The Mountains That Made Me a Traveller

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When I was around nine years old, I watched a movie.
At that age, it was simply funny — the kind of film you laugh at, repeat quotes from, and move on with your day. But as I grew older, and maybe a little more aware of life, that same movie somehow kept growing with me. Every year I would rewatch it — at home, on a plane, on holiday — and every year it would hand me a new lesson, as if it knew exactly what I needed at that season of my life..

“Do what makes you happy.”
“Don’t care about people’s opinions.”
“Life is not all about exams" (If you want to become like a doctor or something don't listen to me).

These were things you rarely heard as a kid — almost forbidden truths.


3 Idiots wasn’t just a movie to me; it became a quiet mentor, a reminder to breathe, a nudge to live differently. And the most unexpected thing it sparked inside me was the spirit of travel.



Those winding roads it showed — the car snaking through Shimla’s mountains, the sky so wide it almost swallowed the screen. I remember that moment like a snapshot burned into my memory: nine-year-old me, eyes glued to the cinema screen, heart thumping with a feeling I didn’t have words for yet. Wow.
It was beautiful.
And I wanted to go. Even then.

Then, toward the end of the movie, came my first glimpse of Ladakh… and something inside me shifted. Even at nine, I knew: I wanted to go.

For years after that, whenever anyone said, “Kashmir is beautiful,” my mind wandered straight to Ladakh. And as I got older, social media, movies, YouTube — everything only added fuel to the fire. Every week, a new country would charm its way onto my bucket list: Iceland, Switzerland, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the national parks of North America. Anything with mountains, fresh air, and open space got tucked into the “One Day” corner of my mind.

And in 2020, that “One Day” finally started becoming real.
I’d search Google for “most beautiful scenic countries in the world”, pick a destination that matched my budget, and dive in headfirst. Every trip felt like turning a new page.
But Ladakh… Ladakh was still the chapter I hadn’t reached yet — the one that mattered.

To go from a solo traveller to finally visiting the place I’d admired since childhood with my fiancé… that was something else entirely. Something softer. Sweeter.

Every time my eyes lifted to a new mountain peak, every time that cold wind brushed our faces on Chang Pass — the sun warm, the air thin, the world impossibly wide — I felt my heart doing this quiet, overflowing thing. A kind of happiness that doesn’t shout; it settles.

And then came Pangong Lake — the exact place where the final scene of 3 Idiots was filmed.
Standing there, in front of the lake I had seen for the first time as a child, I felt this wave of emotion crash through me. It was as if my nine-year-old self — the dreamer, the kid with wanderlust in his chest — was standing beside me, jumping with joy.

And the most beautiful part?
This wasn’t just a childhood dream coming true.
It was happening with the woman who would soon become my wife.

Solo to soulmate — a journey that started long before I realised it. A dream formed in childhood, fulfilled in love... and 'nakhre'.