Victoria School divided its students into three houses, Mallory, Irvine and Kellas. Each student loved and still loves his own House more than his own home and Victoria as a whole.

The house influenced their corresponding "house guys" in three different ways, shaping their characters in such a way that most "house guys" were similar in character. It was like the difference between men belonging to different zodiac signs. All Victorians knew that Kellas, Irvine and Mallory were heroes of the Mount Everest expedition and many of them had frequently been beguiled by the twinkling stars as the arbiters of destiny, as the abode of departed heroes like Mallory, Irvine and Kellas from whom power flowed. This narration of events will appear haphazard but will add up to a good finish and you will surely agree that Mallory, Irvine and Kellas are still living very close to all Victorians. And why, knowingly or unknowingly, each Victorian tried to follow the high quality morals, values and ethics of these Englishmen.

Back to December. 14, 1911. Norwegian Roald Amundsen with four Norwegian companions reached the South Pole before any man, against a dramatic race with an, Englishman, Robert Falcon Scott. The winner couldn’t take it all, the loser did not stand small. In fact, he earned more priaise than the winner. Though Amundsen prepared himself technically much better than Scott, one of the vital reasons of his victory was the sledge dogs that contributed so greatly to the triumph over Scott’s party. Amundsen. began his journey with 100 dogs. At a camp he had a butcher’s shop where two thirds of the weaker dogs were shot to conserve food and meat. It was a grim business but it was all part of Amundsen’s plan to return light only with 20 dogs. On the other hand Captain Scott being a dog-lover, hated the idea of killing dogs for food when their usefulness was over. Captain Scott wrote: "One cannot calmly contemplate the murder of animals which possess such intelligence and individuality, which have frequently such endearing qualities and which very possible one had learnt to regard as friends and companions."

Captain Scott and the last of his companions avoided killing dogs for food even when their stomach burnt with hunger and he froze to death in Antartica, holding a diary containing his last message before his death. "I do not regret this journey which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardship, help one another and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past".

At 28,028 feet, Everest is the highest mountain in the World. Named by the British in honour of a 19th Century Surveyor General of India, Sir George Everest, [who pronounced his surname - "Eve Rest" - johnf] this Himalayan peak is better known locally as CHOMOLUNGMA, "Goddess Mother of the World". ‘

Looming between Tibet and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, flanked by other immense peaks, Everest appears unassailable and inaccessible. It has defied and killed gallant explorers. High on the Nepal - Tibet frontier, a maze of crevasses scars the surface of glacial ice in Everest’s Western Cwm. This valley sized cirque carved westwards from Everest by the Khumbu glacier was named by Mallory.

"For higher in the sky than imagination dared to suggest, a prodigious white flange, an excrecence from the jaw of the World the summit of Everest appeared ", George Mallory. Inaccessibility, changing depths of ice on the peaks of, high mountains and instrument errors caused by the gravitational pull of the mountains themselves, all combine to make accurate height measurements difficult. These figures are, however, widely accepted altitudes.

Everest 29,028.ft. (Nepal-Tibet).

E2 (Goodwin Austen) 28,250 ft. (India-China)

Kanchenjunga 28,215 ft. (Nepal-Sikkim)

Lhotse 27,890 ft.- (Nepal)

Mountaineers wanting to climb Everest have to book their turn up to seven years in advance.

Only two expeditions are allowed to take place simultaneously and each has to use a different route. Only three periods a year when a climb is practicable, in April and May before the monsoon, in October just after the monsoon and in December and January during winter. In climbing such high mountains the greatest danger is an avalanche, one which a very slight vibration can trigger off at any time. In spring, when the risk is greatest Swiss mountain villagers traditionally ban yodelling and forbid their children to shout or even sing.

In 1922, a British expedition to Mount Everest, led by Brigadier General Hon C. G. Bruce was organised. The team members included the legendary mountaineer George H. Leigh Mallory who pioneered a reconnaissance expedition because, as he explained, "it would be necessary in the first place to find Everest".

The climbers, dead tired after their first attempt and some of them suffering from the effects. of frost-bite, were anxious because there was unremitting snowfall. for two nights before they started.for the North Col on June 7.

A bad time, as the monsoon had arrived. The snow was so much deeper, 18 inches at places, that the climbers worried about the possibility of going further, but the weather broke fine on the morning of June 7 with a clear sky and glorious sunshine and they decided to make the move. The three climbers, Mallory, Somervell and Cramford, set out at 8 and, with 14 porters, reached a point 400 ft. below a conspicuous block of ice at 1.30 P.M. The scene was bright and nothing was audible except the climber’s laboured panting.

Suddenly Captain Mallory noticed one of the porters missing and he decided to search for the porter instead of climbing the peak. Ultimately, when the body of the porter was recovered, it was too late and the weather became wild with a heavy downpour and, according to Capt. Mallory, "the tragic calamity was naturally the end of the attempt to climb Mt. Everest".

Again, in 1924, Captain Mallory reached Victoria School, Kurseong along with his team that included Edwin Irvine, Dr. Kellas. and photographer Captain John Noel. In Victoria School, Captain Mallory organised his final assault of Everest.

They had a farewell dinner with the students and the teachers and left next morning via Old Cart Road, the road a top Mongel which leads to Ghoom. Mallory, Kellas and Irvine confidently promised to celebrate the conquest of Everest in Victoria School on their return.

[Question: Is this story true? Why would the Everest Expedition travel to Darjeeling via the cart road, when the DHR was in operation? johnf]

Mallory and Irvine at last found Everest and reached very near to the peak in quietness. This stillness, however, was suddenly disturbed and they were started by an ominous sound, "sharp, arresting, violent, like the explosion of untapped gunpowder"..

In a moment the surface of the snow broke and puckered and Mallory was carried on the whole moving surface by an avalanche he was powerless to resist. A wave of snow buried him. Mallory, Irvine and some ‘sherpas’, however, were able to extricate themselves but a group.of ‘sherpas’ were missing. They were swept into a crevasse.

Mallory and Irvine, standing on the mountain’s north-east ridge, where no man had ever stood before, instead of going strong for the top, went into the crevasse to rescue the sherpas and vanished. Just like Capt. Scott who, to save the dogs, died of starvation, Irvine and Mallory trying to save the ‘sharpas’, plunged to their doom.

There is an alarming slant today, towards greed of many kinds. Man is developing an insatiable lust for prominence and suffering from megalomania. The price is, in terms of human values, morals and ethics.

In a recent tragedy (May, 1996) on Mount Everest, three gasping Indian mountaineers were allowed to die by members of a Japanese expedition who, hell bent on scaling the peak first, overlooked the three dying Indians waving desperately for help.

Old Dr. Kellas at the camp below could sense the disaster and desperately wanted to climb up for rescue work. However, he was stopped midway as the weather became perilous. Dr. Kellas did return to Victoria, only to narrate the tragedy. The promised celebration of the conquest of Everest was converted into a condolence meeting. While the world over, connoisseurs and critics scanned through the dictionary to select adjectives for an appropriate description for the gallant heroes and the most marvellous of artists pondered hours before picking up their brushes to portray gallarit Mallory, Irvine and Kellas, and while in England some chose their epitaph "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield", Victoria School chose to pay homage by dividing her students into three houses, Mallory, Irvine and Kellas. Since then, for the last 72 years, Mallory, Irvine and Kellas live in the heart of each Victorian and will continue to live for years come.

Both man and mountain have emerged from the same original Earth and therefore have something in common between them.

Wrestling with the mountain makes one love the mountain as she lifts a climber just for one precious moment above ordinary, life and him the beauty of austerity, power, purity and camaraderie.