A journey’s beginning:

I was bone-tired. I had to Get Out. My friend S suggested Kamshet. Lots of people suggested other places. Some said it will be too hot at this time of the year. I said – Let’s just Go!

So after getting up in the wee hours of one Sat morning, four of us hurriedly left the city behind. A flat tire just in the beginning of the journey did not mar anybody’s spirit.
A very bumpy 10km drive inside from Kamshet village led us to M’s cottage overlooking the lake and the dam. 3 happy energetic dogs greeted us at the gate. A rustic cottage, a hammock, cold beer, mellow sun and friends….nobody wanted anything more from life at that point in time.

Another group arrived in due course but we were happy to see that they never ventured out of the ‘campus’. Which meant that the lake was all to our selves and of course M who swam in its cold and quiet waters. We sat by the lake in the morning, evening and night. It was beautiful, serene and absolutely silent…one could hear the wind through the trees and the distant calls of the birds. Each of us took turns to sit or walk by the lake alone – to contemplate or to explore the physical or the beyond. I found peace, A found a snake which looked like a Krait, S found snake-holes and D found flowers and leaves to take pictures of.

What I simply loved was sitting at the lake in the night with a shining moon, a star-laden sky and the lake and hills in the distance all aglow in the pure silver light. It seemed like a different world – so beautiful, secluded and pure. I could have sat there forever.

The short hikes along the road in the fast fading twilight and besides the mist covered lake in the morning simply took away all the tiredness that had seeped in. The air was cold and refreshed and cleaned the cob-webs that had settled deep in the mind. Jim Corbett was my first real trip to the Himalayas. It was the place which stirred my restlessness, made me question myself and opened up a whole new path for me – as clear as the mountain air. Kamshet somehow reminded me of Jim Corbett…the same sense of calm, beauty and a seed of a dream. I wonder now at the path that I see slowly opening – will it be just as refreshing as before?