Kausani - 1952

Our trip to Kausani is historic in a way. Our parents did not accompany us. Instead, my father put us in charge of his young secretary and his wife who did not have much experience in travelling, so this was a big opportunity for them. The other historic reason was that I had just finished my 12th standard examination.

We were going to stay with Swami Anand who had established a permanent residence in a small rented house that belonged to a local man.

During our independence war, Swami Anand decided to work with Gandhiji and he was in charge of publishing Gandhiji’s newspaper “ Harijan”.

Kausani is located in the Kumaon district of present day Uttarakhand.

It is famous for seeing a long range of western Himalayas in the right season – the month of October.

We travelled by train from Mumbai to Agra and from thereon to Haldwani, the last but one station for this train. Onwards from Haldwani, we travelled by bus. He had given us exact instructions about our bus journey including advice to take lunch at a small town named ‘Garam Pani’ where we had the most delicious Puri Bhaji along with pahadi raita of curds and local cucumber. After that I have gone to Manali several times but ‘Garam Pani’ has not remained the same. From his cottage, he made us familiar with several important peaks like Trishul, Nandadevi etc. He would wake us up early as the first rays of the Sun fell on the mountains. Our routine was to get up early, have breakfast and then he would chart out some local destinations for us. Most of the nearby places we used to go walking. A foreigner lady Saralaben was running a school for children in the hills. We went there walking along with other schoolchildren and came back with local people guiding us back to Kausani.

We also walked downhill to a place called Garud, which was located in the valley. So he showed us a path to walk running downhill. We returned back by bus. Thus we spent about a week in mountains. On the way back, we visited Nainital for two days. And back to Mumbai by train.