Pushpa Prakash was 65 when she laced up her trekking shoes for the very first time.

It wasn’t a long or famous trail — just a short one she took with her daughter. But something shifted that day. The air was crisp, her pace steady, and for the first time in years, she felt a kind of freedom she hadn’t known she was missing.

“I am someone who would never let any opportunity slip from my hand,” the Bengaluru resident says.

That instinct to embrace the unknown, to say yes, shaped what came next.

In the three years since, Pushpa — now 68 — has gone on 49 treks across India, including seven in the Himalayas. She’s also skydived in New Zealand, scuba-dived at the Great Barrier Reef, taken the highest bungee jump in South Africa, and swung over gorges in Zimbabwe and Zambia.

What makes it all the more inspiring is that Pushpa wasn’t always this adventurous. It was only in her 50s that she began carving out this life — slowly, steadily, choosing one trek, one challenge, one leap at a time.

‘I wanted to live life fully’

Pushpa’s urge to explore began in her early 50s. “When I look back at my life, since childhood, I never gave up on anything despite a lot of discouragement. In every tough situation, I learnt something or the other. That’s why today I have

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