Stephen Alter is an American author of more than 20 books of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Mussoorie, India and much of his writing focuses on the Indian Himalayas and the broader Himalayan region. His novel, Birdwatching (Aleph 2022), received the 2023 Green Book of the Year Award at the Green Literature Festival, Bengaluru. Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth (Aleph 2019) received the 2020 Banff Mountain Book Award in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category and the 2021 Kekoo Naoroji Award for Himalayan Literature. It was also shortlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Prize. Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime (Aleph 2014) received the 2015 Kekoo Naoroji Award. In The Jungles of the Night: A Novel about Jim Corbett (Aleph 2016) was shortlisted for the DSC South Asian Literature Award.
He has written extensively on natural history, folklore and mountain culture, particularly in his travel memoir Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage to the Many Sources of the Ganga. Educated at Woodstock School and Wesleyan University, Alter has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he was director of the writing program for seven years. Following this, he was a writer-in-residence at MIT for ten years.
Among the honours he has received are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the East West Centre in Hawaii, and the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture.
His most recent novel is Death in Shambles: A Hill Station Mystery (Aleph 2023) and his latest non-fiction book, is The Cobra's Gaze: Exploring India's Wild Heritage (Aleph 2024). Alter also carries an Overseas Citizenship of India. [1]
Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā and Khangchendzonga, is the third-highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at 8,586 m (28,169 ft) in a section of the Himalayas, the Kangchenjunga Himal, which is bounded in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak River and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies in the border region between Koshi Province of Nepal and Sikkim state of India, with three of the five peaks, namely Main, Central and South, directly on the border, and the peaks West and Kangbachen in Nepal's Taplejung District.
The Himalayas, or Himalaya is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 peaks exceeding elevations of 7,200 m (23,600 ft) above sea level lie in the Himalayas.
Mount Kailash is a mountain in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It lies in the Kailash Range of the Transhimalaya, in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau. The peak of Mount Kailash is located at an elevation of 6,638 m (21,778 ft), near the trijunction between China, India and Nepal.
Parvati Valley is a Himalayan valley situated in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. From the confluence of the Parvati River with the River Beas, the valley runs eastwards, through a steep-sided valley from the town of Bhuntar, in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh in Northern India.
Robert Macfarlane is a British writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Jim Perrin, is an English rock climber and travel writer.
Bugyals are alpine pasture lands, or meadows, in higher elevation range between 3,300 metres (10,800 ft) and 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) of the Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, where they are called "nature’s own gardens". The topography of the terrain is either flat or sloped. The surface of these bugyals is covered with natural green grass and seasonal flowers. They are used by tribal herdsmen to graze their cattle. During the winter season the alpine meadows remain snow-covered. During summer months, the Bugyals present a riot of beautiful flowers and grass. As bugyals constitute very fragile ecosystems, particular attention needs to be given for their conservation.
Ganges is a nature documentary series for television on the natural history of the River Ganges in India and Bangladesh. It showcases the variety of animals and habitats that are to be found along the river's 2,510 km (1,557 mi) reach, as well as the cultures, traditions and religions of the large human population that it supports. For Hindus, the Ganges is a sacred river and a place of pilgrimage, and it holds a deep influence on their religion and culture as well as being their lifeblood. Over the course of three episodes, the series is presented as a journey from the source of the river in the high Himalaya to its delta at the Bay of Bengal.
Dr. Shekhar Pathak is a historian, editor, publisher, activist, and traveller from Uttarakhand, India. He is known for his extensive knowledge of the history of colonial and postcolonial social movements and contemporary environmental and social issues in Uttarakhand, and colonial exploration in the Himalayas and Tibet. He has also been engaged in activism for various social and environmental causes since the 1970s.
Namita Gokhale is an Indian fiction writer, editor, festival director, and publisher. Her debut novel, Paro: Dreams of Passion was released in 1984, and she has since written fiction and nonfiction, and edited nonfiction collections. She conceptualized and hosted the Doordarshan show Kitaabnama: Books and Beyond and is a founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival. She won the 2021 Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel 'Things to leave behind'.
Panch Kedar, rendered Pancha Kedara in Sanskrit, refers to five Hindu temples or holy places of the Shaivite sect dedicated to god Shiva. They are located in the Garhwal Himalayan region in Uttarakhand, India. They are the subject of many legends that directly link their creation to Pandavas, the heroes of the Indian epic Mahabharata.
Madhyamaheshwar or Madmaheshwar is a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva, located in Gaundar, a village in the Garhwal Himalayas of Uttarakhand, India. Situated at an elevation of 3,497 m (11,473.1 ft), it is one of the Panch Kedar pilgrimage circuits, comprising five Shiva temples in the Garhwal region. The other temples in the circuit include: Kedarnath, Tungnath and Rudranath which are culturally visited before Madhyamaheshwar and, Kalpeshwar generally visited after Madhyamaheshwar. The middle (madhya) or belly part or navel (nabhi) of Shiva is worshipped here. The temple is believed to have been built by the Pandavas, the central figures of the Hindu epic Mahabharata.
According to the beliefs of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, Beyul are hidden valleys often encompassing hundreds of square kilometers, which Padmasambhava blessed as refuges. Tertöns may reveal them from terma at specific and appropriate times. Their locations were kept on scrolls hidden under rocks and inside caves, monasteries and stupas. They are places where physical and spiritual worlds overlap, and Tantric practice effectiveness increases with multiple perception dimensions.
Chandra Prakash Kala is an Indian ecologist and professor. His research interests include alpine ecology, conservation biology, indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany and medicinal aromatic plants. He is an assistant professor in the faculty area of Ecosystem and Environment Management at the Indian Institute of Forest Management.
Uttarakhand is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" due to its religious significance and numerous Hindu temples and pilgrimage sites found throughout the state. As a result, religious tourism forms a major portion of the tourism in the state. Uttarakhand is known for the natural environment of the Himalayas. 2019 Tourist Arrivals Domestic – 40,000,000 per/year and Foreigner – 150,000 per year. Tourism business in Uttarakhand generated ₹ 23,000 crores during 2013–14.
The Sacred Himalayan Landscape is a 39,021 km2 (15,066 sq mi) large trans-boundary landscape in the eastern Himalayas encompassing temperate broadleaf and conifer forests, alpine meadows and grasslands, which harbour more than 80 mammal and more than 440 bird species. It extends from Nepal's Langtang National Park through Sikkim and Darjeeling in India to western Bhutan's Torsa Strict Nature Reserve. More than 73% of this landscape is located in Nepal, including Sagarmatha National Park, Makalu Barun National Park, and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. About 24% is located in India, encompassing Khangchendzonga, Singalila and Neora Valley National Parks as well as Fambong Lho, Maenam, Senchal, Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuaries, Shingba and Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuaries and Kyongnosla Alpine Sanctuary.
Khadg Singh Valdiya was an Indian geologist and a former vice chancellor of Kumaon University, internationally recognized for his path-breaking work in the fields of geodynamics and Environmental Science. A 2007 recipient of Padma Shri, he was honoured again by the Government of India in 2015 with Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award.
Aleph Book Company is an Indian publishing company. It was founded in May 2011 by David Davidar, a novelist, publisher and former president of Penguin Books Canada, in association with R. K. Mehra and Kapish Mehra of Rupa Publications. The headquarters of the company is situated in New Delhi.
Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth is a nonfiction book by Stephen Alter.