The Jiva Nal is the least known of the four streams of the GHNP. It drains the extreme north-west corner of the Park, emanating from the mountains and glaciers that guard its northern frontiers, and after covering about 65 kms, meets the Sainj at Siund. The trek to its source and back takes seven days.

I really don’t have much to do in my Himachal village these days, other than watch things sliding down the slopes- roads, houses, trees, mountain sides, cars and the occasional unwary tourist from Kotkapura. It’s all getting a bit monotonous, but the upside is that it gives me plenty of time to reflect on our

It has not been a particularly good fortnight for people of my vintage, brought up to regard the moon- that “silver deity of secret night”, as the poetess Lady Mary Montagu put it- as an object of mystery and romance cloaked in an impenetrable celestial halo. It has been the staple of Hindi films of

The sun was setting over neatly combed, green tea estates that covered the mountain slopes. Tall, interspersed silver oak trees stood guard. Clouds hung at eye level, every so often gliding onto the roads we traversed. When it did, our driver slowed the vehicle and turned on the fog lights. They lit the moisture. Everything