New Delhi, May 22 -- In the early 2000s, Arjun Majumdar and his mates would frequently trek in the Indian Himalaya. What they often struggled with while planning the logistics of their trip was finding genuine information on the route and resources along the way.

The predicament got him thinking. He decided to pen a guidebook on trekking to Roopkund, a high-altitude lake in Uttarakhand. A few weeks after The Roopkund Trek Guide (2007) was published, he started receiving calls from locals who lived in the region.

"They said a lot of trekkers had started visiting after reading the guidebook and they were getting meaningful work," Majumdar recalls.

It laid the foundation for Indiahikes, a trekking company based in Bengaluru that Majumdar ...