Far From the Completely Maddening Crowd

Far from the madness
I-Day Special: Going back to our roots


Let me take you to a little village I call home, a village called Breswana [Look it up and be very certain that no, in fact you do NOT mean 'Botswana'.] When I say 'let me take you' I of course do not mean it literally, because that would mean I'm lugging along a huge bunch of strangers to my village, a number of whom might have criminal tendencies or are just plain weird. I digress.

So Breswana - a typical pahari hamlet of the Doda belt in Jammu and Kashmir. Altitude approx. 7,100ft above sea level. No motorable roads all the way up yet, which means we either walk the last stretch of the mountain or clamber up on horseback. [Riding on mules is also an option but this invites being pointed and laughed at. Best not to.] Once up there, certain exclamations of, 'Wow, this is great!