Where the Borders Blur: A Journey through Grief and Himalayas

Where the Borders Blur: A Journey Through Grief and the Himalayas” explores travel as transformation. Set across remote Himalayan villages, this photo story traces a personal passage through loss, belonging, and the rediscovery of self.

I travelled to the villages near the India–Nepal–China border with no itinerary, no structure, and no real sense of what I was seeking. Only weeks earlier, I had lost my aunt to cancer: my first experience of a grief so profound it seemed to rearrange the foundations of my life. The spaces I once called home felt hollow and airless; nothing around me felt familiar anymore. In that heaviness, I saw a friend’s photograph of the mountains and, almost instinctively, booked a one-way journey. Travel had always been my escape, but this trip would come to redefine what travel means to me.

In the remote Himalayan villages, I encountered not just beauty but a kind of belonging I had forgotten was possible. The people I met didn’t offer hospitality as something transactional; they offered warmth, presence, and an intuitive understanding of life’s fragility. Their kindness held me in ways I didn’t know I needed. In landscapes where I first felt impossibly small, dwarfed by mountains older than memory and forests carved by wind and time, I began sensing something more intimate: a protective circle forming around me. The mountains rose like a quiet shield; the sky stretched wide enough to hold my grief. At times, it felt as though my aunt travelled with me, guiding me through my grief and towards a gentler version of myself.

Life unfolded at an unhurried rhythm. I woke up early, walked through forests, hiked to nearby peaks, returned for simple lunches, rested through quiet afternoons, and ended each day with chai, pakoras, and conversations that lingered long after sunset. In Sitla–Mukteshwar, I met Gagan Bhaiya—a person who belongs to a different era altogether. He builds community not through screens or convenience, but through care, shared stories, mountain paths, and moments of genuine presence. In an age of digital noise, his world felt like a refuge.
In those early days in Mukteshwar, I realised how reluctant I was to name or even acknowledge my grief. No one asked about it directly, yet the silence made it feel even heavier. But I was surrounded by people who are deeply rooted in their humanity, who created lightness without forcing conversation, and who offered joy without demanding explanations. Their presence allowed me to breathe again, softly and without performance.

With Gagan’s help, I travelled onwards to Liti, a circular shaped village wrapped in clouds and inhabited by people with a gentleness that feels inherited across generations. The woman who hosted me reminded me so much of my aunt that simply being around her felt like receiving a quiet blessing. Liti taught me a different way of being: where life is measured not by productivity, but by sound and light; the laughter of children from the school at the village center, the sun warming the valley, and the hush that falls between clouds and earth. I found myself continually surprised by the tenderness I received and questioning what I had done to deserve such affection from strangers, from nature, from the very spaces holding me. Over time, that surprise softened into deep gratitude.

My journey then carried me into Darma Valley, where the terrain sharpened and the air thinned. I set out only for the Panchachuli Basecamp, but the mountains kept calling me forward. I found myself at the summit, standing with nothing between me and the vast expanse, with no roof, no railing, no frame. Just sky, snow, stone, and breath. It felt like a moment carved out of time. The mountains did not make me feel small; they made me feel held. In that monumental silence, I relearnt how to take care of myself.
Darma was the most challenging stretch: emotionally and physically. It felt like the final, fragile chapter of healing. That unexpected ascent became a private victory, a reminder that I still knew how to move upward and forward. It restored a quiet confidence I had lost somewhere along the way.

This photo story traces that transformation: from disorientation to grounding, from grief to a rediscovered sense of home. These images are not merely documents of a journey; they are markers of thresholds crossed, perspectives shifted, and the subtle but profound ways landscapes, strangers, and silence reshape us when we allow ourselves to surrender.