Born in Paprola, Himachal and schooled/lived in various places in Himachal, I completed school from DAV Mandi in 1999. Following the herd, I went to REC Durgapur for a Bachelor degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering. I did not learn much about chips and microprocessors but did make some cherished, lifelong friends, one of whom is was doing the website design and implementation for me, of course free of cost (I do it all on my own now). Having been uncomfortable with studies in general and engineering in particular, I felt an MBA was my calling. IIM Lucknow was the next stop, completed PGDM from IIML in 2005. Having interned with Citi in 2004 and found nothing wrong, decided to forgo everything else at the placements and accepted Citi's Pre Placement Offer. The first job at Citi was based out of Chennai in Operations and Technology, involved doing all sorts of things which one never envisages while graduating from a B School. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable and probably the phase of my life when I learnt the fastest, both soft and 'hard' skills. After a 21 month stint at Operations, I moved to London for a sales stint in 2007. I was all set for a not unremarkable career in the corporate world till an old itch started resurfacing in end of 2008. It all went pear shaped (in terms of my corporate career) from then on and one fine Sunday evening, 17th May 2009, I decided 18th May 2009 would be the day of announcing independence. So, I promptly resigned the next Monday, convinced my boss to release me by the end of June. I thought and fittingly, convinced everyone around that I actually did have a plan after the job and that I would be an entrepreneur. I even had some excel sheets prepared.

When I reached India early July, all the plans seemed to have evaporated in thin air and as ever in life, I had no clue what I wanted to do. Then my brother suggested traveling to find my calling. So here I am, traveling frequently, working intermittently to keep the engine going and more frequently, the working is long over. And yeah, by the way, the name is Shalabh, only Shalabh!

Feel free to provide any feedback on the treks or content otherwise on the respective page. In case you need to reach me, please email shalabh[at]trekhimachal[dot]com.

For those of you who find my writing interesting enough and cant get enough of it, I also blog on blogspot at The Confused and The Wandering and Sunsetophilia.