On Christmas Eve 2012, Chetan Mahajan was arrested for a corporate fraud he didn’t commit. He spent a month in Bokaro Jail in Jharkhand. He wrote a book. Penguin published it in 2014. By 2015 he had quit the corporate world, moved to a village in the Kumaon Himalayas, and started building India’s only purpose-built residential writing facility. It took the worst thing that happened to him to make the best place in India to write.
There is a certain logic to the Himalayan Writing Retreat’s existence that only becomes clear when you know how it began. Chetan Mahajan was, in 2012, a Kellogg MBA and corporate CEO — a former co-founder of startups, a man who had built businesses in education and training for years, operating at the intersection of ambition and competence that the Indian corporate sector rewards. And then, on Christmas Eve 2012, he was arrested as the fall guy for a fraud at his employer, Everonn.
He spent a month in Bokaro Jail. He used the time to write. The result — The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail — was published by Penguin in 2014 to critical acclaim. The experience also, gradually, became the catalyst for the most significant decision of Chetan’s life: in 2015, he and his wife Dr. Vandita Dubey left Gurgaon and its polluted air — their young son had respiratory issues that the city was worsening — and moved to Satkhol village in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand. In 2016, they co-founded the Himalayan Writing Retreat.
The hills, as Chetan would later say to CNT, help writers to hear that voice inside their heads. The process of listening becomes easier and clearer in the inspirational air of the mountains.
The Retreat
The Himalayan Writing Retreat (THWR) is a boutique property of six rooms, purpose-built for writers, tucked away in Satkhol village in the Kumaon Himalayas near Mukteshwar in the Nainital district. It is not a homestay in the conventional sense — guests do not come here simply to sleep and eat and be around the mountains. They come to write. The property is designed around that intention: rooms that overlook snow-capped Himalayan peaks, a cliffside overhang — ingeniously called the island — projecting into the mountains, a book lounge, and the particular quality of concentrated silence that only a village at altitude can provide.
The journey to the retreat involves a short, scenic walk from the road — one of those approaches that immediately signals a transition from ordinary geography to a place that operates by different rules. The forest comes close. The peaks appear. The air changes. Writers describe the first encounter as already literary: “every element immerses you in the writerly life from the very first step,” in the words of Poornima Rajamani, the recipient of the first Emerging Writers Residency Programme in 2024.
Who Built It
Chetan Mahajan is, by his own description, an accidental author. He holds an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. He co-founded two startups and ran businesses as CEO in the education and training space. He was, by conventional metrics, a successful man on a recognisable trajectory. Then Bokaro Jail. Then the book. Then the hills. Then the retreat.
Dr. Vandita Dubey is a US-licensed clinical psychologist with a Doctoral Degree in Clinical Psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, a published author (Parenting in the Age of Sexposure, Rupa, 2016), and the resident psychologist of the retreat. She leads workshops on emotional wellbeing through writing — using clinical techniques including mindfulness to help participants access the creative sources that stress and the ordinary world tend to obstruct. She describes the retreat as a place where the mind, spirit, and emotions — not just the craft — are nurtured.
Together, they built something that did not exist in India before: a purpose-built residential writing facility, not a hotel that hosts writing workshops but a place designed from the ground up for the specific needs of writers and writing.
What Happens Here
The Himalayan Writing Retreat runs a rich and varied programme of in-person and online events, each designed around a specific aspect of the writing life. In-person workshops at the retreat include creative writing, poetry, non-fiction, storytelling, blogging, and emotional wellbeing through writing. Faculty have included some of the most accomplished names in Indian literature and beyond: Arundhathi Subramaniam, Jerry Pinto, Annie Zaidi, Aparna Piramal Raje, Dibakar Banerjee, Erika Krouse, and Kritika Pandey, among others. Each workshop brings a different body of knowledge to the mountains and to the guests at the retreat.
Residencies are available for writers working on longer projects — the most significant being the HWR Khozem Merchant Non-Fiction Fellowship, which offers new authors mentorship, funding, a residency in the Himalayas, and a pathway to publication with Penguin Random House India. The 2024 Emerging Writers Residency Programme, the retreat’s first, marked a new chapter in its commitment to discovering and supporting new voices.
The First Draft Club (FDC) is the retreat’s community initiative — a close-knit network of past participants who continue their writing practice, support each other, and stay connected to the mountain environment that shaped their work.
Beyond formal programmes, the retreat operates as a place for individual writers to come and work in concentrated silence: no city noise, no ambient distraction, just the Himalayan peaks and the particular clarity of mind that altitude and quiet produce. Writers come alone, make progress on books they have been carrying for years, and leave with momentum.
The Food and the Community
Meals at the Himalayan Writing Retreat are prepared with the warmth of the kitchen of a family that has chosen to live here — not hotel catering, but the food of a household whose hosts are genuinely invested in the wellbeing of their guests. The adrak chai — ginger tea, made properly, served at the right moment — is mentioned by almost every person who has spent time here.
The community of each workshop is described as close-knit: diverse professionals — entrepreneurs, software engineers, doctors, management consultants — united by the desire to write, surprised by how much they have in common with people they would never have met in their ordinary lives. The mountain context accelerates this. By the end of a workshop, participants have shared their writing, their fears, and their stories in ways that ordinarily take years.
The Chirag School and Old Hill Cheese
The retreat’s life in Satkhol extends beyond writing. Chetan and Vandita support the Chirag School — an NGO-run local school in the village community, whose children they describe as a source of much joy. And Chetan co-founded Old Hill Cheese, a social enterprise that employs and empowers village women, making hundreds of village homes more prosperous through artisanal cheese production. This is not a mission statement. It is what happens when people who moved to a place for their own reasons find themselves caring about the place they moved to.
Why It Stays With You
The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail was not written by a professional writer. It was written by a corporate executive who found himself in jail on Christmas Eve with nothing to do but think. The Himalayan Writing Retreat is not run by hospitality professionals. It is run by two published authors who left the city because the city was making their son sick and making their lives smaller than they needed to be, and who found, in Satkhol village and its Himalayan peaks, the conditions under which the best version of their work became possible.
What they built for themselves — the quiet, the beauty, the community of serious creative engagement — they built for writers as well. The hills help writers hear the voice inside their heads. The retreat is where you go to listen.
Plan Your Visit
Address: Satkhol Village, Nainital District, Uttarakhand — 263138 Phone: +91 73035 16665 Email: namrata@himalayanwritingretreat.com Website: himalayanwritingretreat.com Instagram: @himalayanwritingretreat
Co-founders: Chetan Mahajan (author, writing coach, former CEO) and Dr. Vandita Dubey (US-licensed clinical psychologist, published author) Established: 2016 Recognition: ET Now Business of Tomorrow 2022
Property: 6 rooms · Purpose-built for writers · Himalayan peak views · Book lounge · Cliffside overhang (‘the island’) · Short walk from road access Meals: Home-style meals and chai included with programmes · Full board during workshops
Programmes: — In-person workshops: Creative Writing, Poetry, Non-Fiction, Storytelling, Blogging, Emotional Wellbeing through Writing — Individual residencies for writers working on long-form projects — HWR Khozem Merchant Non-Fiction Fellowship (with Penguin Random House India mentorship + publication pathway) — Emerging Writers Residency Programme — Online courses and community events
Faculty (past and present): Arundhathi Subramaniam · Jerry Pinto · Annie Zaidi · Aparna Piramal Raje · Dibakar Banerjee · Erika Krouse · Kritika Pandey · Sumit Bansal · Vandita Dubey · Chetan Mahajan Community: First Draft Club (ongoing writing community for alumni)
Note: The retreat primarily operates through structured programmes. Individual stays outside workshop dates may be available — contact the retreat directly. A short walk from the road is required to reach the property.
Getting There — Kathgodam Railway Station: approximately 70 km from Satkhol — around 2.5 hours by road. Regular trains from Delhi Anand Vihar (approximately 6 hours on Ranikhet Express or other Kathgodam-bound trains). — Pantnagar Airport: approximately 100 km — around 3 hours. — From Delhi by road: approximately 350 km — around 7–8 hours via Moradabad, Rampur, and Haldwani. — From Nainital: approximately 35 km — around 1 hour. — From Mukteshwar: approximately 25 km — around 45 minutes. — The retreat is in Satkhol village, near Mukteshwar in Nainital district. Coordinate exact directions with the retreat team before arriving — the final approach involves a short walk through the village.
Nearby — Mukteshwar: 25 km · Nainital: 35 km · Ramgarh (Fruit Bowl of Kumaon): 15 km · Bhimtal: 40 km · Kathgodam: 70 km · Corbett: 80 km
Best Time to Visit: October to May for writing retreats and the most inspiring mountain views — clear Himalayan peaks in the mornings of winter and spring · March to May for rhododendron season and the best light · December to February for snow-quiet and the particular discipline that cold Kumaon mornings produce · Avoid July–September if road travel is the primary concern, as the monsoon can make hill roads challenging.
