How I got Leh'ed

In a nutshell...It all happened one drunken night...alcohol is one of the greatest stimulants of the creative juices... and coupled with the fact that my project was ending, me and my equally notorious 'out of work' friend decided to make this trip.
So with bags packed for about a month we left our cozy homes and unpaid bills and landed up in Delhi with nothing more than eager anticipation to get Leh'ed, the tickets and bookings be damned.
Apart from the obvious turn-on of the arduous trip through majestic peaks and succulent valleys, capturing the same on camera was a major thrill.... maybe we would get angles that no one has managed so far!
The preparation was not anything to write home about... it was the usual game ... but reaching the first base was the clincher... once you have reached the first base then making a touchdown is not a big deal (I mean how difficult can it get?)
Well the first leg was easy but then it was all uphill (literally) with at least 5 passes to cross…and boy was the ride rough and smooth in bursts…just when you thought that you had conquered one peak, then rose another majestic one… the whole journey was one overwhelming experience… you didn’t know where to look …you were surrounded by such beauty….certainly God was taking his time when he was creating this one!
Before starting on this ride, like a proverbial expert, I had thought I would finish it off in one day with a few hours to spare…but even before halfway through it I was tired… I was tired of the overwhelming feeling …tired of being so inadequate in front of such majestic beauty… tired of anticipating the climax. I was not sure if I wanted to continue… I wanted out… I chickened… I was not sure anymore if I wanted to be Leh’ed ;)
But then once in, you cannot opt out… it’s a one way ticket… so I geared myself and shrunk deep down in my jacket...peeping out once in a while to see if it was really there or I was hallucinating.
As soon as darkness fell, the ride became even bumpier… God’s sense of humour! And to make matters worse, we lost our way in those undulating trails and kept going around in circles. By the time we reached anywhere closer to touchdown, we were battered, bruised, exhausted, looked like something that the cat had dragged but our spirits were high… we were more than excited to get a first glimpse of what we had heard was one of the greatest. The high it gave me on was almost enough to make me breathless on that snowy night… or it could actually be the low oxygen content in that thin mountain air.
Well, what can I say, the first time was not good enough for me … the build-up makes it inaccessible. You would want it to respond to you, but like all first timers, I fumbled my way through it… the pressure just makes it stressfull…that and coupled with a brain freeze, closed road signs and snow all over.
Untill next time, and I will make sure that it is the season of love and not some harebrained wild goose chase up sinewy mountainous track. And yes, will take care of the brain freeze next time. So I will be Leh’ed nice and proper in the old fashioned way, eh…what.

Leaving on a Jet Plane….Dont Know when I will be Back Again!

Well…not exactly leaving on a jet plane… but what the heck the rest of it is true… I am going to LEH-LADDAK….finally……..YAAAY!!!!!!!!

Just two friends who have no work (one by choice, the other by laziness) no money (no work no money), no plan (we believe in figuring out stuff on the way---naah, we are just lazy).

So the woolens are packed, the resolute steady…coz everything else is awry…. No bookings, no tickets, no backup plan, no knight in shining armour to rescue 2 distressed damsels (may happen), no angel to guide two adventurous city girls through the dark cold lonely desert!

Well…we both have different motives on going on this trip… and that has made me think why do people travel? Why do they pack their lives in 2 suitcases and hang a camera on their necks and go to places far far away and then call home and tell their family that they miss them? Why do people travel…so that they can click pictures, put them on facebook so that the whole world can see them??

Is it to get away from the mundane life … is it to explore that adventurous side of them, is it to see the beauty of another terrain-the culture, the food…to explore oneself …to find answers to life’s mysteries?

Well… I will only know after I have made that trip… maybe I will clear my head… maybe I will find answers to what I am looking for…but I am sure to have memories that make this trip special… stories to tell everyone.. and pictures that capture these moments (of course I will upload them!)…so Julley!

Fear

The thing that finds umpteen mentions in all horror films and is voted as the second most emotion after love. Yet, many hesitate to give it the due importance that it necessitates just because they are afraid of whatever terror it might unleash if they give it its rightful due.

It is fear which drives this world…not money, not politics/power, definitely not love.

It is the fear of being ridiculed that prompts Mr Sharma to buy the plasma TV to put down Mr Gupta; it is fear of being second best that drives Prashant to put in the extra hours of work than Sumit; it is fear of ever growing love handles that sends Divya to the Gym; It is fear of not getting selected for the top institutes that pushes Ankit harder into his books; it is fear of not getting promoted that drives Priya to neglect her family; it is fear of being alone that builds walls around Madhu.

Why is fear so fearful?? Is it because unlike Money, it doesn’t multiply exponentially in a linear fashion but grows in all possible directions (screw the 3^rd dimension… we are talking about the 350^th dimension here). Is it because unlike Power (which only the strongest or the cleverest or the smartest get), anyone with any ‘est’ can get it. Is it because unlike Love, you don’t fill reams and reams of paper expounding the virtues of it.

What is fear?? How does one define it? Does it start with the small noise coming from the kitchen in the middle of the night… that suddenly wakes you up and as you lay listening to all the little noises of the night, you slowly realize that the loudest thump is coming from your own arteries blocked with fear…which then gets enveloped by the strange shadows being cast on the door from the living room… and as the shadows cast their mysterious web on the mind, the mind is consumed of thoughts unknown… from a simple noise possibly made by a house lizard bumping across the light bulb on its nightly vigil, the mind travels eons into the depths of all the horrors that can be conjured …pausing only to leave an imprint of fear… fear of extinction, fear of being slayed while sleeping, fear of being killed while you still have to achieve your dreams, fear of being exterminated while you were almost there on the first rung of the ladder of your dreams, fear of being annihilated while you haven’t provided for your near and dear ones, fear of being slaughtered without saying proper goodbye to your friends, fear of being murdered without having anyone to call to talk over this phenomenon called fear.

Is there any escaping fear?? There is … wait for the next post!

Go Green!

The environmentalists are waking up now, I have been following the green bandwagon even before it was fashionable for the size zeroes to say 'kareena'. Although my love for the colour green had more to do with hormonal changes where in instead of checking out the fuzz on a man's face I preferred to study the designs of his cobbler.

Little did I know that the fad would put in an unusual spot in the future.

So when God with that twisted humour of his decided to spice things up ... few inglourious basterds came into the picture and saved the day.

I was left wondering how and why this whole situation arose... and am left with no answers... its one of those cosmic capers that make life so wonderful and confused at the same time... the confusion is solely the fault of my cynical nature and has nothing to do with the winged creature with the angelic smile.

Many have commented on the strangeness of the choice including yours truly, but strange are the ways of the estrogen and I have learned to live with it by now I guess.

Although the icing of the cake is that the bloke in question has moved from green to blue!

30 year old kisses 18 year old

It was my friend bday and she was a bit depressed that she was turning 30 (I had been through the same feeling few months ago... so I could totally empathise with her), so we decided to spice things up for her ... we were at our regular watering hole and generally being the usual boisterous group owning to the fact that we were regulars there and all the waiters and managers were bullied into the celebrations, when somebody (I gladly take credit here) came up with this brilliant idea that the bday girl kisses the 3rd man that walks in the door.

So, with bated breath we waited and counted and we were really expecting a Johnny Bravo kind of dude to walk in... while bday girl was hoping that we all drop dead for coming up with this ridiculous idea (secretly hoping that the 3rd man be a really Cool Knight in Shinning Armour to walk in with complete fanfare) wheras the bday girls soulmate had already started flexing his muscles in an attempt to beat up the 3rd guy in any category.

Lo and Behold, Man 1 enters and is rejected by the sheer coincidence of numerical first, Man 2 is the 2nd best of the first variable and then enter a bevy of giggly girls... and our heartbeats have gone up a beat higher than F1 final leg... and enters Man 3....yooohooo.... but wait a min... it turns out to be an eighteen year old boy and like true protectors of the regular patron (read bday girl), the waiters and managers swoop in and surround the boy and start frisking him for his ID proof...coz people above 21 are only allowed... we waiting on the sides like bloodhounds also do our bit by screaming "You Boy... You Boy ...over here ...hurry... over here)...poor boy is all nervous, what with hysterical women screaming all over him and waiters and bouncers baying for his blood aka his ID....

In the midst of all this, the soul mate had a change of heart and propostioned the hapless boy for the bday girl... the poor boy didnt know what to do with this blatant demand, all the while trying to look cool since...then his girlfriend decided to step in and save his day (like all GF's do) and gave him "permision"... the boy timidly stepped up looking expectantly at the sword (read kiss) hanging over his neck (read lips) admist the whole gang cheering him on... imagine his horror when the bday girl equally timid gets up and plants a friendly peck on his cheeks... he almost fainted from the whole pressure of expecting a bazooka and being confounded with a pin dart!

The ordeal over, the hapless guy walks over to his table where his girlfriend is beaming at his feat like an indulgent mother, the waiters and bouncers are cheering that everything passed off smoothly and there was no bar fight, having forgotten to check his real age...the bday girls friends all looking disgusted at the letdown of not seeing tongues in action (they had themselves puckered up their lips anticipating the kiss), and the soul mate suddenly at a loss not knowing whether he did the right thing or not, the guinea pig boy relived that his intergity was not violated and he was safe from the clutches of the bouncers and the bday girl happy that the 30th bday had a great start!

It was a bit of fizzle that no newspapers/news channels which covered this very important event of the newly turned 30 year old... no headline which read "30 year old kisses 18 year old in a watering hole"...but what the hell, we all felt important being part of this historic event ... imagine what a story to tell the grandkids!

Well like Shakespeare said -- "All's Well that Ends Well"