A writer’s dream:

Writers often dream of leaving their daily lives to take refuge in the mountains with their notebooks and insane plot twists. For a few of them it works out, for many it doesn’t. After all, where is the time or place like that, in the rush of the modern age? You cannot just take a walk by the river like Jibananda Das and find a nice secluded space to write, nor can you just wander off to the mountains by yourself without worrying about safety. You keep wondering what to do with the troubling thoughts you are having, about all these prose, dialogues and stories. They keep hiding somewhere in your mind, but you can’t quite catch them in time. They keep slipping through your fingers, like a drizzle that came to visit you for a few seconds before seeping into the soil and ceasing their existence forever.

If you are a writer, you know it well, those thoughts are residing in quietness. Of your mind and your environment. A rare thing to find in today’s life. And that is the exact thing the Himalayan Writing Retreat promises to provide you. A quiet place nestled in the Himalayas, dedicated only to writers – the perfect offbeat writing destination that we all dream of.

It sounds almost unbelievable, doesn’t it? For any writer, it would feel like a dream. In the stillness of the mountains, cradled by nature, with a cup of tea and a notebook to pour all your thoughts in. During breaks, long chats with other writers. It may sound unreal, but I’ve stumbled upon something like this only recently.

Applying for the Emerging Writers’ Residency:

While scrolling through Facebook generously, I came across an Emerging Writers Residency Program, a three-week residency at the Himalayan Writing Retreat situated in Uttarakhand, India. Without overthinking, I sent in a story plot just before the deadline.

The call was open to all South Asian writers, and they would only take five participants. I didn’t really imagine that I would be selected. On top of that, getting an Indian visa at the time was no easy task for a Bangladeshi. So, after applying, I completely shrugged it off my mind.

A month later, out of the blue, I got a call. After much scrutiny, my book project had been chosen among the five. I was overjoyed! Three weeks in the mountains…If only I can summit the challenges of getting a visa for India in these times of political tension! Well, the universe does conspire sometimes to fulfill your endeavors. After a rushed application and a few interrogatory calls from the Indian embassy, I managed to get the visa on time. Now how could I not write? With that thought, I set off from home with my digital quill and parchment.

Getting to the “offbeat writing destination”:

The journey to this offbeat writing destination in the Himalayas, of course, was anything but smooth. From Dhaka to Delhi to Kathgodam, the crowds and chaos only spiked my anxiety. With porters yelling and trying to scam people, Delhi station felt no different from Kamalapur.

From Kathgodam, when the shared car began to wind its way up the narrow mountain roads, I first sighed in relief, glad to have left the city behind. Our driver, Ishwar dada was maneuvering the car expertly through the curvy roads. The cool, misty air felt like a fresh lungful of oxygen, making breathing a lot easier. But just then, Ishwarda started talking on his phone casually, and out of the sharp bend ahead, came a massive truck suddenly. With a flick of a wrist, he swerved into the right lane and saved us. That was a close one! I thought, letting out a breath, only for the same thing to happen again in the very next moment. And so it went for the next two hours. Sitting in the front seat, I kept jolting in fear, my heart skipping every few minutes, thinking: Maybe I should just go back home from here. Kaj nai ar lekhalekhi kore! 

But of course, that wasn’t to be. After what felt like my bones and flesh had fused into one, the car finally stopped near the crest of a mountain. The tiring journey seemed to vanish from my memory as soon as I got out and looked at the landscape in front of me. Afternoon sun had hit the clouds resting lazily in the mountain’s lap, the vista assembled mountains in tiers, receding one after the next into haze, birds returning home chirping into the quietness; my nervous system calmed down immediately. Trees took a golden hued blanket while the sky turned into a vivid painting of crimson, orange and blue softening the day toward evening. Night came down quickly in the laps of the mountains, and we too drifted under our soft white quilts following the birds. 

Finally at the Emerging Writers’ Residency:

And then began the three-week writing retreat. Reality hit me the next morning when I sat down to write my book in the shadow of a tree at the viewpoint of the retreat. From where I could see the whole Kumaon Himalayas mountain range! The first step in writing is to leave reality behind and step into another world, the world of the story. But when the reality around you is this beautiful, leaving it behind is no small feat. Even the snowy peaks of Nanda Devi, Trisul Pachachuli and Nanda Kot were visible in the far distance! Not to mention the yellow butterflies that keep circling around me, distracting me from my keyboard every now and then. Now I understand why the maestro Stephen King preferred to write on his big wooden table facing the wall!

The first two days slipped away in the vibrant colors of wildflowers, the distant beauty of the hills, laughter and introductions with fellow writers, and the joy of North Indian meals. Then came a blessing in disguise, ‘the monsoon rains’. With the endless downpour locking everyone indoors, there was no escape from writing. So I wrapped myself in a blanket, tuned in one of the lofi girls study beats on YouTube and began writing the story of Anika, my protagonist who discovers a scientific breakthrough to fight crime in Dhaka.

The rain looked most magical in the common room, where the skylight cut into the pitched wooden roof let us watch each drop streak and scatter across the glass, while we gathered below for meals or sessions. The ten writers at HWR were a mix of seasoned and emerging voices: five fellowship recipients of the Khozem Merchant Fellowship, each with expertise of nonfiction word craft, and five young, emerging writers, including myself, full of curiosity, imagination, and bold experiments in fiction. Among the fiction writers, some explored the transcendence of Bombay’s streets, another reflected on the bittersweet nostalgia of homecoming, while the youngest of us boldly questioned love in the 21st century. The nonfiction writers worked with themes of memoir, food history, and giving voice to marginalized communities.

When a flock of writers reside in a retreat like HWR, it can get pretty quiet. Sometimes it was silent even outside of the designated quiet hours, everyone lost in their thoughts or tapping away at their laptops. However, that did not keep us from making personal connections. We took the opportunity of lunch, dinner and breakfast to laugh, argue or boast about our favorite books and authors. Here and there, Arundhati Roy’s name surfaced, alongside the quiet imagery of Jibanananda Das’s Bengali starry nights, and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s bold imagination of ‘Sultana’s Dream’. I also discovered writers new to me – Alka Joshi, Subi Taba, Amitabha Bagchi, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; widening my map of Indian literature.

A visit from Himanjali Sankar, former editor at Simon & Schuster and Bloomsbury India, brought a fresh perspective to our first drafts. Her session on publishing gave us clear insights into navigating the industry, once our books are complete. She also reviewed our chapters and offered valuable suggestions for editing. For me, it meant rethinking the entire section where Anika confronts the biggest criminal of Dhaka city to wear a device that rewrites his brain’s darkest codes.

Throughout the residency, sessions on writing, editing and publishing aided our process of writing. On top of that, their vast collection of books kept us company for the whole time. For writers looking to improve their craft, the blog on their website offers a wealth of resources, with frequent online workshops. And for those already tempted to pack their bags, here’s the good news: Himalayan Writers has now expanded beyond India’s borders to offer international residencies, with a strong interest in welcoming writers from across South Asia.

Was the Residency at offbeat writing destination worth it?

Writing is a solitary process and it can get lonely sometimes. To be able to share similar experiences, struggles or ideas with other writers is a blessing to any writer. For me, being able to discover other writers with eccentric thought processes was a rare delight and I’m somehow feeling less insane since then. Not only that, I now know where my best thoughts keep hiding and how to find them when I want to. I just have to drive my racing thoughts like Ishwar dada, swerving just when needed and find the quietest corner possible. Sit down with intention and meet the best of the stories hiding in the nooks and crannies of my mind. And that clarity came, in part, thanks to the quiet haven the Himalayan Writing Retreat offered.

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Sarika Siraj is a multidisciplinary writer working at the intersection of storytelling, architecture, and visual art. Writing since a young age, she has published children’s books, science fiction, and adventure stories, often exploring themes of human existence, social structures, and the ongoing search for meaning across shifting worlds. Her background in architecture shapes her world-building, adding structure and atmosphere to her imagined realms.

She is currently working on a new sci-fi thriller centered on women’s resistance and quiet defiance in a fractured future.