Dusting his hands with a fistful of chalk, tightening the harness round his waist, Sandeep Kumar Maity gives himself a quick pep talk. The 20-year-old is gearing up to scale Ganesh, a boulder at Badami, Karnataka.

He has been attempting the daunting climb for a couple of days along with three other climbers. While two, Paige Claassen and Tuhin Satarkar, have managed to get to the top Maity hasn’t quite cracked it yet. But the 20-year-old is determined to overcome the challenge, thoroughly inspired by Frenchman Gérôme Pouvreau who successfully scaled the wall in 2011.