When life’s nearly normal, there isn’t much to write. Such a shame.

It’s true, normal people (who didn’t know by age 3 that they wanted to be a writer, and a writer only!)  need to be in really bad s**t to be able to write… anything.

Statement 1: You listen to love songs only when you aren’t in love. Typically, you imagine how nice it’d be to have someone who generates ‘that’ feeling in you without the use of any chemicals. (Or I have just made an embarrassing confession).
Statement 2: Love songs are terribly popular.
1+2 : Perhaps love is rarer than you think.

I don’t enjoy fiction anymore.
I am not sure if I enjoy reading any more.
I wonder if I ever did.

I have changed a lot. Just as I suspected I would. My life isn’t what I thought it would be. (Yeah, as if that one’s new.)

I still find it easier to agree with scientists who don’t contradict my beliefs. That, hasn’t changed though.

Will check in some time later.

Hop, skip a few years to when I bought an LCD TV. And worse, I started watching TV. Have you been paying attention to ads lately? I have, and I am convinced that there is a conspiracy to traumatize me and many other unsuspecting women when all we want to do is watch Master Chef Australia or Man Vs Food!

Let me explain. First, be worried. Very worried. Why? Let me start from the top, from that crowning glory of dead cells called hair. If you thought that the only thing that you had to worry about was gray hair, think again. Did you know that there are ‘five problems of hair – hair fall, dry hair, dull hair, rough hair and split ends’? I fondly recall the simple days when my Dad would give me 10 paise per silver hair I snipped off his head. Oh, now of course, you can color your hair and retain your boyfriends (perhaps add a few more) while also ‘strengthening your hair’!

Next, the face. The face consists of the forehead, the eyes, the region below the eyes, cheeks, lips and chin. Each of these can be further sub-divided into their constituent parts. And each of these constituent parts have their own set of problems, which of course can be combated by this under-eye cream or that black head remover or this oil-control face wash. And of course, like one of the perfect-skinned ladies in the ads says, ‘it’s all talk, talk, talk’. In case you have a lot of time to spare, here’s an idea. Why don’t you spend your time measuring your skin tone against the helpful ‘fairness scale’ that your fairness cream comes with. It is bound to help you evolve. Dark spots, dull spots, wrinkles are only few of the problems that you can face when it comes to your face. Switch on a TV set near you to know more.

Let’s move downward now. The under-arm has never received as much attention in the history of mankind as it does now. Gone are the days when under arm hair-removal was the only expected thing. Now, boys and girls alike are expected to smell of roses 24 hours a day! And the lesser said about the tragic consequences of wet patches, the better. Three cheers for equality though, John Abraham needs to worry about it as much as the girls need to! It is a little freaky to imagine little atoms of aluminium plugging up those poor little sweat glands so that sweat can stay inside. A whole lot of bleedin’ good that will surely do for you!

Let’s move on. Let me introduce you to this special perceptive cream which knows that ‘parts of your body are darker than your face’. Oh, can you imagine the horror of having a face-to-body shade mismatch. Of course, just ignore the obvious fact that for most people the body is fairer since everyone generally wears clothes. After all, they need to sell creams and it is alright to get you to doubt whether you are color blind.

By now, I am sure you recall many many more of those edifying ads! So let’s waste no time and jump to the feet.

Cracks are only the beginning of the problem with your feet.

Hey, come to think of it, there aren’t as many foot creams advertised in the country as there should be. Maybe I am not watching enough television to know what can go wrong there. Or maybe there’s some space for a cream company to capture. Is anyone listening?

A bunch of Landmark volunteers stood at the doors of the huge building, formal phony smiles firmly in place. I was a mere ‘guest’, so I received a hand-written plain white name tag. ‘Volunteers’ (people who had attended the Forum already but were here to help out of the generosity of their hearts) got a yellow one, participants a pink one. Those higher up in the hierarchy seemingly had a neatly typed hard-card name tag. Oooh. Subtly yet firmly differentiated. We moved in, more energetic smiles. I heard vague ringing in my head. Something familiar about the energy in this place… people moved around, some very briskly. I knew this, I was in one of those evangelization meetings I’d seen on TV!

We took our seats, the ‘coach’ took the podium. Most ‘participants’ responded to him like a herd of sheep to the shepherd. Like the People’s Temple must have responded to Jim Jones? I wheeled through the hand-out I had been given at the entrance. It talked good, common sense stuff. I recognized some Eastern Philosophy here, some Western there, some reminded me of my MBA courses – Perception, Filters, Impression Management. I was a tad disgusted when I discovered the registration form for upcoming sessions in Bangalore attached to the brochure. Certainly presumptuous. The coach set the agenda, ‘first this is a closing session for the participants’, ‘you will witness their breakdowns and breakthroughs’, ‘they will share what they learnt. And we will tell you what LF is all about and then you can all register’. Umm, ok. Why did K bring me here? Perhaps he thought I was too far out and needed help? I threw a look at him but swallowed my question.

Soon, the first participant took  the stage to share the ‘possibility’ that he had created for himself. The little fellow (let’s call him Little) pulled himself up to the microphone and announced with well-meaning gusto, “I have created the possibility of 135 new friends”. Oops, wrong answer. The coach swoops in to save the situation. ’135? Just 135? What about the rest? So what you are actually saying  is that you have created a Little who can have 135 friends and many many more. A world of friends’. Little nods and grins. Phew, saved just in time. I cringe a little but hold on to my seat. That’s not corny at all; no, this is starting to be fun. And we, the guests are thus introduced to the first in a series of Landmark Terminology – possibility, rackets, strong suits, authenticity all take on a special significance in this room.

The canvassing for registrations is unapologetic. On one side, you are bombarded with how every one of the ‘participants’ brought you here without any incentive to themselves to share in something revolutionary that they had experienced, on how selfless the whole deal is. On the other, you are told calmly that you can make the payment right away by cash, credit or cheque. If you can’t afford to spit out the 7800 bucks you need, don’t worry; pay us 1100 now, and the rest later! Landmark is one ‘missionary’ organization that doesn’t hide its slavering greed in the folds of self-righteous condemnation of the ‘lost peoples’ of the world. That’s certainly refreshing.

We hear ‘testimonials’ from people. One guy talks about how he stopped stammering after attending the Landmark forum. There’s positive reinforcement from the sheep – ‘you haven’t stammered even once now on stage, brother’. Shouting out your love for your wife / husband / ex-husband / ex-boyfriends / mummy / daddy / Ashok / Sonu / Babloo and assorted others from the dais seems to be in fashion this evening. It almost had me teary-eyed. It’s apparently called ‘open communication’. Gosh, these people could finally talk! I almost screamed ‘Alleluia’ in rhythm. Strangers shouted out to strangers ‘We are family now’. I edge closer to my seat. The drama sure is getting better. But how long can I hold on? And then comes the clincher. A half hour of dedicated canvassing time. The ‘volunteer hawks’ fan around to pounce on us unsuspecting li’l mice. Mr. Software Company Head (SCH) swoops down on K’s ‘guests’ – his cousin Vick and moi. He plies me with questions aimed at boxing me in to believing that I need help. Desperately need help. He promises that attending the Forum is THE one-stop solution to all problems at work, life, love and the after-life. I could achieve business results like never before, learn to conquer fear, not get irritated when my boss called me on a Friday evening, be punctual, walk on water. Ok, he didn’t talk about walking on water. I told him I did not appreciate the way he was hard-selling it to me. Mr. SCH even promised me that I would find out who I was in three days. I puckered up, now these guys had some nerve. But a cool, uncompromising stance will take you everywhere with fanatics who do not carry guns. I decided it was time to end the drama nicely. But before I could utter a word, I suspect Mr. SCH mentally classified me as one of the ‘Uncoachables’ and made his much awaited exit. To his credit, he was hopeful to the very end. “I hope to see you again’, he nodded to me. “If life brings me here… and it was interesting talking to you”, I nodded and smiled back.

Peer pressure abounds, guests being asked to register for the first level course by participants, participants being badgered good-naturedly by other participants and volunteers into registering for the advanced course. K did. He said his analyst mind was caught up in the whole thing – he wanted to crack it. Many of the guests did make a beeline for the registration table. I hope they all don’t go under the spell for too long a time – any one can easily be the victim of these tactics. Perhaps they look for the solution in the wrong places. It’s just like all these women (and men now) who go out and buy fairness creams though they know deep down inside that it won’t make them TV anchors the following week.

LF may make some troubled people (who I guesstimate constitute 89% of the population) temporarily forget their woes, but if they don’t break the initial spell cast on them, Landmark can drain their coffers through the slew of courses they offer; so many that in all probability after you are done with them, your number’s up! If they could tone down their rhetoric of claiming exclusive access to the elixir of a great life forever after, sane people might stop bad-mouthing them and they might still be doing business in France.

One can understand LF through many lenses. So what’s my take? Call it group psychotherapy with a dash of convoluted philosophy and a sprinkling of common sense, doled out over three days where you put critical reasoning to rest and pay 8000 rupees for all the trouble. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It may do good to you, but only as long as you know when to get out!

Interesting links on LF:

LF for cats (my favorite)
LF syllabus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hkbrjwidY&feature=related
Download video: The LF story in France

As far as the cellphone goes, I was one of those Early Adopters that the Marketing books praise with glee. As soon as I had the money to afford a cellphone connection, not-so-way-back in 2003, I got myself an RPG connection that had me coughing up-to 1.00 rupee a minute for an incoming call. Yes, there was a time like that, remember, way before the musical days of DododoCoMomomo or ‘namma number Uninor.’ And my first cellphone was a hand-me-down from Pop, a lovely Motorola which resembled a toy-phone-pencil box more than a cellphone. Joyous was the day I received the next used phone from Pop, a lovely little Nokia 8150 – a style statement, the smallest cellphone in circulation, the first among phones that could be safely strung around your neck without the risk of spondylitis. What the heck, even my much revered project manager carried one. Whirr….Round black and white spiral…screen going hazy…fast forward to somewhere around current day.

I was just like you. All the scientific mumbo-jumbo you hear about the cellphone being an extension of the vibrational energy you project on to the electromagnetic spectrum of the cosmic background wave radiation applied to me as well. All was peaceful with this no-fuzz link up to the cosmos; it worked as well as the Na’avi’s high-tech tail fiber linkup to the universe and everything else. My life seamlessly merged with my Nokia 6233, a delightful symphony of electronics that thrilled me with its Bose-quality speakers and an ample 150 tracks + radio + camera + alarm clock. The corporate plan meant that I could have one-word conversations on the phone with my friends. Then one day, it happened.

I lost my mobile phone.

And then another, and another.

And yet another.

Fact break: There are 15 million cellphones sold every month in India; 509 million people have cellphone connections. That is a lot of people, and a lot of cellphones.

Practically every second person you see has a cellphone. To know the ‘innest’ cellphone, you don’t have to look beyond the nearest auto driver. And amidst the teeming masses tuned in to cell phones, here I was, phoneless. The junkie-cum-serial cellphone loser. The fourth time it happened (or was it the fifth), it was too much; I decided it was time to give rehab a shot.

Here’s a wave-by-wave account.

Day 0
Two hours post Hour Zero, I realize my cellphone is missing. (For those interested on what happened this time, I left my lowly Motorola at the Juice Junction counter across the street from my office. Someone helped themselves to it.)

Day 1
I do not have an alarm clock. How do I wake up now? Do I have to simply trust the sun peeking through my window?

Phantom phone syndrome is full on. I miss the comforting block of plastic near my pillow. The mind struggles to come to terms with the reality of this loss. Is this it?

Day 2-3
My friends go bonkers. But some are quietly supportive on the outside. I struggle without an alarm clock. And then I struggle to make a free alarm software work on the Mac. I fail.

I am late for work again. And even when I am there, they all imply that I might not last the day. (Due thanks to Dido)

Day 4-6
Still struggling with the alarm clock.
My friends are getting less supportive. They can’t keep up with my slow life.
Damn, was there a time we relied on pigeon mail?

Day 7-8
Not having a cellphone is the new luxury.
My landline doubles up as the alarm clock.
I now have a new phonebook made of paper.

Tell me again, when did landlines lose their charm?

Day 9-12

The boss is mad too; I am threatened by office colleagues.
There is serious talk about a ‘Phone-4-Anichris’ Fund-raising campaign.

Day 13 onwards
I am disconnected. I talk less. I am happy. I chose who I want to call. This is an interesting feeling.

Day 30
I am at peace. But people around me want me back. This is stupid, some say.
How can you turn your back on us like this, they ask. They mock. They fret.
I can understand their envy.
I am being pulled back, drawn in again. Slowly, surely.

Day 38
I have succumbed to the pressure. Others had to take a hit for me – that did it. You know, it’s just frustrating enough to answer your own calls; it’s hard when your phone rings and it’s actually for someone sitting next to you. The corporate world plays villain, again. I buy a little plastic Nokia with an LED torchlight (wow, talk about ishtyle!). The universe, however wants me to wait a little longer.

Day 40
Now Jesus spent 40 days in the desert en route to Enlightenment
Forty days it was before I got an active cellphone in my hand.
Now Lent is 40 days, so is Advent
Ascension is 40 days after the Resurrection
Forty days was Moses in the Mount until he received the Law
Forty days was Noah in the Ark

Interesting co-incidence, most certainly.

I am back on now. My electromagnetic ‘tail’ is connected and constantly contributing to the radio waves out there. I disconnect sometimes, just switch off, miss a few calls, stay out of reach. For just a while.

Otherwise, well, I am just like you – an always on cell phone junkie.

‘Just a week for Christmas’, the motivational refrain I chanted to get through those exam weeks

Sleepless monsoon afternoons spent mugging everything from Tamil poetry to the properties of the Malvaceae family

The Tamil month of Margazhi meant revising Trigonometry theorems to the toneless tune of  devotional music merged from four different temples on cold December mornings

Bleary eyes that were jarred awake by colorful kolams that always held a dollop of dung and the five-petalled yellow pumpkin flower in the centre… Margazhi, an inauspicious month for weddings, but the right time to petition the gods for a good husband

Closer and closer to Christmas…

Carol singers with jarring music blaring out of a moving van, always on the night of the 22nd

Ungainly, tall Santas with small paunches who always muddied the carpet in the hall

A guilt-filled hour stolen for card-shopping before English II Paper

Ah, the day when sis and I would bring down the cardboard carton with the little shepherds and kings and Joseph and Mary and little Jesus and the left-over straw and all the old ‘mountain’ paper that’d stain our hands black

Casuarina Christmas trees with copper sulphate-blue streamers and little chocolates and serial lights that in retrospect were very real fire hazards

Ah… the Casuarina Christmas tree, meticulously decorated with the choicest cards from the uncles and aunties and friends; dainty Santas, gaudy angels, silver bells, golden stars, colorful balls… more decoration, less tree!

Rituals developed, improvised and matured over the years to a richness matched only by good rumm-ilicious plum cake.

The last-minute scramble for ‘mountain’ paper, for sticks and rope for the crib, the lonely battle to make a stable mountain-manger-crib for Baby Jesus, the reluctant brother pitching in, braving electric shocks to coax serial lights back to life, Dad being progressively begged, bothered and then harassed into getting that casuarina branch for a Christmas tree, midnight Mass, the smell of new clothes worn never before, dozing over the priest’s long-winded sermon, ritual cake after church, Christmas day drinking sessions – awaited with bated breath by my Dad’s male friends and dreaded by their wives.

All too familiar rituals that leave a peaceful feeling and a lump in the throat as one grows older…

There is an undeniably pleasant flavour to indulging in Christmas… even if Sunday morning Mass is but a distant memory, even if faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has been long buried; some comfort in having a few things that seem worth jealously holding on to against time, tide and greying hair.

Like coffee. Coffee invigorates. Coffee energizes. So we made sure we stayed away from it for two lazy days in the coffee estates of Chikmagalur! Actually, ‘coffee forests’ would be a more fitting term to describe the acres of plantations in Chikmagalur. Reams of rich deep green carpet the landscape. The coffee berries are out in full force now; some are a resplendent red agaisnt the deep green – it’s a sight for the sore soul. Others await the merry sunshine to blush into that shade of red that warms the coffee-planter’s heart.

The jeep safari to our camping site rattles us down to our bone marrow. ‘It’s daily business’; our driver nonchalantly brushes off our observation on the difficulty of driving on a road on its last lap of existence.

The brooding clouds add generously to the magical eerieness of the campsite. We walk to the sunset/sunrise view point – it is splendid. We are at the very edge of the cliff and there is a sheer drop to the valley below. We sit down on the bare rocks. On closer inspection, we see that the ‘bare rocks’ are of course, teeming with life that’s very capable of crawling up our legs. Ants and a variety of bugs make themselves confortable in the damp mossy forest floor. Bright red spore capsules, all of a centimetre tall, provide a contrast to the moss’ glass green (Darn, should have gotten Kiwi to take a close-up snap!)

There’s all kinds of food – delicious Nutella-Banana sandwiches which overnight turned into Ant-ella sandwiches with some insistent ants drowning in the Nutella. (I wonder how it would be to drown in a Nutella river, or pond if you like?) There’s a big citrusy fruit we do not know the name of and the largest cucumber I have ever seen generously donated by the caretaker Ranganna. We also manage to pull together something that remotely resembles sambar rice and veggies.

It’s time to pitch tents – never knew it was so much fun. And time-lapse photography takes grip. You can see the very funny results here.

Engineering brains are put to good use as the guys build a tripod that supports an umbrella to protect the camera while capturing the clouds at a rate of 1 shot a minute… results here! I quietly rue the lack of a chicken that could have roasted gently over a warm fire ably aided by the tripod. Yeah, good roast wild chicken would have done marvellous justice to that tripod! I know atleast one other member of the group felt the same way too!

Some unnecessary brain exercise follows – for the record, I hereby state that the longest game in the history of ‘bluff’ lasting 3.5 hours was played in a 4-person Wildcraft tent under stormy conditions on a remote hilltop in a coffee plantation somewhere near the town of Aldur which is around 12 km from Chikmagalur. Needless to say, the nuances of faking things was lost on yours truly. Indeed, I was the richest player with the thickest stack of cards through most of the game!

Time blinks by. Time to return, the townsfolk looking at us quizzically, wondering why we city-folk want to be there anyway. A change of scene and scenery? To get away… from what?  The trick, as we city-folk know, is to get out of there before the inconveniences get to us.

Chikmagalur – Camping, time-lapse photography, building tripods, cooking and chopping and cleaning! And cards! Hey, this wasn’t such a lazy trip after all, was it?

Credits: Photo and Videos – Kiwi

For a moment, I take my eyes off the little one. ‘Do you want to buy a night shirt? They are really cute!’ I search for a reply, but all I can muster is ‘well i have quite a few already’. She curls her lips in disappointment but is shy to say too much, unlike her younger sister. I stand back and watch her. She is all of 13-years old and has the poise of a woman already. Graceful and shy, mildly self-conscious yet with the composure of a lady. Now a girl, a woman the next minute.

The respite is over. The little one is on the move again. Ice cream time! Next the fairy wants a scary tattoo. She picks a dragon and proceeds to stick it on her arm. The dragon survives a complete 9 minutes before it is squashed into colorless plastic. She offers me the leftover tattoo stickers. She then offers to  bite my arm – “it’s chicken”. Before the next second “there are little tigers on your shirt”, she squeals. She bumps into some people. Plants a kiss on Peter uncle’s cheek. She bumps into some more people. Somewhere in the middle of all this, her sister surprises us with long-stemmed roses. In seconds, the stems are converted into swords and I am busy sparring with my tiny but feisty opponent. She strikes a Zorro-pose. She twirls around. Soon, her sword breaks, but she clambers over me and runs the leftover stem across my neck. I pretend to be dead. She steps behind me and pinches my leg with her tiny fingers – ‘the ants, the ants’ she grins and giggles. Joy must be her middle name, I think.

We sit under the tree, licking off an ice-cream each. “I want 1000 ice-creams” the little one declares. I am tired and my feet hurt. “You will get tired of them”, I say. “No, I looooove ice-creams” she pipes up. I smile as she clambers up my lap and declares, “I will put this rose on you after you die”. “I will put this rose on after they cover you with cement” she continues. I look duly pleased. “But I don’t want you to die” she says and hugs me. I hug her back in delight.

Her sister wants to know what entanglement is. I tell her its not the most interesting thing, so she should not bother. She isn’t convinced. “Telllll me”, she demands plaintively like a 13-year old would. She listens as I try hard to explain. Of course, I am no good at explaining entanglement to a 13-year old. She is a tad disappointed perhaps. She has the air of someone who is wise beyond her years and has already got a sense of the disarray that life can be. ‘I don’t want to get married, I just want a boyfriend’, she says heavily. Certainly not 13. I give her a high-five. ‘See how she talks already’, her Mom says in slight disapproval of my approval perhaps?

It’s time for goodbyes. All my tiredness drains away as the little fairy hugs me and gives me a kiss through the car window. The older one wants to kiss my other cheek. They throw kisses at me as I wave goodbye.

Thank God for children who fill the void that life can otherwise be. Joy. A little too much joy sometimes, but who’s complaining?

“I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead. On the third day He rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.”

Now if Scientists (with a leaning to Quantum Physics) had an equivalent, I suppose it would go something like this:

I believe in Science, and His power almighty, the elucidator of heaven and earth.
I believe in all His branches, even quantum physics, problem child though she may be.

Science was conceived by the power of the human brain and built over many a sleepless night at the laboratory.
Many suffered under His name, were even crucified, flogged, and sometimes humiliated by bishops.

He descended into the doldrums; but in the 20th century, He rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is presently pleasantly surprised to be mistaken for Truth!

He may soon bring life back to the dead. (at least it is believed so)
I believe in the Higgs Boson, the wave-particle nature of light, the wave function collapse, the fickle graviton, and a photon’s life neverlasting.

Amen.

The early 20th century saw us on a roll when it came to understanding the what and how of the world around us, but with Classical physics and Quantum Physics struggling to bring together the strong and weak forces and gravity and electromagnetism, we’ve hit a roadblock. Looks like it’s time we started praying for the Coming of the Lord… of Physics!

I love Science. I love all that it’s given us – vaccines, light bulbs, airplanes and an endless array of things! I would love for us to figure It All out one day! But the day certainly seems terribly far as of now. (And I am grateful for that.) As many have said, the position of Science as a tool to understand Truth has given way to it being deeply embedded in our minds as The Truth.

But what seems important now is to not let science demystify and deromanticize everything in our lives.

Somehow, what seems important now is not to live in the know, but to live in the mystery!

You have to work hard to get to Pangong Tso; we certainly had to. The route from Leh passes through the military town of Karu, the mighty Chang La (superlatives attached: second highest, steepest, toughest, mightiest, most difficult to ride on pass in Ladakh), Tangtsey and reaches Lukung and Spangmik, the two primary human settlements along the Indian side of the lake.

Now we didn’t really know about all those superlatives that describe Chang La when it was decided that we were to bike to Pangong. Thanks to a sleepy motorbike rental guy, a leaky petrol can and some inefficient decision-making, we left Leh in our two freshly-hired Thunderbirds at 10 AM against the original plan of 6 AM. Good start, I breathe to myself. The road is peaceful at first. It is cool to be fitted out in protective gear and helmets thundering away – you know, the wind in your hair and the insects in your eyes kinda stuff? There’s a lot to take in and I am glad to play the contented pillion rider. The freshly-laid black tarmac is inviting, the boys want to open up the engines and zoom. A convoy of army trucks puts paid to that idea, instead they provide a good initial test to the riding and overtaking skills of my two inexperienced-on-heavy-motorbike friends.

Worse, though, is yet to come. We halt for a break. We wonder aloud what the crazy stream – the Paagal naala before Pangong holds in store for us. We’ve been specifically advised to cross it before 11 AM when the water levels are low. Looking back, and considering the sheer elan with which my friends handled it, the stream was probably the last thing we should have worried about.

These roads are everything that a road is generally not supposed to be; multiply that by factors varying from 10 to 100 and you get an idea of the various degrees of ‘road’ along the way. It gets worse as you go higher and closer to the Chang La. Your respect for the BRO increases manifold when you see how difficult the terrain is. This is the real deal – man’s morale and sheer numbers taking on brutal nature. We are mostly stuck on first gear with the occasional, short-lived visit to second gear. The bike has to pull a lot, there’s me and Kiwi and there’s our big rucksack and the 10 litres of petrol, all under low oxygen conditions. Looking back on how graciously she discharged her duties, the Thunderbird has earned my respect forever.

All the boulders, little rocks, big rocks and sand lying around meant that I had to disembark from the bike (swinging my cramped leg painfully above the rucksack) every time the road got nasty. And walking at that high altitude, especially when you are unprepared for it is extremely uncomfortable unless you are moving at the pace of a snail. To put it shortly, every short walk was also an exercise in self-control by way of having to restrain myself from kicking the two guys who were putting me through this misery! (Alright alright you two, I can hear you say it’s part of the experience blah blah, but if I am going with you next time, we better have a rucksack that can walk! )

Once you cross Chang La, you are greeted by slightly better roads which eventually smoothen out into runway-like black tarmac roads, albeit slightly narrow. However, we weren’t complaining. The scenery is striking and straight out of the picture books; wild horses grazing on green meadows while the stream gurgles by, wild horses galloping against a striking mountain backdrop, little friendly marmots that look like a cross between a meerkat and a giant squirrel, large, graceful birds, yaks, wild asses(?) and the occasional shepherds. But the road ends abruptly at one point and a dirt track twists downwards. We’ve hit The stream. Ok, no big deal, we’ve just got to wind down to the stream and figure out a way and a place to cross it, right? Well, almost. The only difficulty is that you simply can’t see anything that looks even remotely like a road on the other bank. Road or no road, I realize I have to get my feet wet (The water is so cold it cuts through your flesh and makes your bone go numb) and wade across it. Shoot!

We stood there, slightly nonplussed when the voice of an angel hailed us from the mountains. An angel in the form of a Ladakhi road builder drifted down, guided us to the exact point where the two bikes could cross the stream, carried our rucksack across and helped me flit over the stones with minimal difficulty as well! I wanted to give him a hug and a 100 bucks; but considering how shy these people are, we settled for just a 100 bucks. Stream crossing and high-fives done, we continue on our ride and happen upon Pangong Tso. Somewhere just before Pangong lies the dirt track diversion to Marsimik La, the real highest motorable mountain pass maintained in a rough-and-tumble state by the Indo-Tebatan border police. Its questionable whether a road exists, but the specially fitted out army vehicles do make their laborious way up this pass.

The first settlement by the lake is Lukung – a collection of little tents and off-white stone buildings. There is an army settlement not far from the huts which also hosts a souvenir shop and a visitor’s centre of some kind. We walk down to the shores of the lake, triumphant and tired. For some reason that I can’t remember, we decide to ride further and find accommodation in the next town, Spangmik. The road beyond Lukung is just dirt track and after some distance forks into two, one road leading up in to the mountains and another winding down across the plain. For some reason, we choose to go uphill.

Progress is excruciatingly slow. The road has pretty much given up and stopped existing. Dusk falls quickly. And the wind turns extremely cold as the sun sinks. The road seems to lead to nowhere at all. We realize we might have taken the wrong route. Suddenly the hostility of our surroundings engulf us, it is a tiny bit unnerving and we decide to turn back. Enough adventure for the day, I think. The ‘luxury tents’ in Lukung cost more than the off-white rooms. We settle for a room for the night and crash gratefully, but not before a stomach-filling dinner of dal-roti-sabzi and a soul-filling view of the Milky Way.

The lake is stunning, but our ride back beckons. The boys are more comfortable on their bikes and the ride promises to be better as we know what to expect. The stream crossing is actually fun (it was, right guys?) and I graciously cross over with the heavy camera to take photos of the heroics!

We stop at the Peace Hotel to meet the marmots and a big black-necked crane and have a bowl of the yummiest Maggi noodles ever.

Soon its back to boulders and little rocks, medium rocks and big rocks! This time we halt at Chang La to have some of the free mint chai, buy an ‘army’ sunglass, take some photos. We chat up with an ex-army man who had visited here with Rajiv Gandhi. He informs us that he’s visiting here again with his wife and son who is posted around here. The son puts an abrupt end to the conversation, ‘Papa, chalo’. We wind our way down the steep roads and reach Leh just as my spine and I are beginning to get sore again.

It’s fun to ride a big motorbike around this place. Fellow motor-bikers behave like brothers; they smile through their helmets, wave, flash a thumbs-up there, a V-sign here and stop to help you if you seem to be in trouble. People who travel in 4-wheelers throw admiring glances at you and want to take photos of themselves on your bikes (not you though!). They speak to you and want to know how it’s been riding around. You can’t help but say, ’twas ok, pretty good’ and mean it in spite of how miserably your back ached because of that stupid backpack! And I am not quite sure why, but a Thunderbird thud-thudding away against the backdrop of those rough, untamed mountains is among the most appealing sights I’ve ever seen.

It’s time to leave. Bags packed. Bills settled. We reach the airport just as the Jet Airways flight comes in for a landing at the Leh airport. It’s inclined at such a precarious angle on the approach to the airport that I am half-sure it’s going to crash. But that’s normal at Leh – every thing is a little extreme in this place. I gratefully accept the window seat offered to me (thanks buddy!) and as our flight takes off, I sit tight as the plane’s wing gets dramatically close to the mountain ranges. The views of the Trans-Himalaya are needless to say, super awesome. The mountains stretch across forever. There are great sheets of snow that hardly a living soul has stepped on, deep gorges eroded by water and glaciers over the millenia. Serenity and mystery. The whine of the engines is distracting as I recite my goodbyes in my head…

Good bye Rimchen and Shanti guest house and huge French windows and little balcony
and apricots and snow-capped peaks and fresh mountain air and clear streams
and big bad passes and bleak mountain roads and galloping horses and bar-headed geese
and gentle marmots and white snow and cutting wind and cold desert
and sand dunes and two-humped camels and seabuckthorn and friendly taxi-drivers
and generous angels and contented people and herbed maggi noodles and thunderbirds!

Au revoir! We’ll be back!