Notes from the hills

Journal

Longer thoughts on the hills and home, written slowly.

Notes from the hills

Slower pieces, set down by hand

Some things don't fit on a season page or under a photo — the longer thoughts on the home, the village, a ritual, the wild, and a life of comings and goings. They're written slowly, only when there's something worth saying, and gathered here for an unhurried read.

116 pieces.

2026

A lifetime of comings and goings

On the small ritual that has welcomed and blessed every guest of these hills for as long as I can remember — and what it has meant to grow up inside it.

Read it

The HouseSoon

Jun 2026

The 100+ year-old house that raised us

More than a century of family is built into these walls — and a home, unlike a hotel, is never quite finished.

Journal

Slower pieces, set down by hand

A lifetime of comings and goings

The 100+ year-old house that raised us

Block by block: how the house grew

Stone, slate and deodar: what this house is made of

The courtyard where everything happens

Why our rooms look at the forest, not the snow line

The kitchen fire that never quite goes out

The terrace: the best room has no walls

What fifty winters do to a hill home

Restoring without erasing

The den I disappear into

We are the Negis — and the Bishts too

Kunwar Singh and Heera: the names at our root

My grandmother's hands, and what they taught me

Five generations on one terrace

Roma, from Haridwar to these hills

Raising Vivaan and Avyaan in a village

The festivals we keep, and the deity we keep them for

Why our surname means 'of these hills'

What my father carried, and what he let go

The women who really run this house

Da, Bhula, Di, Ama, Bubu, Kaku

No neighbours here, only family

Held by the whole village

The grandmother on every doorstep

How a guest becomes 'ours' by the second evening

Learning to say it the Kumaoni way

The lane, and everyone who lives along it

What 'I lived here' comes to mean

Why we will never charge you for a stay

The teeka, the rice, the dry coconut

Shriphal: the 'god's fruit'

Buransh, the crimson welcome drink

Arrive with something small

How a sweet goes round the nearby houses

On tipping, dignity, and the hands that care for you

What it roughly costs to keep a ritual alive

A blessing, passed on

Keeping the ritual through the test of modern times

The art of doing gloriously little

What a slow day actually looks like here

The first day you arrive; the second you exhale

Why two days isn't really slow travel

How I keep my own slow days

Slow travel and the planet

Becoming yourself again

The case for staying a week

Unplugging without disappearing from work

Why we cap some stays, and let friends linger

Leopard country: living beside the wild

The night a leopard walked across our roof

The birds of Kunja, and how to hear them

Cedar, pine, oak and rhododendron

When the buransh blooms, the hills turn red

Monsoon: the season that redraws the road

The first snow on the ridgelines

Stars you forgot existed

Sunrise and sunset from the same chair

The oaks, and what they give the village

Why we don't fence the wild out

Keeping the streams and springs clean

Farm-to-plate, because the farm is right here

Bhatt ke dubke, ras bhaat, aloo ke gutke

We don't keep a guest hungry

The vegetables that grow ten steps away

Madua, jhangora and the grains of these hills

A long lunch, eaten slowly

What Roma cooks when she wants to spoil you

The chai that starts every morning

Plant a tree you'll come back to

A film on the terrace wall

Teach at the school, or just say hello

The masaabs who taught me, and still do

Climbing the village for the big view

Bird watching for people who don't watch birds

Stargazing and a bonfire

Living an ordinary Kunja day

Terrace sunbathing