David Mordecai (1909-1973) was an Indian photographer in Calcutta whose subjects included the Nehrus, Tenzing Norgay, Sir Edmund Hillary, and King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal.
David Mordecai (1909-1973) was an Indian photographer in Calcutta whose subjects included the Nehrus, Tenzing Norgay, Sir Edmund Hillary, and King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal.
Mordecai was born in Calcutta, India, in 1909, the son of Isaac and Esther Mordecai. His family were part of the Bagdadi Jewish community of Calcutta. [1]
Mordecai married Trixie David in 1935 and they had three daughters, Esthére, Anita, and Cheryl; [1] six grandchildren: Rian, Lee, Steven, Amiel, Rachael and Daniel and four great-grandchildren: Samuel, Amir, Shamira and Poppy.
Originally destined for the family business of Daw Sen & Company, makers of condiments, Mordecai eventually broke out to start his own photography business after showing aptitude for the subject as a child when his mother gave him a Kodak box camera as a gift. [1]
Mordecai developed a large business in producing society portraits, souvenirs for tourists, documentary and topographical works, and official photographs for businesses, including for Indian railways. His portraits included the Nehrus, Tenzing Norgay, Sir Edmund Hillary, and King Mahendra and Queen Ratna of Nepal. [1] His studio at one time had over 100 employees. His output covered the transitional period of the last days of the British Raj and the first days of independent India. [2]
Mordecai died in 1973 after suffering ill health in his later years. [1]
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt. From 1985 to 1988 he served as New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and concurrently as Ambassador to Nepal.
Tenzing Norgay, born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which he accomplished with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953. Time named Norgay one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Raymond Lambert was a Swiss mountaineer who together with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached an altitude of 8611 metres of Mount Everest, as part of a Swiss Expedition in May 1952. At the time it was the highest point that a climber had ever reached. There was a second Swiss expedition in autumn 1952, but a party including Lambert and Tenzing was forced to turn back at a slightly lower point. The following year Tenzing returned with Edmund Hillary to reach the summit on 29 May 1953.
The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute was established in Darjeeling, India on 4 November 1954 to encourage mountaineering as an organized sport in India. The first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary sparked a keen interest in establishing mountaineering as a well-respected endeavour for people in the region. With the impetus provided by the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, HMI was established in Darjeeling. Narendra Dhar Jayal, the pioneer of Indian Mountaineering, was the founding principal of the institute. Tenzing Norgay was the first director of field training for HMI. The buildings for the Institute were designed by the architect Joseph Allen Stein, then teaching at the Bengal Engineering College near Calcutta. It was the first building in a career in India that lasted half a century.
Jamling Tenzing Norgay is an Indian-Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer.
The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
Bachendri Pal is an Indian mountaineer, who in 1984 became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. She was awarded the third highest civilian award Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 2019.
The Hillary Step was a nearly vertical rock face with a height of around 12 metres (40 ft) located near the summit of Mount Everest, about 8,790 metres (28,839 ft) above sea level. Located on the southeast ridge, halfway between the "South Summit" and the true summit, the Hillary Step was the most technically difficult part of the typical Nepal-side Everest climb and the last real challenge before reaching the top of the mountain. The rock face was destroyed by an earthquake that struck the region in 2015.
Captain Mohan Singh Kohli is an internationally renowned Indian mountaineer. An officer in the Indian Navy who joined the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, he led the 1965 Indian expedition which put nine men on the summit of Everest, a world record which lasted for 17 years.
Peter Edmund Hillary is a New Zealand mountaineer, philanthropist and writer. He is the son of adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary, who, along with mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, completed the first successful ascent of Mount Everest. When Peter Hillary summited Everest in 1990, he and his father were the first father/son duo to achieve the feat. Hillary has achieved two summits of Everest, an 84-day trek across Antarctica to the South Pole, and an expedition guiding astronaut Neil Armstrong to land a small aircraft at the North Pole. He has climbed many of the world's major peaks, and on 19 June 2008, completed the Seven Summits, reaching the top of the highest mountains on all seven continents, when he summited Denali in Alaska.
Lopsang Tshering Bhutia was a Nepali Indian Sherpa mountaineer who died on Mount Everest and the nephew of Tenzing Norgay. His death made international headlines because he died on the 40th anniversary expedition of his uncle's summiting. His uncle, Tenzing Norgay, had died at home of natural causes in 1986 at the age of 72. Tenzing Norgay was the first person to summit Mount Everest in 1953 along with Sir Edmund Hillary.
Ashoke Kumar Sen was an Indian barrister, a former Cabinet minister of India, and an Indian parliamentarian.
Wallace George Lowe, known as George Lowe, was a New Zealand-born mountaineer, explorer, film director and educator. He was the last surviving member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition, during which his friend Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first known people to summit the world's highest peak. Sir Edmund was his fellow Briton and served as his mentor.
The 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit on 29 May 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee. News of the expedition's success reached London in time to be released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, on the 2nd of June that year.
The history of the Jews in Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in India, began in the late eighteenth century when adventurous Baghdadi Jewish merchants originally from Aleppo and Baghdad chose to establish themselves permanently in the emerging capital of the British Raj. The community they founded became the hub of the Judeo-Arabic-speaking Baghdadi Jewish trading diaspora in Asia.
Love Raj Singh Dharmshaktu is an Indian mountaineer who has climbed Mount Everest seven times.
Mamta Sodha is an Indian sportsperson, known for her successful 2010 attempt to scale Mount Everest. She was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on her the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for her services to the field of mountaineering sport.
The 1960–61 Silver Hut expedition or formally the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition was initiated by Edmund Hillary and Griffith Pugh with John Dienhart of World Books in America. The expedition lasted from September 1960 to June 1961.
The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, formerly known as the National Adventure Awards is the highest adventure sports honour of the Republic of India. The award is named after Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two individuals to reach the summit of Mount Everest along with Edmund Hillary in 1953. It is awarded annually by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The recipients are honoured for their "outstanding achievement in the field of adventure activities on land, sea and air" over the last three years. The lifetime achievement is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated excellence and have devoted themselves in the promotion of adventure sports. As of 2020, the award comprises "a bronze statuette of Tenzing Norgay along with a cash prize of ₹5 lakh (US$6,600)."
