Kedarkantha: A Journey To The Himalayas

by Shoumodip Roy, Dee Kay

Can a trek change your life? Can it rejuvenate your soul while making you understand yourself?
Neil, an introvert and an engineer with a steel manufacturing company is struggling to cope up with the intense amount of chaos thrown at him by life. Under the weight of responsibility and day-to-day obligations, he seems lost and without a voice of his own. His passion for writing and the longing for the mountains have taken a backseat as he pushes himself to be at par with the standard the world has set for him. The unsuspected emotional traumas of the past, the unspoken feelings of the present, and the uncertainty of the future have been adding more turmoil to his already fragile state of mind.
Then one day he gets a chance to join in on a trek with a friend. Not sure at first, he tries to make excuse to get out of it but after persuasion from Misha, he finally sets for a journey into the heart of the Himalayas. Unaware of what awaits him and skeptical about the unplanned trek, he gears up for what would unfold as the journey that would change him for good.
Join Neil as he takes on his fear of uncertainty, the anxiety of being around strangers, and the love for the mountains. Walk with him on the trail of unfolding his true self while facing the odds at the snow-covered mountains. Be his strength as he dares to summit the Kedarkantha peak only to find his limits that he has to overcome.
Can he truly overcome his fears? Can he bypass the limits his body has by freeing his mind

96 pages, Unknown Binding

First published September 23, 2019

About the author

An engineer working in one of the largest steel company in the world, Roy is a writer based in India. He writes short stories and poems, which are all about detailing and expressing. His works reflect the human emotions by transforming words into feelings. In his spare time, he manages his website that contains creative contents depicting works both of his and of budding writers from all over the globe.
Visit his website www.dfloatingthoughts.com to know more about him.

Reviews

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first thing that attracts one to the book is, apart from the title and subject, of course, the cover.

Not just the beautiful Himalaya, but the very ones that stand at the head of the Kedarnath valley, at the end of a journey when one has trekked up, facing one. And some thst stay behind, not revealing themselves to those looking up.

Chaukhambha, for example, which stands like a Sutradhaar, holding strings to the various major tributaries of Ganga in glaciers that stream from it - Bhagierathie, Mandakini and Alakananda.

Within a page or so, one begins to suspect it's not a journal of a trek, but a novel.

Is it at least based on a real trek?

But there's a surprise waiting, for those not used perhaps to modern world of the internet dependent IT execs - Kedarkantha, another peak, is nowhere near Kedarnath, and the cover might after all be not what one thought, although it does look like it is!

There's far too much of verbose pontification and attempted expression of introspection without introspection in fact, coupled with forced lingo of what's supposed to be current generation, for the book to be considered anywhere near good writing.

And by the time one realises that one's been deceived by the title and the cover, one's almost halfway. It's not about Kedarnath, or about Himalaya at all.

Another shortcoming here is severe - the authors English is more broken and made up out of translations from another language patched up with what's considered avant-garde US English, and its about as smooth as a moraine leftover from a glacier retreated.
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Has the latest Hindi film so far titled Tamasha become a trend, or did it come when it's theme was already a trending movement in corporate IT sectors with Indian youth suddenly finding success, money, everything their parents had striven lifelong for?

Here, of course, it's mountains and trekking, not street theatre - or literally, tamasha. But latter is easier to show in a film.

YJHD showcased former in first half, but dropped it for photography, supposedly, as passion of the hero - and then took the even cheaper route, since a lifetime of passionate photography across the world would be beyond what the shortcut director could manage to showcase.

So song-and-dance routine, by the supposedly studious boring would be medical student turned svelte half-naked young woman who "did her routine job" until her ex turned up at the friend's wedding at the designer venue, a swanky palace, it was!

Is medical career a "routine, boring" job? Not if one has known pre-med and medical students. Bit films, hindi films especially, do papagate such lies, especially during last two decades.

Or did she fail to get into medicine, and director failed to mention that, because it was unimportant? She certainly didn't have the personality, the aura of a doctor.

Message, as ever, opposite of the My Dinner With Andre, namely, stick to home and routine.

On the other hand, mountain trek for a week or two, and writing it up, is easier in life. Than, say, proving FLT. Or photographing the world, or anything of a lifelong worthy passion - followed consistently.

And this disco generation isn't about lifelong steady following of one's star.
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August 30, 2022 - August 31, 2022.
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