Im-rose

Abhipriya Gupta
Jul 29, 2017 · 4 min read

I had recently gone for a trekking trip to Valley of Flowers with India Hikes . Some brief about Valley of Flowers (VOF)

  1. Location — Chamoli district, Garhwal region Uttarakhand, India
  2. Time to reach: 3 days to reach from Haridwar and approx 300 kms from Haridwar
  3. Base camp: Ghangaria
  4. Altitude — 11,000 feet
  5. Terrain: Alpine meadows; home to more 100 different species of flowers
  6. Seasonality: July-September

Some pics for you to visualize the terrain

Anyways, this is not about my trek. This is about one of the people I met on the trek. His name is “Imroz” (Im-rose) and he was our trek leader. The name “Imroz” means “today”. Once in a while, we meet people who inspire us not by words but by who they are and what they do and Imroz is one of them. The trek leader is the leader of the pack, who not only knows the trek but is also responsible that everybody is safe during the trek. He did this job very well and took care of all 23 trekkers with 100% integrity. Apart from being a great trek leader, his story was something that touched, moved and inspired me.

Imroz’s Story

For background, Imroz had grownup in Hyderbad and as a kid had not traveled much till he was 18. When he turned 18, he decided to go on a trip to Gulmarg, Kashmir with some of his friends. As luck would have it, all his friends backed out at the last moment. He was like “chuck it …. I will go solo”. Using all possible modes including train, bus, local train, etc, he reached Gulmarg. A special mention for the train journey he took via Banihal express — The train goes through a long and dark tunnel and opens up in the paradise of Kashmir valley. This according to him was one of the most beautiful experiences of his life. The way he shared about his Banihal express journey made me add it to my bucket list!

As our friend Imroz was wondering in Gulmarg, he saw a skiing institute — Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering. Somehow, he managed to enroll himself for a 13-day skiing course there. When he started doing skiing, he was like “This is it” — He felt his passion for adventure and traveling in his belly. Lucky him!

Back home, his parents wanted him to become a typical CA/CS. Besides preparing for CA/CS, he continued to pursue his passion by doing some treks and other adventurous activities here and there. Between all this, he got hired by Decathlon to use their products and suggest ways of making better gears. Finally, the time came for his article ship for his CA/CS preparation. In article ship, you need to work for CA/Audit company for 2 years. After doing a desk job for a few months, he was sure he would not be able to wear formal clothes and look at boring files for his life. So he somehow managed to convince the company to give him the required certificate without coming to the office. I know this sounds too filmy but this happened and they agreed.

Imroz sharing his story

So in the free time that he got by not doing this article ship, he started doing product training at Decathlon. During one of his product training, he saw his father come to the same Decathlon shop for shopping and all hell broke loose. His father was shocked to see him there. After lengthy conversations between his parents and him, they decided to give him 1 year to pursue whatever he wants. During this 1 year grace period, he was leading the trek with us.

Between, he applied for a kickass 4-year adventure tourism course at a university in New Zealand. He even managed to get selected for the same and applied for a loan. All loan formalities got completed and as the last step, the bank had to come to his home to check his residential address. As you may or may not have guessed it, his loan application got rejected as his parents were not in favor of him pursuing a mountaineering and adventure tourism as a profession. As of today (August 2017), I don’t have any positive climax to share but the story with the current status is great learning for me.

Why his story inspires me

I feel that he is living a life where he pursues his passion with 100% dedication and despite all setbacks and pressure, he has never stopped believing in himself and his dreams. And on top of it, he is only 23 and when he talked, he sounded more mature than me. His experiences have made him much wiser than a lot of us. He is kick ass. I myself would want to live where I am not scared of stuff and live life on the edge. He inspired me and moved something in me. As the trek got over, with unsaid words, we hugged each other. The hug meant “buddy you take care”. I would like to end this by one of the things that Imroz had shared:

“Mountains have a special way of changing you”

The whole travel did change something in me. So go travel and find stuff that you believe in and push for it with all force.

Originally published in August 2017

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