Himalayan Wonderland: Travels in Lahaul and Spiti

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With 16 black and white and 8 colour illustrations In the summer of 1962, a restless young Indian administrator, Manohar Singh Gill, made an arduous journey from the north Indian plains to the farthest reaches of the Indian Himalayas- the Lahaul and Spiti valleys- and spent a year there, living and working amongst the people. Gill went on to a distinguished career in the civil services and government, but his experience of the relentless beauty of these spectacular Himalayan deserts and the generosity of the people of this land changed him for life. Part memoir, part travel book and part anthropology, Himalayan Wonderland is a witty, opinionated account of Gill's lifelong affair with this extraordinary region. The book, however, is much more than one man's account of a place - it is a hopeful and enlightening view of the practice of administration and the joy of working with people. Illustrated with more than forty photographs taken by Gill himself, and including detailed contour maps and information on trekking routes in Lahaul and Spiti, this is a remarkably illuminating and accessible account of this faraway land- from the 1960s, when few knew about the place, to today's unpredictable world of receding glaciers and lost cultures. About The Author Manohar Singh Gill (b.1936) is currently the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, and member of the upper house of the Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha. Gill was the Deputy Commissioner of Lahaul and Spiti in 1962, a time when, for once, his pleasure became his duty. He spent the last six years of his forty-year-long career in the civil services as the Chief Election Commissioner of India. Gill has had an abiding interest in mountaineering and was the first civilian trainee of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling. He has also been president of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, New Delhi, and the Himalayan Club.