This summer, Chef Ranveer Brar's Himalayan odyssey took him to remote villages amidst nomadic tribes and into homes of locals living at 15,000 feet. Until now, all he'd done was drive through its picturesque passes as part of bike and car rallies. This time around, he broke bread with locals, heard their stories and returned home with a slickly-packaged TV show, Himalayas: The Offbeat Adventure. On the show that airs on the TV channel LF, Brar travels through Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, foraging, cooking and learning. About food, about life.

"The show deep dives into subcultures and communities of the Himalayas that are largely unseen to the outside world," he says. These include, among many others, nomadic tribes that forage Cordyceps or Keeda Jadi, a rare Himalayan aphrodisiac that sells anywhere north of Rs 10 lakh, families in Turtuk, the last Indian village before the Line of Actual Control and the pashmina goat herder tribe of Changpa.