How escaping Wi-Fi and walking into the wilds of Kumaon turned into an accidental therapy session with nature, nostalgia, and near-death suspense.

Three years from now, I imagine myself somewhere between the whispering deodars of Binsar and the playful growl of Corbett. The air will still carry gossip from Garhwal — that jealous older cousin of Kumaon — but I’ll have finally crossed the invisible border of the two hill commissions. After years of teaching, writing, and pretending that mindfulness can be brewed in a city café, I’ll be back where life moves to the rhythm of bird calls and leech bites.

Kumaon, unlike Garhwal, doesn’t perform its beauty. It lets you stumble into it — a bit like wisdom or a good cup of chai. Here, mornings start with fog thick enough to hide your regrets, and evenings end with the forest reminding you that you’re not the protagonist, just a polite visitor in someone else’s story.

I’ve taken to carrying a battered Nikon these days, capturing birds that refuse to sign model releases. From the laughingthrushes that actually sound sarcastic, to a barbet who insists on photobombing every sunrise, I’ve built quite a collection. Some might call it obsession; I call it mental stability with feathers.

They say this used to be hunting country. The British came here with their rifles and stiff upper lips, while the hills rolled their eyes and hid the real stories behind mist and silence. Now the rifles are gone, replaced by lenses, tripods, and the occasional influencer trying to coax a leopard into their vlog. The only thing we shoot now is focus — and if you miss, the forest forgives you.

One afternoon near Marchula, as I sat sketching the ridge lines, the air went still. The forest — usually gossiping with cicadas — suddenly fell silent. That’s when I saw him: the legendary Kumaon Lion.
No, not a lion in the literal sense (though my heart didn’t get that memo). He was a massive mountain cat, muscles rippling under a golden coat, eyes calm and ancient — like he’d attended all of nature’s board meetings.

My hands froze. For a moment, I understood those old parables about the four blind men describing an elephant. If you touched his tail, you’d call him a whip. If you brushed his mane, a prayer rug. If you met his gaze — ah, that was no beast. That was the wilderness staring back, politely asking, “So, how’s your mental health these days?”

The cat walked away before my camera even blinked. I exhaled the way city people sigh after surviving office meetings. Later, at a roadside dhaba, I tried explaining it to the cook. He smiled and said, “Babuji, you didn’t see the lion. The lion saw you.” I nodded. Enlightenment via paratha — classic Kumaon.

But the forest wasn’t done testing my nerves. A few days later, while crossing a damp patch near the Ramganga river, I noticed something that looked like a discarded garden hose. It wasn’t. The “hose” moved. And blinked. A giant python — thick as my optimism in April — lay coiled in the undergrowth, eyeing me with casual curiosity. My body turned statue, my brain started quoting every wildlife safety manual I’d ignored.

For thirty eternal seconds, we just existed — me, a reluctant visitor; it, the quiet landlord. Then a rustle — a startled deer somewhere — made the python slide away, smooth as gossip. I laughed out loud. Nervously, of course, but it counted. I had just earned a diploma in humility, forest-issued.

Nights in Kumaon are where the real therapy begins. There’s no phone signal, so the brain, deprived of dopamine notifications, learns to notice absurd things — like how moonlight makes even an old kettle look philosophical. You start hearing your own thoughts again, raw and unfiltered. At first, they sound like strangers. Then, slowly, they start making sense.

I call this whole exercise “Adventure Listening” — a mental wellness experiment disguised as bad travel planning. Each story, whether a lion’s stare or a python’s whisper, becomes a mirror. The hills teach what no app can: silence isn’t absence; it’s the space where truth grows legs.

I’m building a movement out of it — small but growing — inviting others to unplug and wander, to trade scroll-time for trail-time. People who’ve read my earlier musings on living with purpose and mental resilience know what I mean. You can’t engineer inner peace from a cubicle. You have to trek into it — sometimes literally.

By the time 2028 rolls around, I’ll have turned this into a mixed archive of fiction and field notes — a “mind safari,” as a friend calls it. Readers can sign up for stories that blur the line between real and remembered. Some will be about wildlife encounters; others about the wildness inside us that cities try to tame.

When I’m not writing, I picture running a small retreat — not the Instagrammable kind, but one where we fix our heads, not our feed aesthetics. Mornings with yoga mats facing the Corbett valley, evenings with notebooks instead of Netflix. Every visitor leaves behind one story and takes another. The entry fee? Two hours of digital silence.

Sometimes, late at night, I walk to the cliff edge behind the guest house. The wind carries faint music — a mix of pine whispers and an owl’s uncertain rhythm. I imagine Garhwal listening from across the valley, sulking a bit but proud. The two hill commissions finally at peace — Garhwal and Kumaon, the twin lungs of my sanity.

Would I call it success? Maybe not. But fulfillment, yes — the kind that doesn’t need applause. The kind that smells like rain-soaked soil and sounds like a river forgiving you.

If you ever make it here three years from now, look for a man with a camera full of birds and a notebook full of scars — sitting by the Ramganga, trying to explain to a local kid why the British used to shoot tigers and why we now shoot reels. He’ll probably grin and say, “Both miss the point.” And you’ll know you’ve found me.

Join the Adventure Listeners initiative — a growing circle of wanderers, thinkers, and accidental philosophers discovering mental calm through wild encounters and offbeat trails. Stay tuned for upcoming field stories and interactive storytelling retreats in the hills.