By 10 on a slightly warm Kolkata morning, the city was already in full flow.
Tea stalls buzzed with regulars, buses groaned through traffic, and amid that familiar bustle, Ram Gopal Kothari had carved out some time to speak with The Better India. At 44, he runs Epic Assurance Services LLP, a business he built from scratch, but even today, his life feels ruled more by discipline than comfort.
When he answered the phone, there was no rush in his voice. Just a calm that comes from having lived through far more uncertainty than most people ever see.
Kothari recently became the first Indian to complete a marathon at the Geographic North Pole, running 42.2 kilometres across floating ice at 90 degrees North. But when our conversation began, he was not talking about the marathon. He was talking about persistence. “I do not believe in giving up on anything I do. The moment you give up, everything ends there. But if you take one more step, something always changes,” he says.
It did not sound like a line prepared for an interview. It sounded like something shaped over years, in moments when things were falling apart, and there was no audience, no reassurance, only the next step left to take.
Because long before he stood on floating ice at the Geographic North Pole, he had already lived through years when even basic stability disappeared more than once. Rebuilding from zero was never a one-time effort. It became something he had to do, again and again, in different phases of his life.
Burrabazar mornings, where nothing felt unusual at the time
Born in 1981, he grew up in Burrabazar, Kolkata, in a modest home with an asbestos roof and shared facilities. It was a densely packed neighbourhood where daily life spilled into the streets, where children played outside because there was no space inside, and where routines were decided more by circumstance than planning.
He does not recall it as a difficult childhood in the way outsiders might imagine it. For him, it was simply the world he knew.
After visiting Antarctica, he began thinking about reaching the North Pole.
“We never thought we were struggling; it was just normal life for us, and everyone around us lived the same way, so nothing ever felt unusual,” he tells The Better India.
His father worked in a small clothing shop, earning enough to keep the household going, while his mother ensured that education was never compromised. At the centre of it all was his grandmother.
“My grandmother was the emotional anchor of our family. She always taught us to be kind, to stay patient, and to believe in something bigger than whatever hardship we were facing at that moment,” he says.
Those lessons found their way into everyday routines. He would wake up at 3 am to study before school, not because anyone celebrated the habit, but because it was simply what was expected. While the rest of the city was still asleep, he sat with his books, revising lessons before the day began.
Among the children he grew up with, he was eventually the only one to complete graduation.
At the time, it did not feel like a defining moment. It became meaningful only years later, when he looked back and realised how many small, ordinary decisions had led him there.
A college experience that could have gone either way
He completed his graduation from Bhawanipur Education Society College in Kolkata, where he found himself among students from very different financial backgrounds. The transition was manageable at first, but after his first year, the college increased its fees, placing unexpected pressure on his family.
“My mother suggested I should consider shifting to another college,” he says. “It was becoming difficult for us at that point.”
But leaving did not feel like the only option.
Instead, he kept returning to the college administration, explaining his situation as honestly as he could. There was no elaborate plan, only the hope that someone would listen.
“I just kept telling them I cannot manage this fee. That was all I could say,” he explains.
It took several conversations over a few weeks, but the college eventually reduced his fees to an amount his family could manage, allowing him to continue his education.
Looking back, it was not a dramatic turning point. There was no celebration or grand moment of relief. Yet it became one of the earliest reminders that persistence, even in the smallest of battles, could quietly change the course of his life.
The first job and learning how the world actually works
Soon after completing his graduation in 2002, he stepped into his first job in the home loan sector, a world that immediately felt different from anything he had known before. The role demanded higher expectations, required stringent routines, and tied outcomes directly to performance. His early assignments involved distributing pamphlets at airports and metro stations, a task that tested not just patience but also comfort levels.
“I remember standing in those places thinking someone I knew might walk past,” he says. “It felt uncomfortable in the beginning, not because of the work itself, but because of perception.”
However, he stayed. Till March 2008, he worked consistently, learning the basics of sales, client interaction, and the discipline required to survive in a target-driven environment. Over time, he became more stable in his role. He got married and became a father, and life briefly took on a predictable shape that felt like it might continue.
On 13 July 2025, he stood at the Geographic North Pole.
Then came the 2008 global financial crisis, and that stability disappeared almost overnight.
When everything collapsed in layers
The recession hit the financial sector hard, particularly loan-related businesses. Work slowed down, targets became harder to achieve, and eventually Ram lost his job.
“There were days when I did not know how to manage even basic expenses. It felt like everything around me was uncertain,” he says.
He joined HDFC Standard Life in July, trying to rebuild without delay, but that phase did not last long. Within months, he moved out and took what he describes as a difficult but necessary risk, starting a small clothing manufacturing business using a loan of four lakh rupees.
By May 2009, the business had failed. Around that time, Cyclone Aila struck West Bengal, bringing incessant rain and strong winds that tore through the city. In the asbestos-roof space where he had set up his small operation, water seeped in, soaking the fabrics he had invested in and leaving them unusable. What little he had managed to build began slipping away in a matter of hours. But even beyond the damage caused by the storm, he knew the foundation itself was fragile. “The cyclone made things worse,” he says softly, “but the truth is, I was already struggling to keep the business alive.”
“I had borrowed money, but there was no consistent income. Everything started collapsing together, one part after another,” he says.
A phase where even survival felt uncertain
A relative later helped him re-enter the general insurance industry, and for a short period, things improved. He worked long hours, rebuilt contacts, and started regaining confidence. But in May 2011, he was suddenly removed from the job.
That moment became the lowest point of his life.
He does not describe the following incident lightly. One day, overwhelmed by pressure and exhaustion, he went to a metro station with the intention of ending his life. There was no dramatic buildup, only a sense of having reached a point where continuing felt impossible.
At that exact moment, his phone rang. It was his wife, Shipra Kothari.
“I did not know where he was,” she says. “But I could sense something was wrong.”
What she said was not dressed up as long reassurance, but it was enough to express her support and change his decision at that moment. “I told him we will face everything together. We will survive this,” she says.
He remembers that moment as a pause that changed direction.
“That call brought me back,” he adds. “It did not solve anything immediately, but it stopped what was happening inside me, and gave me a lot of hope.”
After that, there was no recovery in the traditional sense. He began again from scratch. No office, no stable income, and no financial cushion. He worked from cyber cafes, preparing insurance quotations manually, and then travelled across neighbourhoods on foot to meet clients directly.
“I used to walk for hours because I could not afford transport,” he says.
On 22 May 2012, he formally established Epic Assurance Services LLP. It began as a small operation but celebrated the beginning of a long phase of rebuilding. “It was not big at all, but it was stable, and that mattered more than anything else,” he explains.
The marathon was conducted on floating ice, in repeated loops around a marked circuit, because a continuous route is impossible in that environment.
When travel began to redefine his sense of limits
As the business grew, he began travelling internationally. A trip to Dubai in 2013 changed his perspective on what life could look like beyond work. Travel became less about leisure and more about exposure to extremes of geography, climate, and human experience.
Over the years, he has travelled to 79 countries and seven continents, and that journey is continuing, led by a growing list of expeditions that include Antarctica, Greenland, Yakutia, and climbs such as Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Elbrus, each one adding a new layer to how he understands grit and life itself.
“I started enjoying doing things I had never done before,” he says. “It kept me inquisitive.”
Running enters life without planning
In 2018, a conversation about the Tata Mumbai Marathon led him to take part in it, and he decided to try it for the first time. He had no formal preparation for it and no athletic background.
“I was not fit at all, but I still went ahead and ran,” he says.
That single event introduced him to long-distance running. After that, he continued participating in them without training or professional guidance.
He explains, “I never trained like an athlete. I just kept running when I could, taking part in half marathons in Kolkata and other cities along the way. For me, it was more about learning from experience rather than formal training.”
The long attempt to reach the North Pole
After visiting Antarctica, he began thinking about reaching the North Pole. The idea slowly grew into participation in a marathon at 90 degrees North. He attempted it twice in 2023 and 2024, but both times the event was cancelled due to external conditions and logistical challenges.
Finally, in July 2025, he travelled through Svalbard as part of an icebreaker expedition.
On 13 July 2025, he stood at the Geographic North Pole. The marathon was conducted on floating ice, in repeated loops around a marked circuit, because a continuous route is impossible in that environment. The conditions were unlike anything he had experienced before, even compared to Antarctica or Greenland. The ice itself was unstable, shifting underfoot, and there was no fixed ground beneath.
The race began at 8:45 am local time after a short delay caused by weather checks.
The race began at 8:45 am local time after a short delay caused by weather checks. The temperature hovered around minus eight degrees Celsius, but the real challenge was not just cold; it was the combination of wind, moisture, and unstable ice layers that constantly changed under the runners’ feet.
He started strongly, managing the first set of loops with controlled pace, but as the hours passed and sunlight began reflecting off the Arctic surface, the ice began to soften. Water started pooling in certain sections, turning parts of the circuit into slush. Every step required adjustment, as the surface beneath him alternated between hard ice and soft, sinking patches.
“My shoes were filled with icy water, and at one point I could feel my feet going numb before sudden sharp pain set in as the cold shifted,” he says.
By the 26th kilometre, conditions had changed considerably.
The track near the cruise support area had become unstable, and runners were forced to carefully avoid sections where the ice was thinning. Some participants slipped, others slowed down substantially, and the overall pace dropped.
He remembers that phase in detail, not as exhaustion alone, but as constant adjustment. Every loop felt slightly different from the previous one. There were moments where he had to stop briefly just to regain balance as the surface beneath him cracked or shifted unexpectedly.
By the 42nd loop, exhaustion was no longer the main issue. It was pain from repeated cramps, combined with the mental strain of continuing in conditions that kept changing without warning.
“I thought I might not finish, and there was a moment when stopping felt reasonable,” he admits. But he continued, moving forward with each loop, without thinking about the distance remaining.
“I told myself I had already come too far to stop,” he says. He completed the marathon after 50 loops, finishing in approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes.
What remains after everything
With that, Ram Gopal Kothari became the first Indian to complete a marathon at the Geographic 90 degrees North Pole. But he does not describe it as a final achievement, rather as one moment in a much longer sequence of events moulded by his tendency to push through.
Ram Gopal Kothari became the first Indian to complete a marathon at the Geographic 90 degrees North Pole.
“When I finished, I felt I had taken India there with me,” he says.
For Shipra Kothari, the journey is not defined by one day. “This is not just one achievement; it is everything he has been through and everything we have seen together,” she says. What remains is a life where stopping was always an option, but never the final decision.
All pictures courtesy Ram Gopal Kothari.
