About

Triund, Himachal Pradesh. I was about to turn thirty, alone on a mountain in the Indian Himalayas, in a snowstorm that lasted through the night.

I had come up to be by myself. To not celebrate. To let the day pass quietly, the way I thought I wanted. I had a campsite manager named Baisakhiram who knew exactly where to find a bucket of water when I asked where the bathroom was. ("Madam, sab kuch bahar hi karna padta hai!") I had two strangers I had met on the trek up — two men whose names I barely knew. I had a flask of tea, a tent, and the silence I had asked for.

Then, just before midnight, the strangers knocked on my tent. They had walked back through the snow with a packet of biscuits arranged like a cake, a single candle in the middle.

This is the story of Triund. The birthday I spent alone in the snow, and the kindness I never asked for.

Season 3 of Kathagram is a series of solo Himalayan trek memoirs by Neethu M Eldose — a former journalist, traveler, and storyteller. New episodes weekly.

Stories are life.