Mountaineer Record holder Speaker Entrepreneur

About Krushna Patil

Krushnaa is an artist and a speaker who’s work today is infused by over 2 decades of wins, losses, failures against vicious odds like scaling Mt. Everest and then 5 more of the Seven peaks, running a restaurant in the most militarised zone in the world through warlike lockdowns that almost didn’t notice covid, serendipity and betrayal, being loved in her twenties and having worked through an abusive childhood. She dreams of telling stories and making art that might just change the world for the better. Forever.

Like almost every other kid in the world, Krushnaa had impossible dreams. Unlike almost every kid in the world, she made her dreams come true. Not the exact same ones she dreamt as a 5 year old, but impossible ones nonetheless. By nineteen, she scaled 6 of the seven summits of the world in under one year.

Krushnaa takes things head-on and heart-on. Fully, completely. Be it staring down kilometers of unforgiving icy mountainside. And imminent death. Or deconstructing CEOs at the top of their game. Helping leaders reconstruct into more than before. Or moving to Kashmir to co-found and run a beautiful cafe. Doing is so much more important than talking. Or the heartbreak and suffering of difficult relationships. Leaving home at 17 to go live by herself in another city. Or parlaying with the inner demons that plague us all. Learning to share a chai-sutta with them. Or seeing her love for climbing perish, impaled by the cold knives of vicious competition. Clawing back out from the black depths that followed. Or questions of one’s own identity and multifarious relationships with the world as an individual, a woman, a friend, a mentor, a businessperson, a daughter, a lover, a teammate, a speaker, a performer, an artist, a dog momma. Changing her name, changing her physicality, changing her mind. Finding her art, losing her art, struggling to rediscover her art. Many scars, many stitches, many mended parts. But also so much love, joy, and the beautiful chaos of wanting to live. Truly live.

These days she dreams of making art that lives and loves and breathes and collides with the world. Because if it does not change things, if it does not change someone else, if it does not change her, is it even art?

Certainly, the awards, accolades, and recognition came. Maybe more will come. Hard won, gratefully accepted, displayed with humility.

But at the end of it all, the little things matter. A friend likes to call her tigermomma. She likes that. Rawr.