Tashi and Nungshi are from the Indian state of Haryana. They were born in the Anwali Sonipat district of Haryana to an Indian Army officer, Col. Virendra Singh Malik, and his wife Anjou Thapa. After Col Malik retired from the Indian army, his family relocated to Dehradun.
The Malik sisters trained at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in 2010.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- First twin sisters to Scaled mt. Everest at the age of 21. They were joined at the summit by Samina Baig and they placed the flags of India and Pakistan together to symbolize peace.
- In August 2013-The twins participated in ‘Climbathon 2013’ where they scaled a virgin peak at 21000 ft funded by Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
- On 16 December 2014, after climbing Mount Vinson in Antarctica, they became the world’s first twins and siblings to scale the ‘Seven Summits’ together (climbing the highest peak on each of the seven continents and traveling on foot to the North and South Poles).
- On 15 July 2015,they completed the Explorers Grand Slam.They are the first Indian and South Asians to complete the Explorers Grand Slam.
- In Dec 2015, the twins scaled Aoraki (Mt Cook) New Zealand’s tallest peak becoming the first female twins to do so.
- In September 2019, Nungshi and Tashi led Indian ‘Khukuri Warriors’ in the World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji pitched 66 teams of adventure athletes from 30 nations against forces of nature and against each other traversing 671 km of rugged Fijian landscape, ocean, rivers, lakes, and jungles using dozen adventure activities. They became the first and only South Asians to participate in this global adventure race.
Awards
- Awarded first New Zealand-India Sports Scholarship to study Graduation in Sport & Exercise at SIT, Invercargill, NZ.
- Attended US Dept of State’s ‘Global Sports Mentoring Program’ for emerging women leaders in sports in Sep-Oct 2015.
- Conferred India’s highest adventure honor ‘Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award’ 2015 by the President of India on 29 August 2016.
- In 2016 they were awarded the Leif Erikson Young Explorers Award in Iceland by president Guðni Th. Jóhannesson.
- They were awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2020.
