In the evening, a group of us set out on a quick trek to the Harwan Buddhist ruins, monasteries dating back over 2,000 years. I soon see a flash of Humm’s athleticism—he was a professional cyclist before he became a chef—running up the long line of steps that climb the last steep incline up to the archaeological site. A young watchman accompanying us tries to keep up with the chef two decades his senior, eventually falling upon the grassy knoll before the ruins. His stomach heaves out of shortness of breath and laughter at being brutally bested by his elder.
The first to reach the upper ruins, Humm appears pulled to their centre. He sits down and folds his legs, and his fellow cooks encircle him like dutiful disciples. A half-moon grows stronger above the mountains, with dusk descending at the fore; calls to prayer swirl around the valley, settling, it seems, somewhere deep in all our chests, a sense of peace away from busy roads chequered with checkpoints.
“You can feel the presence of history in a really incredible, really moving way,’ says Humm, ‘In a way that you don’t have in Switzerland. It feels much more ancient here, I just want to learn more.”
Blackberries and bears
Traveling in a caravan of four SUVs to sample cheese in Pahalgam, the drivers only slow down to let larger convoys of military vehicles pass or for mandatory pit stops of chai.
Humm, once again, is the first one to arrive at the cheese shop Himalayan Products. He has already sampled a large selection of gouda featuring regional produce: nettle and garlic, walnut, firsian clove, mustard, fenugreek, and cumin, all paired with preserves that quite frankly outshine the cheese, especially the Kargil apricot. But he seems far more relaxed, leaning back in a plastic chair and pointing out his favourite combinations to everyone. “I have a great love for India,’ he tells me, ‘but each time I come, I forget it takes a couple days to settle in.” The tasting is concluded by puffing mint-perfumed plumes of hookah smoke on the banks of the Lidder river at Humm’s request—who isn’t a smoker, but is swayed by its cultural prevalence in the valley—watching hawks coast the mountain air in figure-eights and children climb the branches of trees hanging over the clean, crisp water.
