The Kumaon hills are proving to be a viable option to reboot and relocate

Social lives are more active and people are more involved in each other's lives in Kumaon than in the cities

In 2014, Chetan Mahajan’s life was progressing on an envied path. He had a good corporate job with HCL Learning. His wife, Vandita, ran her own practice in clinical psychology from home. Their children attended Gurugram’s reputed Shikshantar school. They lived in a nice house in the gated community, Nirvana Country. To all appearances, a perfect life.

Yet the couple was not happy. They worried about the influences their small children had to fight off in chaotic, rootless Gurguram — the pollution, the traffic, the aggression... “Disaffection from city life was rising,” explains Mahajan. He says he often felt “disengaged” with