– by Mridula
This is an essay written by Mridula on her love for the mountains, as second part of her interview published earlier. Since the interview posted earlier, Mridula has also won the Best Travel Indiblog award.
When Arun suggested the topic ‘My Love for Mountains,’ I thought there are many ways to approach this one. I could say, this is actually an acquired love, my husband simply refuses to go anywhere else but the mountains (and only the Himalayas qualify for him as mountains) so I have to love them. But then it is really not true. I equally love going to the hills.
View from Kuari Pass. Image Courtsy: Mridula
I could also say it is something mystic, beyond what the words can describe, that pulls us to the mountains and the matter would end there. After all, I really do not have proper words to describe why we run to the mountains at the first opportunity. But recently something happened that I think gives a good insight into love for mountains (and travel in general).
Last week we went to a small village in Himanchal Pradesh and stayed at a place called Shringi Vatika. It was really cold out there but then I saw snowfall for the first time in my life. While coming back, I realized that I have dropped my cell phone somewhere. After a few phone call to the owners,we found it and my cell phone is with them. Now how do I get my cell phone back? Many suggested I can ask them to courier it. But the couple that runs he guest house is old and I do not want to trouble them. They would have to go some distance to find a courier service.
Then I tried persuading my husband to go there again next month. He kept giving me vague excuses as to why we can’t go back so soon. Then I realized my younger nephew is finishing his final exams for class 11th soon and he certainly needs a break before he gets into the grind of 12th board exams. So guess what? The two of us are going back to Shringi Vatika, because I really need my phone back. And I am wondering why did I not leave my cell phone behind in Lachung (Sikkim) or Ladakh. Let us see how many other places I will manage to leave my cell phone behind from now on.
Sometime back, I had an idea of making an introduction of fellow India Travel Bloggers on this website. I first asked Mridula who blogs on Travel Tales from India and she agreed for the plan. I first did an interview of Mridula, and asked her to write a short essay about her ‘love for the mountains’. Here is the first part – the interview. The essay will follow soon.
I asked her a lot of questions to which she wrote back patiently. I forgot to ask another question to her in the end though. That is – “how did she find the questionnaire..”.
Q: Give us a brief introduction of yourself(Where are you from, what you do, etc) and your blog
The first words that come to the mind are “musafir hun yaaron.” I teach Human Resource Management in a college at Gurgaon. I blog at Travel Tales from India. I started blogging quite reluctantly but now I am completely hooked. A few people have popped up the question that if opportunity comes along would I like to make a living from travel related stuff. I get tempted sometimes, but two things stop me. One, I know it is very difficult to make a living out of travel writing and two, I absolutely love academics, even if it involves teaching 18 year olds! More so, I love the freedom that academics gives me and the research aspect of it.
Q: On the passion of travelling: What is it that draws you to distant places? Why do you travel?
This is a difficult one for me. I often travel with my husband and sometimes my two teen aged nephews come along with us. I think we have a collective philosophy for travel. We are a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes books. Calvin is an impossible six year old and his father loves to drag him and his wife on all kind of wild trips. When they question him, he says “it builds up a lot of character.” That is the reply we give to our nephews when we drag them on treks with us. Now they are wise, when only the two of us go on a trip, they ask us “Kuch character bana ki nahin?” (did you develop some character on this trip?)
At another level, we believe in our city lives we live so far away from nature. The trips to the mountains give us an opportunity to disconnect from our daily grind and be close to nature, only if for a short while. It is very soothing for us to be close to nature.
Q: Which is your favourite place(A place you have been to)? Why?
I have said it often at by blog, for me Ladakh is special. Even thought I feel ill on the trek there and we had to turn back mid way, in some sense my life changed for a lot better (professionally, and it is important to me) somewhere in the middle of this trip. I am completely smitten by Ladakh, even though I have been there just once.
Q: Which is your dream destination(A place you havent been to already)? Why?
Make it dream destinations. I would love to trek to Everest base camp one day. And go to Russia and Mongolia! And really explore the Indian Himalayas.
QUICK QUESTIONS
a. Budget Traveller or premium? Hard core budget traveller, husband gives me no other option 🙂 Says we will do the resorts kind of stuff when we are really old.
plan ahead or impulsive? Minimum planning, we usually know where we are going but almost no hotel bookings in advance. However, we do book air and rail tickets.
backpack or suitcase? Backpack always.
Choose one: beach/food/wildlife/mountains/heritage/culture Mountains, followed by beaches.
India or abroad? India, we yet don’t have the mindset to spend the kind of money it takes to go abroad. And India is so big, we will never run out of places.
Q: Any dreams or wish you wish to achieve when it comes to travelling
and/or travel writing?
I want to see a lot of places, really go places. There are so many. I take travel writing as it comes, no special plans.
Q: Any remarkable events/milestones you would love to share related to
a)your journeys b)your travel blog
My blog (and in quite early stages of my blogging) once got featured at the BBC website. I got more than thousand hits per day for two days. I think that was the turning point for my blogging. I actually started taking it seriously (in terms of maintaining the blog and continue with it) after that. Then a few of my stories got published at the Gonomad website and that gave me more confidence to carry on.
Q: What makes you write about your journeys and how do you feel about writing travelogues?
I warmed up to the idea of writing about my journeys slowly. Actually, when we started to travel and I would look out for information, I found the personal accounts quite useful rather than the typical hyped up travel agent stuff that one usually comes across. Blogs give me the good, bad and the ugly too. So, maybe, I thought, someone else may find my account useful.
Now, I am quite hooked. I think, I enjoy writing just for the heck of it and for the people I have come to know through blogging. Also, the comments I get, makes the experience just wonderful.
And before I sing off, I would say, thanks a lot Arun for giving me this opportunity. I wish I could take half as decent pictures as you take and get half the amount of traffic that you get on your blog (after all you have an open sitemeter for your blog 🙂
Mridula tagged me to write about three dreams I have had. Now, I would rather manipulate it to write about things that I dream about than dreams that come to me. But let me stick to the topic that it is meant to be.
I am not sure why, but I have never ever dreamt something good, or I don’t recall them if I did. All of them have been strange and bad and have me in a receiving end!
There is one I vaguely recall about a bear chasing me near a cliff. I manage to climb down the cliff but the bear follows! I end up having a small fight with the bear, and eventually pushing the bear down the cliff and climbing back up.
In another series of dreams, I dreamt about accidents. Accidents where a vehicle I was in got into an accident or I was a live witness. The accidents in the dream were fatal, but twice it happened that on the day I dreamt of the fatal accident, I was involved in a very minor accident! I don’t know if they can be related or not, but surely it was amusing.
Next was a similar story where I was beaten up by a mob, but can’t recall much of it!
Anyway I think none of these dreams were really worth sharing, which is why I would rather have written about dreams I have than dreams I get.
To pass on the tag, here is the list.
* Ms.N
* Q
* Payaniga