Trying To Lose My Way In A Forest

Once you get off the bus and find yourself in the over-crowded mall road/market, a figurative question mark forms in your imagination – why did I sit through that jumpy bus ride for 10 hours for this? The answer appears for those who are willing to walk some more, do a bit of a struggle with their backpacks in search of what they originally left home for – a bit of hard-to-find god damning peace of mind and that elusive scene without any asbestos roof or brick wall or electricity wire jutting into the scene…

Why Do You Travel?

Why do you pack your bags and zip away? What do you go to find? What do you try to leave behind and what do you bring back? Why do you travel? 

Prashar Lake Trek

Most of the Prashar Lake trek is a good walk. But there are stretches which are steep and require advanced skills and good muscle power to see you through. The monsoon season has made some of it more challenging…

Unwinding at Jibhi

An innocuous mud trail leads us to the stream. From here we show some daring and wade through heavy currents. We are at the blue lagoon…

What Happens When Humans Try To Control Nature

I shared a short story about my special bond with the river Beas to India River Forum’s epic initiative My Memories of The River. It Got published! Here’s sharing it with you guys!

Signing off Spiti

It’s past 8 p.m. Sita and Norzom have left for Ki to water the fields and run other agricultural errands (I heard something about grinding Jamuns, I’m sure). Tandup has been taken too, in case he bawls without his mother. A cousin brother is here now. Smoking cigarette after cigarette. He’s supposed to be a

Binge Watching

Sita Aunty currently goes about cleaning tumblers of milk-turned-curd. In some time, the family will leave for the forest on top of the hill behind this one. I’m welcome to join. I’m game to go but I feel breathless almost all the time. My nose is dry and it almost burns when I breath in

Aloo Momos At 14,200 Ft

It’s 8 in the evening. I’m at Khibber. This is turning out to be different than what I had imagined. It’s still jagged and breathtaking but also slightly greener and flatter here. I think we are on the top of the rocky cliffs that mark the road till Kaza. The terrain looks quite walk-able. The

The performer at the bus stand

The homesickness is getting real in Kaza. This is the second day in a row that I have woken up with the thought of going back. To Delhi. The crowded noisy capital with its big trees and wide roads. The love for plains and its people is calling out quite loudly to me. The barren

The ‘Real’ Kaza

After the bumpy ride from Manali, the wind-stricken stay at Batal and the maddening walk to the breath-taking Chandra taal, my bones were craving comfort, a clean washroom, hot water and some belly filling food. And that’s exactly what I got in Kaza. Here, I’m cooped up at Hotel Spiti Heritage. A relatively new hotel in