You and I, in our respective abodes, are on the verge of Garhwali. I can see the Garhwali foothills from here and a longish walk will take you to the district boundary. The knowledge of this surpassing beauty so near us and yet so far from this restless world, so peaceful and calm by human folly, excites me. Those strange people who were our ancestors in the long ago felt the wonder of these mountains and valleys and, with the unerring instinct of genius, connected this sense of respect and wonder to man's old desire for something higher than what life's daily toil and conflicts offered, something with the impress of the eternal upon it. And so for two thousand years or more, innumerable pilgrim should have marched through these valleys and mountains to Badrinath and Kedarnath and Gangotri, from where the baby Ganga emerges, so tiny and frolicsome, but to grow and grow in her long wandering till she becomes the noble river that sweeps by Prayag and Kashi and beyond.