We set off around 8 am. We were led out of the village and pointed on the road to Kuling. At the fork, take a right, we were told.

After walking only a little while, we reached a fork. Unsure whether this was the fork at which we should take a right, we decided to ask. There was a stationery store and the person in charge informed us that we should take the lower, left road. A village boy was headed in that direction, he was willing to go with us.

We set off behind the boy, moving at a fair clip. There were many small streams running across the path, which we had to negotiate. Then the path disappeared through tall grasses, smelling of raw mango. It was difficult for even one person to walk at a time. We were beginning to wonder how often this path was used, but the boy who was guiding us was walking behind us, talking to others who had joined him, apparently unconcerned.

After more than an hour with our guides, we decided to stop briefly, for water. The boy assured us that we would reach Didna by 11, which was when the potato taxis would be leaving for town. It was a straight path he said, and off he went.

I suppose at least now we should have realised, because we had not come across any other fork so far, save the one where we took the left. But, unsuspecting, we went on. It was a straight path all right, apart from a few minor glitches. The first of these was a rushing stream, which we crossed carefully by tottering over a series of strategically placed stones. This was followed by a short steep ascent that primarily consisted of a smooth slab of stone that sloped upwards for about ten feet at an impossible angle. Amit scrambled up it somehow. My turn. I stepped up on to it, trying to walk up it, a sheer impossibility as it turned out. I grabbed the top edge of the rock just as my feet slipped – first one, then both. Suddenly, there I was, hanging over the rushing stream, supported only by my arms! This, I was not cut out for. My feet scrabbled at the rock, which was hideously smooth and reluctant to allow me a grip, but I managed to find one somehow and hauled myself up using all four limbs (and some teeth).

Following this, there was a rocky stretch where some workmen were cutting away the rock face, supposedly to make a road (though it seemed highly unlikely from our perspective at the time). Huge blocks of stone lay across our path and we teetered and tottered over them, deafened by the sound and blindly dodging the chips from the cutting machine.

The next roadblock was just beyond the point where the demolition squad was at work. Here the path, or any sort of flat area in front of the rock face disappeared and the rock wall just fell down into the valley. The generator and heavy equipment behind the cutting machine were beyond this stretch, and a heavy cable snaked across the rock wall.

Obviously, if those men had crossed to this side, we should be able to cross to that side. Amit valiantly led the way. To me, it looked as though he was highly likely to land in a tree trunk thirty feet below. He spreadeagled himself on the rock wall, his face turned to the side, his torso pushed out by the stone, his backpack pulling him outwards, but somehow he crawled across, reaching, at last, for a helping hand.