We visited the Pan Himalayan Grassroots office soon after we reached here on Saturday. Its about four kilometres downhill from where we live.  The office is a nestled against the slope of the hill. There were a hundred and eighteen steps down from the road to the office, the significance of which we realised only on the way up.

The office is a  collection of five buildings, each at different levels against the hill. The administrative office is a three storey building housing, spacious and well-lit with nice large rooms. There’s a canteen adjacent to it where they make lunch for the employees. At the lowest level is the the processing unit where the jams, chutneys and pickles are made. Once they’re done the bottles are transferred to the next building where they are labelled under the Kumaoni brand name and then transported for sale.

The processing centre

Mr Anand Singh and Mr Sanjay Joshi spent time telling us about the Pan Himalayan Grassroots and the work that they do. They’ve been there since 1992, and have slowly managed to get the communities aware of their rights, organise them, and channel them into restoring the hill eco-systems.

We walked back from the office to the homestay along the road. It was afternoon  and quite sunny. We’ve all been quite surprised hot Ranikhet is.  After a quick nap and tea, we went for a long walk along the road to Almora.

On our way back we stopped at ‘the Cafe’, a small coffee shop set up by a retired Brigadier and his wife. She told us there were leopards in the area which she’d seen sitting across the road at night. Sometimes they even land up in the garden. They need to lock up their dogs at night so that none of them become the leopard’s dinner.

We reached a little late, and our hosts were worried. They thought we’d been eaten by the leopard!

We had dinner, chatted a bit, and then just crashed!