She is a great inspiration for marginalised children. No mountain is too high for 16-year-old Lambada girl, Malavath Poorna, who recently scaled both Mt Everest and Mt Kilimanjaro. Her parents, Malavath Devidas and Lakshmi are agricultural labourers while Poorna is an Intermediate first year student in state-run Telangana State Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) in Nizamabad.
A biopic on the young mountaineer, directed by Rahul Bose, will be released next month in Hindi and Telugu. Malavath Poorna says that she felt great while reaching Mt Kilimanjaro along with her team of 21 girls. “Mental strength is the only mantra to achieve anything in life,” she says. Poorna adds, “It was risky trekking in the forest and reaching 19,341 feet, but we happily achieved it. I was surprised to see black and white, even blue monkeys in South Africa, while reaching Mt Kilimanjaro.”
Poorna attributes her success to the encouragement of her coach, B. Sekhar Babu, her teachers and parents. Her fitness routine included rigorous training at Darjeeling, regular jogs, yoga and meditation. “Meditation gave me the mental strength to achieve my target,” she says.
Ask what her future aspirations are and the youngest mountaineer says that she aims to become an IPS officer like TSWREIS secretary, Dr R.S. Praveen Kumar.
