Himalayan Memoirs

By Navnit Parikh

About The Book

This is an assorted collection of the authors writing, narrating his varied experiences in the Himalayas. He has been most fortunate to have trekked widely across the Himalayas several times. He has been able to visit many remote and inaccessible regions in many parts of the Himalayas between Amarnath in Kashmir and Parashuram Kund on the border of Burma.

It has been natural that he had to undergo many-checkered experiences during his Himalayan travels. In the silent fastness of Kumaon Himalayas, he has been ruminating over these experiences nostalgically. During his leisure hours at Khali Estate, he scribbled out these reminiscences, and this volume is the outcome.

He was fortunate to have traveled in a pre-civilized era, when most Himalayan travels were undertaken on foot, when the mountain folks crossed torrential rivers by rope-bridges, when Tibet was a “land of Lamas”.

With the spread of the network of motorways over most parts of the Himalayas, and with the construction of several airfields in Nepal, much of the thrill and excitement of Himalayan travel has been lost. Tibet today is devoid of Lamas and Monasteries.

It is hoped that those who are not able to savour these thrilling and exciting experiences and exciting experiences personally, would enjoy going through these memoirs with rapt curiosity and perhaps even with a touch of envy.

About The Author(s)

Navnit Parekh was born and brought up in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat. After studying at the Commerce College in Ahmedabad, he settled down in Bombay for business. He was connected to a leading Shipping and Travel Agency in Bombay for over twenty years and he traveled widely over many parts of the world.

Navnit Parekh has had an instinctive devotion for the Himalayas from his childhood. He trekked to Mount Kailas and Man-Sarovar in Tibet just before the Chinese occupation. Subsequently he trekked across most regions of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal Pardesh, Nagaland, Garhwal, Kumaon, Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir.

A keen Anthropologist, Navnit Parekh has studied the life of the Himalayan people at first hand. During his extensive travels in the Himalayas, he was able to meet and concourse with many a saint and mystic. He has undergone many checkered experiences in the Himalayas and this volume narrates some of them in his lucid and eloquent style. He has written several travelogues in Gujarati and an introductory book on the Himalayas in English. He has now settled at his picturesque Khali Estate near Almora in the Himalayas.

All the photographs in this volume are by the author.

ISBN : 81-7154-284-0

Format : Book