Dehradun, March 29 -- A howling wind rattles our windowpanes. Icy fingers rent the sky.bLightning hits a distant hill and peals of thunder resound in the air. Somewhere out there, pound the beat of drums. I break out in cold sweat.

A break in the clouds gives me a glimpse of the Jaunsar and Bawar - twin mountainous regions in the north-west of Uttarakhand. And Till Kingdom Come takes me back in time to a place where not so quiet flows the river Tons.

I first made that journey in the fall of 1975, and a few memories survive. Foremost among them is that rattle-trap of a bus bumping along a pot- holed road carved out of a mountain face.

'How do you drive so fast?' A co-passenger nervously chats with the driver.

'I shut my eyes whenever I...