A future fearing and an image conscious individual once decided to take a break from his bland diurnal lifestyle and travel solo to the paradise on earth. Being a naive, he had quite a lot of apprehensions before embarking on his journey with the strangers. With a mixture of fear and excitement in his mind, he set off on a journey which changed him as an individual.

The noob was quite pampered by the captain (trip leader, Harsh) and his co-travelers. The journey helped him shed all his inhibitions and be his honest-self without having the fear of being judged. Amidst a foot or two of snow in the Aru valley, he was in tears watching the serene beauty of nature and talking to his trip leader. We all tend to meet a special person on a trip and even I ended meeting the one. Traveling on the top of the moving van with that special one in the freezing cold and experiencing true Kashmir was one of the highlights of my trip. We talked a lot through our silences feeling the calmness of the nature while we were lying on the top of the van. The late night games, dance moves to beat the cold, a group of strangers, snowfall, walking in the cold mountains and getting to be his own true-self were some of things which were quite new to this first timer. The experience of his first ever trip is etched so strongly in his memory that even writing this note has teared him up. I cherish each and every moment of this journey.