Gaurav Purwar

It was August 15th, 2019. Yeah, it's the Independence Day of India 🇮🇳. And I was spending some peaceful time alone in my small-sized room. All of sudden my phone ringed and there was a call from one of my ex-colleagues. It had a long time since we talk. And my insecurities were confusing me to decide whether to pick his call or not. I was unsure about his purpose of calling, that too in the evening of a holiday. I was like I won't pick the call but at the same time, I wanted to explore other possibilities. While my focus was on watching the incoming call's animation, a debate was taking place inside me. Both the parties, my heart and brain, were giving each other reasons to attend/skip that call. So I was unable to bring any conclusion. Then a memory came up. The memory was about the previous year. When he arranged a small get-together for our group, which consists of my squad, on Independence Day. And this reminds me of all the amazing times which I had with them durin...

After trekking for around 16 km, I remember, we had a wonderful sleep that night. Early in the morning, our guide woke us so that we can climb to the last destination of Kheerganga, the Kund. We pushed ourselves cause we were waiting for it since last evening and we packed a pair of clothes and started to walk. The weather was pretty cold, I guess it was somewhere in between 2°C - 4°C. The place was mostly covered by gray-colored clouds, and the wind was urging them to move ahead. A major factor that was missing on the trip was a clear sky. Yet I could not be focusing on the half-empty part of the story, so I shifted my focus towards the half-filled part. After 10 minutes of climbing on a steep surface, we were in front of the Kund. The Kund is a hot water pool near an ancient shiv temple. And from that place, you have an iconic sight of the valley. After making proper arrangements, we jumped into the Kund. Damn! The moment we entered, time did likely paused and we went idle...

It was the second day of Kasol. We headed to the Kheerganga from our basecamp of Kasol. We took a cab to Barshaini, which is around 16 km from Kasol. Barshaini is an entry point for the Kheerganga trek. We preferred the Kalga trek due to its low steepness. Kalga trek is around 16km long and covered with forest. We took a guide to support take us to Kheerganga. This blog post contains some of the memories and incidents related to this trek. It was 7:00 am, as per expectations MC was the first among us to get up. He announced in Punjabi, “Whoever wants to see the sunrise, get up otherwise I am leaving!”. I remember in the Shimla trip, this guy left us and went alone to see the sunrise. But this time I didn't want to miss, so half-heartedly, I came out of bed. And then we all collected and headed for a suitable place to see the sunrise. We remembered a park near the bridge, but that was closed. Although we tried a few alternatives, nothing worked. After all this, we headed to a br...

Dusk started to cover the Kasol. Stars and the moon were taking their positions. So we decided to return back to our camp from the Jim Morrison Cafe. That day we already spent a lot of time on the streets, so we were familiar with the road and we didn't ask Google aunty to guide us. At night, Kasol was shinning with lights. Although that night, the city was packed with the crowd. While standing there, I was able to feel a different kind of satisfaction. Around me, there were people laughing and hanging with their mates, and the best part everyone was engaged in themselves. A fusion of music with the heavy sound of running water of the Parvati river was breaking the series of silence. Apart from this, a trance music beat was not leaving my head. It was in my head since we left the cafe. I wish, I could gather some courage and asked the cafe staff for the track name, cause I even don't know how to search for music beats on Google. No doubts all cities look amazing at ni...

After 14 hours of travel for Bhuntar, we were losing our patience. It was mainly hunger and desperation to reach our camp. Our focus was on the beauty of Kasol, which was visible from Bhuntar. But the struggle was, “How to get transport to reach Kasol?” __ “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet”: Aristotle We had a tight budget so our first choice was obviously a public bus. Unluckily, during that period there was a huge crowd at Bhuntar bus stand. So we decided to alter the plan. We went to the taxi booth, but no success achieved. Now, we went hopeless and we were not sure how to continue. As usual, MC came with a conclusion out of the topic, “Let's skip all and have some momos!” No doubt we were hungry, and we couldn't deny his proposal. We settled at the Momos shop and we were eating like a monster. We spent an hour eating and resting. As we over, we ran toward the taxi booth as an empty taxi was approaching the booth. Luckily with some patience, we were final...

It's true when we expect the least then only we are able to enjoy the most. Or we can say expectations suck us, and stop us to enjoy the most. I learned this from my previous trip. My trip started with my squad and this time Bhaskar was with us. Cause of him we planned this trip (there is another story regarding the second trip, but let me stick to the post). We collected at R. K. Ashram metro station, from there we were supposed to board our bus. With private buses, I never had a good experience. But this time, it was upside down. Even I need to cross-check the bus number twice to confirm whether I am boarding the correct bus. With heavy traffic jams and a few on-road pickups, after 2 hours of boarding we were able to skip Delhi behind us. We were on the highway. And our bus was running on speed. We, all 5, were settled on the last 5 seats with mutual agreement. Along with this we were trying not to irritate couples sitting ahead of us. The bus was bounded to Manali and...