News and pics: Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mumbai (SP)
Mumbai, Jun 22: Arjun Vajpai, a grade 12 student of Ryan International School, Noida and the youngest Indian and the second youngest in the world, to scale Mount Everest peak, visited Ryan International School, Chembur here recently.
Later, he participated in the felicitation ceremony organized at the Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana.
The chairman of Ryan International and Ryan Global Schools, Dr Augustine Pinto, welcomed their proud Ryanite, Arjun, and recognized his efforts amidst an audience of staff and students. Dr Augustine Pinto felt that every child in the Ryan group is ‘a king or queen in the making’ and expressed his happiness to have Arjun, a Ryanite, as the king of Mt Everest. He emphasized that schools and teachers play very vital roles in recognizing the latent strengths within a child and extending continuous encouragement to them to explore their talents. He said that this is embedded in the school system to ensure the success of its students.
Arjun Vajpai enjoyed interacting with the students and thanked the management, principal and teachers of Ryan School for helping him wholeheartedly to enable him to live his dream of scaling Mt Everest. He acknowledged special favours and encouragement bestowed upon him by the chairman, Dr Augustine Pinto, and managing director, Grace Pinto.
He answered at length various questions posed to him by the students such as, “what are the five things you would like to carry with you during mountaineering expeditions”, “what are your future plans”, “has your sudden rise to fame affected your studies”, etc.
Arjun Vajpai’s family members, father, Capt Vajpai, mother, Priya Vajpai, and sister, Gauri Vajpai, were also felicitated for supporting the dreams of young Arjun. The secretary of Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana, who felt honored by Arjun’s visit, also felicitated Arjun Vajpai and Dr Augustine Pinto. The Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana has a huge celebrity quotient, which includes Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Sunny Deol, Dharmendra, Anil Kapoor, Hema Malini and many others.
The immediate plan before Arjun is to resume his grade 12 studies at Ryan International School, Noida, from June 23, 2010 onwards. He is sure that this is a mountain that is easier to scale, with added confidence, with the guidance of his school and teachers.
It was a highly inspirational session for the students at Ryan International School, who listened to the words of Arjun with great interest, as he described about various challenges that he faced during the feat, and the way he overcame them with strong dedication and also by reposing trust in the Lord and His grace.