Breaking Rocks and Barriers: Memoirs of a Geologist and Mountaineer

Sudipta Sengupta describes her adventures as a geologist working in remote locations, from the Jaduguda mines of Bihar to glaciers in Norway and the Antarctic landscape. She also recalls major mountaineering expeditions, including the first women's expedition to Ronti Peak and an all-women expedition to an unexplored Himalayan peak.

Sudipta Sengupta is a geologist, mountaineer and former professor at Jadavpur University. She earned her PhD in geology from Jadavpur University and conducted postdoctoral research at Imperial College London and the Institute of Geology in Uppsala. She was one of the two women who participated in the Indian Antarctic Expedition of 1983–84 and has received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology and several other honours.

The memoir follows Sengupta's remarkable journey through geology and mountaineering. She recounts fieldwork in difficult and remote environments, encounters with wildlife and extreme weather, expeditions across the Himalayas and her experiences in Antarctica. Alongside adventure, she reflects on the people who influenced her career and what it meant to pursue science and exploration as a woman in an era when such careers were far less common.