When he was fourteen years old, the entire family moved to Murre, near Rawalpindi, for the summer. One fine morning he asked a brother and a sister to go with him. He took a few handkerchiefs and one or two small empty tins. They left home quietly without telling anybody. They reached a ravine outside the town. They crossed ditches and boulders and finally reached the stream. There they collected crabs. In the excitement of the chase all count of time was lost. When they started on the return journey, it was getting dark. It was very difficult to climb the boulders. Meanwhile the parents were upset. Servants were sent out with lamps to look for the children. But no one imagined that they could have gone up to the ravine. It was quite dark when the children reached home, tired hungry and with bleeding feet. But the leader of the team, Birbal, was quite composed. The father angrily said to him, "Why did you go away without telling any one—and that with your younger brother and sister?" Birbal calmly answered, "To catch crabs." The father exclaimed, "Crabs, indeed!" But he checked his angry and said nothing more, because he himself loved adventures. He often took his children with him on excursions to hilly regions, much more dangerous. Once Birbal accompanied his father to Kotgarh near Tibet in the beginning of September 1908. There they met the famous Swedish scientist Dr. Sven Hedin who was returning after completing his exploration in Tibet. Years later, when Birbal became a famous scientist, the Royal Swedish Academy of sciences felicitated him at a meeting. Among the distinguished invitees was the good old Dr. Sven Hedin. Birbal reminded him of his earlier meeting with Dr. Sven Hedin thirty-eight years before. The old scientist was delighted.

The most notable and thrilling excursion Birbal undertook with his father was to Zozila Pass in 1911. Wearing special footwear made of rope they crossed the Machoi glacier. Looking down they saw the figure of a horse, which seemed to have been carved in ice. The horse had been frozen to death amidst the snow long long before. Further there was an awe-inspiring fissure that gave them a shudder. It was in this area that Birbal found and collected a rare variety of snow alga called red snow. When later in the same year he went to England for higher studies, he took that sample of red snow with him. At Cambridge an eminent palaeobotanisrt, Professor A.C. Seward examined the sample and appreciated Birbal’s interest.

Birbal was not only intelligent but also hard worker. And he was as interested in the study of languages as in the study of science. He stood first in Sanskrit at the Matriculation Examination of Punjab University. In later years his interest in Sanskrit deepened. He learnt German, French and Persian languages also.