0 - Why I started this blog?

Why I started this blog?

That was a great trip. We challenged ourselves, we took a chance and we came out on top - literally. And we took photos. Lots of photos, hundreds of photos. Then we showed those photos to family members, friends and anybody who would show any curiosity.

What I realized was that while each photo had a story, the collective story was too long even for the most patient of listeners. Another problem was that every time we told that story we got excited, and that made us go back and forth with the story. If you happened to be listening the story from more than one of us, you would be confused out of your mind.

What can I say, it was that kind of a journey and that kind of a story! So, in order to find a solution, I decided to find a platform where I could share both the pictures and the stories behind each picture. And this blog was born.

That is old news!

A blog (whether we bloggers like it or not) is not as far-reaching as a book. So I decided that I would do better by telling the story in the form of a book duly illustrated by the photos from the trip.

Plus, a blog is more or less a casual and pleasure-based activity whereas writing a book, of any kind, is a serious project. Given my self-professed love for laziness I decided that I might just ignore the demands of my blog in favor of Two and a Half Men on TV, but a book-writing project I would take seriously.

Yeah, right!

While this is true that I have been treating the book project in my celebrated lazyass style, it is equally true that I have not given that up. I contribute to it as and when the creative bug bites me.

But that is also old news.

During one such writing sessions, I found myself thinking about this blog and thought I should not give this up either. It would not make practical (and commercial) sense for me to repeat here everything that I have written, I would still post here from time to time, especially the things I am proud of as a biker or as a writer.

And that is the latest news!

Whatever I post here will raw, unedited content so don't bite my head off if you find any spelling mistakes. And don't check back more than once a week, I don't believe in working that hard! :-)

If you are still with me, Welcome to Operation Desert Mountain!

The Beginning

13th August 2004

The problems started even before we did.

“Damn it!” Fazil lifted the bag and dumped everything on the floor in frustration!

I looked at his face and shook my head, “It’s not going to happen.”

The frustration was mutual. I was actually in panic-mode as I realized, we both realized, that the two small bags we had were not going to hold all the stuff we had decided to carry with us.

Fazil had been my best friend since high school. At 5’2” he stood 6 inches shorter than me but in patience and life experience he had me beat.

We were going on a long journey. Since we were going to be travelling on a motorcycle on difficult and deserted roads we had decided to take as many things as possible covering every conceivable situation. There was dry food in case we got trapped in a landslide; there were spares for the motorcycle in case we had a puncture or broke the clutch cable. But we had only two bags for all of this, one we planned to tie on a carrier stand specially attached to the bike for this purpose; the second bag was a backpack, to be carried by the passenger.

I looked at the watch – 3:15 A.M. We started sorting through the stuff, assessing priorities and making decisions as we went. Together we dumped some things and re-classified others.

Then we started packing again –

“Puncture kit?”

“Check!”

“Foot pump?”

“Check!”

“My clothes?”

“Check!”

“Your clothes?”

“Check!”

“Rain suits?”

“Check!”

…and so it went on for medicines, dry food, spare tubes etc. etc. Finally, the clock was striking 6:00 as we closed the zips on the bags.

The target was to reach at least Chandigarh that same day, which was 263kms., and then decide the next step. We made a couple of stops to have breakfast or tea and it was not yet noon as we were entering the beautiful city of Chandigarh. It was too early to call home.

 

I could remember a previous bike trip to Chandigarh with my brother Anil, that was on the YBX. That day the 263 miles from Delhi to Chandigarh had been the target which we had achieved. Today, it looked too short because Chandigarh was just a camping stop, the real target was much farther. How things change in perspective!

 

We stopped at a modest dhaba to have refreshments and wait about an hour or so. Then I could call home. The first thing my dad said was, “Oh, you are already in Chandigarh? Don’t drive too fast!”. That’s why I had not called for the last 1 hour.

 

There were a few other calls to make, to my second best friend, third best friend and so on. That’s always the way. They say it’s your second best friend who comes and puts up the bail for you, because your best friend will be there beside you saying, “Dude! That was awesome!”.

 

My best friend was still with me but I have some really wonderful people in my life who worry about me and think about me and in whose prayers I can easily assume myself to be included!

 

One such person was my “sir”. I had had the honour of meeting Mr. Chauhan when he had replaced our teacher in my computer institute. I can still remember that first meeting when we had argued over the terms “algorithm” and “program” in the PLT class (Programming Language Techniques). Actually, I had argued, he had just been goading me to find out what made me tick. That was always his style. But that was a long, long time back. Now he was more like an elder brother to me than a teacher, though he had taught me a lot and not just in computers.

 

I told him we were in Chandigarh, and we would probably move forward in the afternoon. We talked for a few minutes and just as I was hanging up, he said, “Sunil, if there’s anything, let me know!”, I stopped and ask, “Anything what, sir?” and he said, “If you get into any problem, let me know. I will come up in my car.” That simple statement instantly brought tears to my eyes. I knew sir well enough to know that he did not say anything that he did not mean. He never wasted his breath in useless pleasantries. What he thought, he said. And to think that he’d leave his business, his family, and bring his brand new car on those perilous, dangerous roads just to rescue me from difficulties touched my heart! 

16th August 2004

We started the day kind of early, intending to start before sunrise. 

You can see us wrestling with the luggage ropes in the narrow hotel passageway as we get ready to roll out again.

Today we were going to climb the 4th highest mountain pass in the world - Rohtang Pass. In Tibetan language, Rohtang literally means ‘Pile of dead bodies’! It was not a very nice mental image to start with but well..!

Soon it became apparent that the torturous mountain roads till Manali had been actually a picnic and the real challenge was just starting. As soon as we gained some height, we were driving in a kind soggy, wet and foggy environment which I am convinced were clouds. The road had not been nothing to be happy about even when we started, but as we climbed higher it got worse and worse. Soon we were driving on roads that were a mixture of mud and submerged rocks of various sizes. I am not exaggerating in the least (one doesn’t need to exaggerate about that journey), the road was actually mud, deep enough to embed big stones, stones that should really be called rocks. These were of course, embedded in the mud in a random fashion, with maximum amount of sharp edges visible.

There was one spot where we came to a halt behind a long line of trucks. Traffic jam. Traffic on these roads stops usually for one of the two reasons - accident or landslide. Here it was the second reason that had been holding up the traffic for past several hours. Our bikes being the smallest vehicles on that road, we could progress a bit, slowly, by making our way between the stopped trucks.

There was one place where the space between the truck and the edge of the road was so narrow that it was sufficient only for the bike, no margin for error. On my right was the deep ditch, which was not visible because of the clouds but you can see the edge of the road. I had to tell Fazil to get off for this. The challenge was to keep the handle absolutely straight, and keep going forward at dead-slow pace, swerving to left or right even an inch would have meant going down the narrow, muddy, slippery shoulder down the side of the mountain.

When I passed the stopped truck and joined Fazil, I was breathing heavily and not just because of the height. The first thing I told him was to remind me of this anytime I was scared to take a bold decision in my life! So far he has never had to!

We threaded our way between the trucks like this and got to the front of the stopped traffic. There we saw the reason for the jam. There was a huge pile of rocks on the road. Fortunately for us, there was a bulldozer cleaning the pile and only few more minutes of work was needed. There was nothing but to wait. 

On this route there is a place called Tandi which has a petrol pump. After that the next petrol pump is in Leh, Ladakh 370 kms. away. Considering the petrol tank capacity and fuel economy of most bikes, that’s more than the distance you can go on one full tank. Another interesting tidbit of information was that Tandi has the petrol pump but no shop to sell petrol cans. So you have to plan ahead. We bought the cans from Manali and the petrol much later from Tandi.