The first thing I noticed during my trip to Uttarakhand was the sound. The Ganges didn’t roar or rage; it watched over me. Standing at the edge of the river in Rishikesh, I felt its voice seep into me, calm yet resolute, like it carried stories older than time.

The bus wound its way through the winding roads of Uttarakhand. Shambhavy gazed out at the mist-covered peaks and her thoughts lost somewhere between surprise and uncertainty.  “Why now?” she wondered, not for the first time. The Char Dham Yatra had been her mother’s dream for years, a pilgrimage