If you think about it, Heaven, aka Kashmir, is only an hour's plane ride away from Delhi. We could get there faster than it would take to get from Gurgaon to Connaught Place during the morning rush hour. But that wasn't motivation enough for my three friends and me to take on the journey. We wanted to learn how to ski. My knowledge of skiing started and ended with movies, pictures and theory. I counted out the practical hazards and realised I'd need more than 10 fingers to fit the list;and only a lot of guts and luck could accomplish what my friends and I had in mind - in just four days we wanted to ski down a real hill, as opposed to the practice slope.

Is that even possible?

The instructors we hired once we reached Gulmarg nodded with great enthusiasm. We didn't know then if they were only agreeing to our request to make sure that they got hired at a premium price. But let's just say we were gullible, and wanted to believe that we could do it too.