When was the last time you did something for the first time? I did it two summers ago. I decided to fall in love with travelling.

I had never been an outdoorsy guy. Lock me up in a room with a TV that has National Geographic Channel and I wouldn't complain. I loved watching shows that transported all those exotic places to my living room.

It was travelling without moving.

Then, with inspiration from my travel junkie wife, I stepped out. Out of the doorstep and out of my comfort zone. And I discovered that travelling could indeed be quite moving.

***

Reeti, my wife, and T, a close friend, taught me the first thing about travel planning: There must be no planning. So, out went the tightly drawn-up itineraries, the conveniently located hotels, the breathless hurtling from Sunset Point to Lover's Point to Mall Road, the chaperoned shopping trips and the pre-determined hours of relaxation.

It was - I love it when I find the perfect word - liberating. We let ourselves be seduced by serendipity, we started not knowing how we would end up, and we almost sought out - how should I say it - schedulelessness.

No sir, we wouldn't let ourselves be condemned to the crowd. We were travellers, wanderers, explorers. No sir, we refused to be tourists.

Sure, we would have a rough plan and a list of places we would like to go to. But there would be enough room for detours or extended stays or curtailed visits. It was a penciled outline, the colours would fill in by themselves.

***

We don't know how we settled on Himachal Pradesh. Like love, it just happened. Like love, it was meant to be.

Just what is it about the mountains that captivates us? Our childhood drawings - those imagined wonderlands - have two neat triangular mountains with the sun, smiling preferably, snuggled up between their slopes. There's perhaps a waterfall bounding down the rocks, and a cosy cottage down below. There's you and your family. Smiling.

We grow up and, with cameras in hand and the imagined wonderland in our head, we look for the exact same scene. And when we find it, we hold it forever, in our cameras and in the indelible canvases of our inner eye. We huddle together and we click a picture.

You and your family. Smiling.

I guess mountains give us something to look up to. Something to aspire and be inspired. Something that is far above our plateau'd life. And when the mountain invites us over, to stand on its peak and gaze around, we become, if only for a brief moment, kings of all we survey. That heady moment, when such insignificant things as deadlines and bills are forgotten, takes us enchantingly close to insanity.

***

And so, we travel. To fill our dream reservoirs until the next vacation. To forget, to remember. To let go of ourselves.

And, to ask ourselves: When was the last time you did something for the first time?