Anchal Lochan and Zoe Tucker (Harvard '13) met on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusets, USA, during the admitted students’ weekend at Harvard College. We immediately started discussing our potential gap year plans; Zoe wanted to come to India, but she had not found a program that really intrigued her. Anchal, meanwhile, had decided to spend two months volunteering at her alma mater, Woodstock School, in Mussoorie, India, before going on a trek in the Everest region. She offered to arrange Hindi lessons, sitar instruction and community service in Mussorie for Zoe and also invited her to come on the trek.

The decided lack of a structured program in India that includes language study, community service, cultural interactions, and a Himalayan trek led Anchal to form Himalayan Gap, for students to pursue all of these interests in an organized manner.

The Directors

Anchal Lochan founded Himalayan Gap with the help of her father Rajiv Lochan and Anu Radha. Rajiv grew up in the Himalayas. As an engineer, he worked in the United States for over a decade before moving back to India in 1997. Since then, he has assumed the administrative responsibilities of his family's privately owned high school In Patna, India. In 2009, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of FreeSchools World Literacy (FSWL) -USA, a 501 (3) c that supports informal schools in rural areas of India and Thailand to empower women and children with free education.

Anu Radha, the director of operations at Himalayan Gap, has been a management consultant to the Asian Heritage Foundation, an NGO that works in conjunction with the World Bank to revive rural art forms of India. She is a certified Yoga Teacher from the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre. Anu also serves as a founding Trustee of FreeSchools World Literacy-India, a partner organization with FSWL-Canada, FSWL-Australia and FSWL-USA.   

For over twenty years, Rajiv and Anu have been devoted parents of their own children and are skilled in providing love and guidance to young people. They have spent time in the Indian subcontinent pursuing their childhood passions of white-water rafting and trekking in the higher Himalayas. Their experience and breadth of knowledge of North Indian culture and the Himalayas is an invaluable resource to students pursuing a positive and life-changing cultural experience.