बारीको पाटामा

A helicopter ride is not an everyday event. Rarer is when you fly several times in a matter of days in different whirlybirds. Add hill-hopping to that. And these details: walk in a national park looking for tigers in the afternoon and wake up in the morning atop a hill to find the mighty Manaslu staring at you. Hike in the Himalayan foothills, sort of, with an international celebrity who is being followed by the TV cameras. What could be more exotic, right? But this view behind me, of an MI 17 parked in the middle of a corn field surrounded by massive hills and not far from mud and stone houses partially damaged by the quakes, is what I find to be the most stunning of all drishyas that I have seen in the past few months. It will remain with me for some time to come.