‘The man who set up this institution was an Englishman. A few miles from here is the Survey of India. Its most famous Surveyor General was also an Englishman, a military man by the name of Colonel Sir George Everest. He lives on now with the mountain that bears his name.’ Batra leaned forward. ‘Yet Sir George never set foot on Everest, nor did he have anything to do with determining that it was the world’s highest peak. That calculation was carried out by an Indian named Radhanath Sikdar. History, alas, named no mountains after him . . . I think it’s high time we stopped worrying about
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