterday, I didn’t even know his name. Yet I found myself refreshing my feed, looking for updates, convincing myself that if anyone could survive something like that, it had to be him.

Today, every other post confirmed what I didn’t want to read.

He’s gone.

I know that’s how mountains work. They don’t care about records, fame or courage . They have always been indifferent. But sometimes, logic doesn’t make grief any easier.

I have done only small treks - Kedarnath, Tunganath, and a few others. Compared to the peaks he climbed, they are barely scratches on the map. And yet I remember the exhaustion, the burning lungs, the constant negotiations with myself to keep one more step. I have never even considered myself someone who enjoys trekking.

Which is exactly why my respect for people like Nims only grew.

Imagine choosing to spend your life where the air itself refuses to cooperate. Imagine finding peace where most of us would only find fear.

We often celebrate success because it looks glamorous in photographs. But mountaineering reached something different. The summit is never guaranteed. Sometimes, courage is simply deciding to climb despite knowing the mountain owed you nothing.

Maybe that why his story has stayed with me after just twenty four hours.

It’s funny how social media works. Yesterday, the algorithm introduced me to a stranger. Today it reminded me how deeply we can admire someone we have never met.

Rest easy, Nims.

The mountains that witnessed your determination will remember your footsteps long after the records are broken again.

And perhaps that’s the kind of legacy worth chasing- not merely reaching the top, but inspiring countless others to believe that impossible is something just a deadline waiting to be written.

The world lost a mountaineer today, but the mountains gained another eternal legend. Thankyou for showing us that human limits are often just beliefs waiting to be challenged.