Wanderer's Diaries

On an auspicious dawn, he set forth up the mountain slopes, With a mighty heart filled with dreams and hopes. Every step he marched brought him closer and closer to her, Seeing him from the top, her smile grew wider and wider. The sky then looked blue and clearer. The oppressor upon him was gentle and dearer. No signs of deadly cracks en route. As he kept climbing assuredly foot after foot. In came from nowhere ominous clouds of horror, Darkness swallowed the oppressor in split-second. The storm engulfed the sky forming in between a impregnable fortress, His steps wandered frightfully searching her from the distance. Storms robbed her dreams and rains destroyed her freedom Clouds broke her courage and left her gasping. While she surrendered helplessly to the relentless savaging, he kept going his lonely battling. His next step may land in a 1000 feet cliff Or deadly crevasse waiting with its jaws wide opening. But he still stands tall in t

“ Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into the trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ” John Muir’s gripping wisdom has been a continuous source of an inspiration to me. I do not remember which incident, book or person influenced me so much that I chose to quit my job and take outdoors very seriously. After quitting the job I came back to Pune to explore various avenues and future possibilities in this field. In the initial days everything looked very scary and uncertain. But I had made up my mind. There was no way I could do a job that I didn’t have an interest in. I took a year off and decided to do what I really love to do. Meanwhile I came to know about an organization named ‘National Outdoor Leadership School’ (NOLS) headquartered at U.S.; a nonprofit organization founded in 1965 by the legendary mountaineer

“With the falling of the leaves, the masks of green are stripped off the hillsides revealing the diversity and uniqueness of each ridge and valley, rock and stream, old shed and oil well hither to unseen. It is in the winter, when the hills bare their innermost selves, that we get to know them. Then in the spring, when the masks return, we can look at the hills as old friends few others understand.  So it is with people. Most of the time we wear our masks. But during difficult times, during the winters of our lives, we shed the facades and reveal all the intricacies of the unique beings we are. It is in these moments that friendships are formed, and we experience one another as few ever will.” -John Walker Few days back I returned from a Himalayan expedition in Pindari Glacier of Kumaun region, Uttarakhand. It was totally a different life there. People had gathered from different corners of the world to an unknown place, to live together for next forty days in the d