Author: Neetu Rai

One of the most memorable parts of this space has been our daily lunch routine. Preparing lunch together every afternoon is more than just a task it is a process of connection. We first decide the menu for the day, and those discussions often feel like a small conference. To make it even more organized, […]

At the start of this fellowship, I had many mixed emotions and thoughts. I kept thinking about how it would be, what it would look like, and how everything would work, the community, the project, the implementation, and the impact. But after almost completing one year, I have realized that many outcomes did not match […]

Almora, a town that is both a hill settlement and an urban center, has many unique aspects worth noticing. Among them, one is the system of “MATE.” MATEs are individuals who carry luggage, goods, and various items from the market to designated delivery points in exchange for a fee. In a landscape defined by steep […]

Almora is a very beautiful, peaceful, and soulful city situated in the middle Himalayas of Uttarakhand. It owns a rich history and glorious stories, and in that history live its old temples. The temple, whose walls protect its marvelous architecture and mythological stories that have kept alive the centuries-old identity of the region, the king, […]

It’s a prominent festival of Uttarakhand that marks the arrival of spring, the season when flowers bloom, and new leaves begin to grow. The name itself carries a beautiful meaning. Phool means flowers, and Dei means doorway or gate. The festival is celebrated around the 15th March every year, which is considered the beginning of […]

I am not going to go into the history of the city, because I think I still have a lot to read about it to write about it. So this blog will be more about the city I have lived in, and my experience so far. Let me start from the beginning. So when I […]

Indian spirituality and religion are very deep, diverse, and layered, and in Uttarakhand, it’s at another level, as it is named Devbhumi. Here, the religious practices are very much a part of daily lives; wherever there is a source of water, there is a temple. It’s a common thing here to find a big or […]

“The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” This is the bookish definition of the word resilience. But I believe that the definition of resilience is different for different people, based on what they are striving for, what they are fighting for, and what their journey has been so far, and how […]