JustSomewhereAlone

This time it’s the Trail Survivor Course @ Mahindra Adventure Off-Road Academy, Igatpuri One of the many amazing highlights of this whole thing was the confidence the instructors have in the vehicle and their experience. They don’t judge you as a driver, they push you in the pool. We, Pooja and I, reach the gate at reporting time. Beautiful place, weather and the cars parked. Manish, Head Off-Road Academy, asks Satinder – one of the 4 senior instructors, to fetch us to the training site in one of the Thars. Excited, we follow Satinder who says, “come, you will drive it from here”. Our jaws drop! We have never even sat on a driver’s seat of any 4x4… and this is Thar – the boss! The dilemma: get embarrassed by refusing him or get embarrassed by doing something stupid?! We chose the latter. Remember that feeling when you were crushing over someone and they came up to you and said “Hi”? How that word promised the possibility of a beautiful forever? That’s how the first ‘vroom’ ...

Chadar Trek is listed among world's top 5 dangerous treks. Chadar is a sheet of ice that forms in winter on Zanskar River, a tributary of Indus, in Leh-Ladakh. It came into limelight after BBC Human Planet did a documentary ‘Chadar – The Most Dangerous School Run' in the 90s. That's when even I had wished to meet the Zanskaris. I got to know about the trek when I visited Leh in the summer of 2014. I was obsessed with Zanskar and this year, even though I was not prepared, I had to go, and so I went. I saw heaven, hell and some magic! Beauty: The last point of the trail is called Nerak a village that has the biggest frozen waterfall. The Zanskari locals (porters) jocularly say "you go through Swarg (heaven) to reach Narak (Nerak)." The river is a powerful, ruthless, seductive beauty. She does things to your brain. Her water invites you. At times when I was alone, she tried to manipulate me by singing 'how heavenly it would be to be one with her'. Her ...

That place where you can see a rainbow touch the ground…  the place that each one of us used to draw as kids – with hills, a house, a mango tree, a river and farms… that’s the place I got to visit, for real! Here I sat under a mango tree and made time-lapse videos of clouds forming and raining over just one village far far away before slowly coming towards us. An entire afternoon of natural calm that no meditation can ever give. This is my friend’s village. In it is his sweet home overseeing a lake and his farm stretched across the other three sides, as far as eyes can see. A village where half of the people are relatives and other half are friends to whom you gossip and brag about the relatives. Here, you don’t have to shop for food supplies because you can just walk into anyone’s plantation and get what you need or just ask and they will bring it to you. Everyone gave me a little taste of everything they produced, to take home with me. I have everything I will need...

A wiser-than-his-age friend recently said to me, "It's you who's haunting your Dad. Let him rest, finally." That was when I started seeing less of my Dad in dreams. For the entire year, since we lost him, I was seeing him every single night. Why am I posting this in a travel blog, because this changed my life and I realised how much I love being alone – and it is addictive. Traveling alone takes me closer to him. This is something I wrote when I lost him in 2015: Lost my dad to cancer. He gave the toughest fight – when doctors said a month max, he fought for 8. It was inspiring to watch him fight every day. He was a scientist, not just by profession. He researched on every little detail of the disease, more out of curiosity than finding cures. He explained it to us with brilliant examples, awed by the discoveries – as if Rajiv Makhni was explaining the technology behind a new world-changing gadget. For us, the last 8 months were all about #cancer. Except...

The huge hills seem so alive, intensely protecting the tiny villages nestled between their feet. The villages live happily inside the valleys. And the beautiful Zanskar river dances through those hills, full of attitude, like a pampered daughter. Those hills, who can scare anyone, seem to be looking at her with pride. She brings color to their brown lives; she brings life itself. Like a daddy’s princess, she is always happy, swaying, jumping and glistening, except for those rare times when she gets pensive and mature. She can easily seduce any living being into settling down beside her forever... Within those hills, I felt like home. That feeling when your Dad holds the tiny you in his arms, you fit in perfectly into them, you close your eyes and you are safe forever. When I looked up at those towering hills, they gave me hope. The assuring stillness said, “everything will be alright. We will always look over you.” I was happy again, like that river!       ...

I’m spending more time in my car than at home! It’s Work-Drive-Work-Drive… and I’m loving every second of it!!!   Work, it’s my fallback, it’s my strength, my escape, it’s my kinda meditation. And the road... it never stops to amaze me. There are a thousand stories on the road, you just have to know how to read them ( especially  when you are stuck). I also add my favourite background score to it sometimes. So, finally I’m living the hippie life, a Corporate Hippie. Sailing through the monsoon, literallllyyyy! Nothing like a piece of solitude before facing the day head on, somewhere in my own city... just somewhere alone...

The song:   While saying goodbye, my sulking wife says "You will hold hands of beautiful women, You save them, while I wait for you in this cold..." The only reason people survive the Chadar Trek is because of the Zanskari locals called 'porters'. These porters have magical powers, they can save lives! Yet, they are innocent, the purest of souls ever existed. Most enthusiastic, resilient, fun-loving and respectful. They look small in form but carry our luggage double their weight on craziest of paths. Laughing when they fall and singing while climbing hills - still helping people on the way. Each one of them saving hundreds of lives every year. I imagine them to be those small mythical creatures from fairy tales who come to life just to help someone and become part of woods and trees and land and mountains when their work is done. Coming back only to help again.