Rode to heaven ... Through hell-Day 4

The mechanic took a grueling 6 hours yesterday...no,no...not on the bikes, but to wait for the turn. Eventually I had to fix half the bike myself. I realized, The route is a killer and almost 10 bikes at the mechanic shop had only 2 problems, worn out clutch plates and disc brake pads.

Thanks to the mechanic and the weather(it's cold and one doesn't feel thirsty), I get up with a hangover sort of headache. I drink a lot of water and take a tablet to avoid altitude sickness as we will be gaining a lot of altitude today.
Looking at the sky brings some relief and a smile, it's sunny.

A fly hovers around my cup of tea, a begger begs next to me, with one hand I shove away the fly and with other hand make a roll of my parantha and push it down my throat. My rubber gum boot bites me at 2 places and I imagine my feet having blisters like Karishma's on the saurkundi trek.

We are informed that the bridge has collapsed but the BRO (border roads organization) has repaired the road somehow to allow traffic to pass. There is a stream of water about 2 feet high to be crossed to continue towards Leh.

For next few hours it's only nice roads, dry weather and the thud-thud of bullet.
There are many bad patches of roads that we cross, mainly the pain is water crossing where you cross water streams of high speed flowing water about 2 feet high and 10 to 20 meters wide.

We are joined by another british couple who occasionally need our help at the water crossings.

Our target for today is Pang and by 8 pm we are just about 10 kilometers away from it when we see there is a patch of road about 20 meters wide washed away by water. There is a whole river flowing where a few hours ago used to be a road. I try to step in to see how deep the water is and am almost swallowed by the river. The water is only knee deep but the flow is so fast I can't stand there for a second. The water is super super super cold and terrible fast flowing and if this was not all, we are at 15000 feet and oxygen is scarce. Ever blown at an ant sitting on your hand and itching you???? We felt like that....We have just 2 options, cross it risking life or die here of hypothermia.
We park our bikes on this side and form a human chain and one step at a time cross the stream heavily panting and thanking ourself we are alive.
Now all 5 of us grab 1 bike with full force at a time and with slow and firm feet cross the river stream, come back, take the second bike(which almost fell off), come back take the third bike (and everytime my gum boots get filled with ice cold water and I empty them again and again and cry with pain from cold) and this whole process takes half an hour and my feet are numb. They are so numb I can't feel them(those who did saurkundi trek with me will understand) and request my t-shirt to be burnt with petrol to get some heat, unfortunately the match box is wet and the lighter doesn't work due to lack of oxygen...ggrrrhhhh.....I scream out at god for few minutes....
Half dead I reach Pang and like god was listening to my painful groan, there is a stove lit outside the tent we plan to live in. I warm my feet and since I can't feell them, I actually end up burning them a little....
Dinner and sleep, forget about them ..the lack of oxygen is working on us, almost all of us feel all the symptoms of altitude sickness.....including the bikes.... The combustion inside the bikes is half done and this has reduced the bullets to a mere hero-puch at this altitude.
I sleep but with cold feet and difficulty in breathing.

Rode to heaven ... Through hell-Day 3

Naggar is a small silent town, I have loved my stay here. It's a little off the map for Indian tourists and one finds mostly foreigners here. Thankfully there are no honeymoon couples, no mall road, no fast food joints, no beggers, no roadside stalls selling shiny trinkets, no glass boxes marked STD-ISD-PCO, no raunchy posters of third grade movies.

It has been raining non stop for last 24 hours, Harish, our local friend says it has never rained so much here, I blame it on the global warming.
It's about 4 in the morning and we have to leave now to reach the desired destination by sunset.
We are now 5 people on 3 bikes.
With sleep deprived and rum rich red eyes we start our bikes and start riding through rain, fog, slush and wind and to add to the irony, Bryan Adams is singing in my ears ''the summer of 69''. There are apple trees like weed here, Almost every 30 seconds I see an apple fallen on the road and want to pick it but nobody else stops.

We plan to reach Sarchu today.

Driving at this time is a pain and like 'cream on my cappuchino', I have 'water inside my jacket'. I have only heard from people about the road to rohtang pass and it sure sounds scary, I will experience it first hand today.

Riding through rain and fog and bad roads we reach a little before Rohtang pass and see trafic piled up. Guess what!!!! There is a land slide and we see a whole hill slowly sliding down in parts on the road ahead. naaahh...if you thought we would stop here.... You are wrong. Like idea out of emptied bottle of whisky, 2 of us decide to stand on either side of the landslide and signal the bike riders to cross in a jiffy to avoid falling rocks. This done, we start again but the road is pure hell now. Imagine this, get one truck load each of water, loose gravel, mud, large rocks, cow dung and some sharp stones and you are asked to ride through this and not just this, on one side you have a deep gorge waiting for you. This was the sort of road we got.
Abhishek has had some 4 falls in just 3 hours of riding. The road is bad and the bikes are taking a toll because of the altitude and the roads or better say 'no roads'.
Ruchir had no idea before starting from Delhi that the trip will be like this and he is extremly unhappy but haa to stick-on with us now. He says .... ''kamino, tumney merey holiday ka adventure banwa diya'' he doesn't know this is just the tip of iceberg.

The exuberant melodious thumping of a royal enfield bullet trudging up the steep roads is the best sound you can hear in the hills.
Slowly but continously and agonizingly riding we reach Keylong and decide to get the bikes fixed upon knowing there is a mechanic here. As we park our bikes, a group of people standing on a corner of the hill facing the road to Leh scream out ...''beh gaya...oye beh gaya'' ...washed away oye washed away ..we ask them ...''what???'' and are told, the bridge has been washed away by a landslide. Awestruck, we look at each other's face not knowing what to say ... We would have been crossing that bridge had we not decided to stop at the mechanic. What did we just do??? Escaped death once again.
Now that the road is closed we stay at night at Keylong in a hotel. This is when we realise we are short of cash because nobody remembered to withdraw cash at Manali. We beg money from fellow riders and promise them to pay at Leh.

Escaped danger at rohtang pass landslide, keylong bridge collapse, begged money from passing by motorcyclists and sweetheart, this is just the begining.
Oh man....what a day!!! I am off to bed like a dead body and later have a dream of being hit by a truck and thrown off the hill into the river ...the whole night I see eagles and vultures hovering over my head.

Rode to heaven ... Through hell-Day 1 & 2

Tring tring ... It's my phone. It's 4 in the morning. It's still dark outside, only a faint light of a street lamp enters the room through the tinted glass of the window. It's silent except the noise of the ceiling fan, a dog barks outside, the laptop's blue light blinks every 2 second telling me it's in sleep mode. The room is still scatterred from the packing last night. The bag looks very small for going to ladakh but it has all the things I need. I take the bag and move out silently leaving the door unlocked, they would understand I have left.
I meet Akarsh at 5 in Delhi and start off with a target to reach Manali by evening.
My joblessness doesn't allow me to ride the bike. I am giving the bike on sort of rent for the trip to avoid the petrol and bike's expenses, however this means I get a chance to see the beauty of the valley without worrying about the driving, not a good tradeoff though if you are a motorcyclist.
I meet Akarsh, Abhi, Ruchir and start riding. We have the Indian tricolor on our bikes and seem to be attracting lot of attention.
The roads are good and after a long exhausting ride we reach Naggar (near Manali, where we stop at a friend's place) by night 8. We eat some dinner and are off to sleep.
The next day is also spent in Naggar relishing some local food and a small trip to Manali in the afternoon to buy some essentials for the trip.
Manali has a general purposelesness hung heavy in it's atmosphere. It's crammed, new and ugly.
I am under impression this is going to be a cake walk, only to have a face off with reality later.

A question from "Samaaj" ...

Well.. this one is for the "samaaj" ....I was asked a question related to my so called "joblessness" ...
"So ... kuch kamana wamana hai life mein ya saari umar naukri chod ke he baithna hai?? koi goal hai life ka?"

I didn't think about it at that time but later in the evening the following thought striked... don't know how to expalin this to them... anyways.. they won't understand ...

Life has no aim .... Life's aim is life itself. Higher life, deeper life, more life but life itself.

Life is the aim of everything. Hence, life cannot have an aim other than life itself.


We all carry a hollow inside us. Like my hollow is for travel. . .as long as that hollow is not filled . . I will be restless.

When I listened to my heart and shut my mind down ...

Not all was going well in life and when this happens, you start thinking much about life.

A thought struck me that when I die, god will ask me just one question ... ''son, I gave you a life...did you live it'' ...and I knew the answer was a big NO. I decided that I would listen to what my heart says and stop thinking from the mind. I decided to start living my life the individual's way not the crowd's way now and do things that make me happy. Travel was one thing that has always kept my spirits high, so I decided to travel, only to realize later that this was just the beginning of a very joyful life.



To start with I decided to travel from bangalore to delhi on my bike. On the way, I stopped in Mangalore in the campus of NITK Surathkal with few friends for 5 days and decided to do a trek in Kumara Parvata and it was fun, great joy and peace was over me. We spent a night in the forest on the peak and since some calculations went wrong, we were without food and shelter there. We somehow managed to light a fire to avoid any wild animals and slept under the open sky. After a really really long time I saw the night sky in full glory, oh, what a scene to behold it was. I tried to sleep but was woken up at about 2 am by a nightmare of wild animals surrounding us. As I woke up I looked towards the forest and saw that the sky had come down on earth and the stars were twinkling right next to me and they were scattered all around and it was really very pleasant, I don't know if there is god, but it sure was an experience of godliness, and then as I rubbed my eyes in disbelief, I realised that it wasn't the sky but these were a million fireflies in the dark of the forest displaying their magnificient show only for me (until I woke up others). It was ....it was ... Words are so bad ..you can never find a good one when you need it. While returning from the trek we stopped at a river bank and ended spending a full day there doing nothing. I realised on this day that doing nothing is very difficult because you never know when you finished.

I left mangalore and headed towards gokarna with a plan to spend a night there on the OM shaped beach. This was another beautiful experience.

Further on my travel I stopped for lunch at a place called Jhulwania in MP and met a few people who looking at my bike guessed that I am a traveller and asked me to visit a nearby place called bawangaja, there qas nothing here of interest and I ended up spending the night in a small town called Bhidwani. In a dramatic turn of events I met Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy here. These are 2 people I have been wanting to meet from a really long time.

This was the day I heard my heart talking to my soul and saying ... . ''listen to the heart and I will keep you happy...forever..... Mind will give you money and material pleasure....but heart will give you eternal joy''.

Just a week out on travel and I have spent a night in open, trekked amazing peak, felt godliness, spent a day at river, met people like Medha and Arundhati and above all....felt content....

Of lost love and Life ahead ...

In unchaiyon se meri bhook mite,
In jharno se mein trapt ho jaon,
Yeh pawan azaad hai, chanchal hai,
Is pawan sa ho jaon, kuch aisa kar do....

Is parvat pe mera dam nikley,
Is shweth barf mein dafn ho jaon,
Woh shweta thee, shweth thee,
Is shweth mein samaa jaon, kuch aisa kar do....


Is phool sa mehek paaon,
Is fal se mithas paaon,
Yeh paed sharaabi hai, madhosh hai,
Is paed sa jhoom paon, kuch aisa kar do...

Is titli se udna seekhon,
Is bhanwarey se khush hona seekhon,
Woh kaaran thee, astitva thee,
Is astitva ko jee paaon, kuch aisa kar do...

Chai Chilam Chappati Charpai

A cow moans outside the window and I am woken up. The room is still dark and it's cloudy outside. It's eight in the morning and I desperately need a cup of Chai.
I am in Manali... just the name strikes a few chords inside. This is a place with something to offer to every soul. I have myself been here 4 times and have found something new every time. Life here revolves around four things, chai, chilam, chappati and charpai.
Get up in the morning, drink a nice piping hot cup of Chai, eat something (Chappati) and then there would be definitely someone to offer you Chilam, smoke it, and go to bed (charpai) and ‘repeat’. Oh man ... isn't this the life everyone wants to live....




I was referred by a friend from Delhi to his friend in Manali and that's it, my stay and food for one week has been free and on top of that as the 'pahadi' culture has it, he has taken great care of me. He has shown me the local joints and places which otherwise would not have been possible. I have made some really good friends in the market.

One day, I was invited by a friend into his shop to talk over a cup of chai and I see a photograph amidst the photos of gods in his shop, the photograph of a lake, a lake like I have never seen before. Upon asking details he says this is Parashar lake, It's about 60 kilometers from here and this is a holy place with a temple on the bank of the lake. There used to be a sage with name "Parashar" and the locals believe in him and the temple was made by the local king during his times. There is a yearly fair that happens on the lake.

The next day I pickup my day pack and head towards the place. I am told to board a bus upto Bhutar and from there ask for lift as no public transport goes in that direction. I get lucky to get into a truck, which is being used to carry stones for building the road very close to the lake. The truck driver turns out to be a very nice guy and drops me off about 12 kilometers from the lake from where it's an easy trek. He also offers me his water bottle and a few apples for the trek ahead.

The first glance at the lake and I am short of words, there is just a shriek moan that came out. I rush down to the lake and park myself just a few meters away from the lake. Ahh, the beauty of it....

I stay here for a few hours and eat the tastiest 'daal-chaawal' at a small canteen nearby. I returned with a heavy heart back to the place where the road was being built and again someone drops me at the road on Bhuntar. Another 4 hours by bus and I am back in Manali.
I smoke a chilam and am off to bed. I am told in morning next day that I was smiling the whole night, they thought it was the extra charas in the chilam... but I know what it was ............