Dehradun: a charming valley at the Himalayan foothills & my hometown.

Perched in the cradle made by the Himalayan foothills to the north and the Shivalik range to the south, Dehradun is that small valley where you can tell the season by looking at the flowers in your garden.

Spring comes home.

The clouds kiss the mountains, as seen from the valley.

You can see your flight hovering over mountain tops when landing in Dehradun, and you are gradually lowered into a misty land where green is the predominant color.

Taking off from Dehradun.

Often shadowed in the eyes of visitors by the hill-station of Mussoorie, the valley is what glitters with sunrise, sunset & Mussoorie’s night lights after dusk, everyday.

The sun starts to set above the mountains.

Driving into the sunset.

This valley is what I call my home town. It’s what you dream about when fast city life stops beckoning, where you don’t have to rich or successful to be popular, where everyone lives in a house and doesn’t call it a bungalow, where there’s a leechee tree in every backyard, where you don’t go out late in the night because you love tucking away at home, where you look forward to the chilly winter so you can bask under the day sun. Everyone has a relative, a grandmother, an aunt in Dehradun. Yet you can cover the entire town within 3 degrees of separation.

The mountain view from the Sahastradhara drive.

Riding on.

Like everything beautiful, Dehradun fell victim to commercialization in becoming the capital of the state of Uttarakhand. While that meant increased development, it also meant more commercial establishments, people & traffic. A lot of the town’s beauty is now confined to its outskirts, where clouds still grace rooftops, where the sunset still makes passers-by look up in wonder, where green is still the dominant color.

Sunset in the valley.

In the transition phase of this once sleepy town lie a basket of experiences you don’t want to miss

Photo credits: Tianyake, ProdigalSista, Deepgoswami, ankyuk.

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