Dehradun, Sept. 6 -- Culinary Chronicles

The Wedding That Waited for a Mountain to Move.

Monsoon landslides in the hills have always carried dread and a wicked sense of timing. Twenty-eight years ago, in this very week - one decided to RSVP to my wedding.

In those days there were no JCBs lined up like yellow dinosaurs. Clearing a road meant sledgehammers, crowbars and sheer stubbornness. When the mountain gave way, you did not argue. You waited.

A week before my wedding, State Highway 7 put on its worst show. A boulder, the size of a small house, peeled off the cliff and parked itself in the middle of the road. You could not push it over because right below sat a delicate power station. So it had to be broken manually. Stone by stone,...