Reach for the Top

Chapter Summary

“Reach for the Top” concerns the retelling of biographies of two most renowned and prominent women in today's world of discrimination against women. The text is about two women named Santosh Yadav and Maria Sharapova and their passion for their achievements. It is seen that these two personalities have struggled in their pathways to achieve their dreams. The common aspect in both their lives regards the hardships they have endured by defying all odds. Through their firm decisions and determination, both these two personalities have achieved their dreams. In order to achieve this, it is noticed that they had sacrificed many things in their lives, and trained themselves very well. However, this text serves as an aspiration for all in pursuing their respective dreams.

About Santosh –Schooling and Education

Why was the ‘holy man’ who gave Santosh’s mother his blessings surprised?

At the time of blessing, Santosh’s mother, the holy man got surprised as her grandmother seems to ask for blessings for a daughter and not for a son, which was quite unusual. In those days, civilians used to seek blessings for a boy and not a girl.

Give an example to show that even as a young girl Santosh was not ready to accept anything unreasonable.

In the text, Reach the Top, there are varied examples that show, that little girl Santosh, is not ready for things that did not seem reasonable to her. One example is that she used to wear shorts rather than the traditional dresses that were meant for the girls belonging to her society.

Why was Santosh sent to the local school?

In order to maintain the custom of the family respective to Santosh, she was sent to the local school. In her society, it is a serious notion to conform to the rules and customs that are maintained within the family.

About Santosh’s Schooling and Education

In order to get a better education, Santosh left for Delhi at the age of sixteen and she informed her parents that she would join somewhere and work as a part-timer. The money she would earn will thereby help her to pay the school fees. This made her, parents think about her passion and so they got ready for providing her with the school fees. This incident showed light on her notion of firm determination, which states that she does things that seemed right to her in order to achieve her dreams.

How did Santosh begin to climb mountains?

At Jaipur, Santosh joined the college named Maharani and she resided in the hostel named Kasturba. The location of this place is near to the Aravalli hills. On a daily basis, she used to see villagers climbing and getting disappeared after a while. This made her feel curious and this leads her to join the group of mountaineers one day and contributed to the journey to climbing mountains.

Santosh’s Everest expedition

During the expedition to Mount Everest, Santosh tried to save the life of one of her friends within the team. However, that incident was quite unsuccessful that lead her to increase her concern. This resulted in contributing to later incidents, where Santosh was successful in saving the lives of her fellow mates namely, Mohan Singh, sharing with him the oxygen cylinder.

Several reasons are there that lead to recording Santosh’s achievements for both times as she scaled Mt Everest. During the first time other of her expedition, she was recorded as being the youngest woman to have scaled Everest . On her second time, she was recorded as the first woman to have climbed Mt Everest two times.

About Maria Sharapova

Why was Maria sent to the United States?

Maria Sharapova was sent to the United States in order to provide her with training for tennis. This training will help her to gain become better and thereby will support her to fulfil her dreams. However, her mother was unable to travel as there occurred issues with restrictions within the visa.

Why Mari’s mother didn’t go with her?

In the text, Reach the Top, from the biographies of Maria Sharapova, it is noted that her mother was unable to travel with her as there occurred issues associated with the restrictions for visa. However, Maria travelled to the US on her own, for the purpose of training tennis.

Maria’s Motivation

In the biographies of Maria Sharapova, it is known that she had made an innumerable number of struggles in order to achieve her dreams. However, at times it is also seen that she used to get depressed or sad with the failures or hindrances in her life. Although she had to struggle she kept her mind quite set on her goals and therefore, she always kept herself motivated. The prime aspect that used to motivate her was her spirit of competitiveness that was imbibed within her. This resulted in leading her to keep going all through the journey to achieve her dreams. When she decides on something or sets her eye on something, she used to work very hard to achieve it. She asserts that it is her job to excel instead of her severe demands and hardships. This is how, Maria, struggles with her life to achieve her dreams and proved her successful.

FAQs

Q1. What are Maria’s hobbies? What does she like?

Ans. According to the text named, Reach the Top, Maria Sharapova's hobbies include, singing, dancing as well as singing. She also likes, reading novels by the author Conan Doyle. She is quite fond of gowns, pancakes and orange drinks.

Q2. What is the moral that is perceived in the story, Reach the Top?

Ans. The text, Reach the Top encompasses the theme that the notion of success will arrive to the ones who are having dared to challenge their ways and work on their dreams. In this text, it is noticed that the notions of education and training leads Santosh to reach success in the world of rampant discrimination against women.

Q3. What kind of a girl do you think Santosh was?

Ans. In the story, Reach the Top, it has seemed from her childhood that, Santosh was a determined girl. In simpler terms, she was quite firm in her decisions. She belonged to an area which was not developed, in that region, women were not given proper education and they were only allowed to wear traditional dresses. However, she refused to abide by the primitive rites and rituals of her society.