The Last Leg...Mama, I'm comin' home...

Despite all intentions, we end up leaving Pathankot late and by 9 am when we depart, the sun is already blazing something fierce. An all too obvious reminder, that it is still the height of summer in the North India plain. The only comforts now are the great roads and my discovery that the sleeping bag makes for an incredible backrest.

Not much left to describe, except that we chug along listlessly in the oppressive heat. No amount of water, that we drink or pour over ourselves, helps. We stop often to rest, sapped by the scorching sun. We’re a heartbeat away from heat stroke. The blinding sunlight transforms the countryside into the surface of Crematoria, from the Riddick movies. Everything looks like it’s going to be incinerated any minute now. This is not summer. It’s an annual nuclear holocaust.

We pull into the driveway of my parents’ house, who are away to Gurgaon to be with my eldest sister and her kids visiting from the US. We are back here after less than two weeks, but it seems longer. I feel transformed. The excitement and trepidation I left with has been replaced with some emptiness, perhaps, but also a stronger sense of self. It’s bloody paradoxical, come to think of it.

Tonight, it’s beer and pizza at home as a token celebration. We were too bushed to step out and go to a bar. The next morning, Nitin and I bid farewell to Darius who carries on along to Delhi. We have to take a small detour, so decide to pack off Nitin’s bike onto a truck bound for Hyderabad, while I park mine at home and take the car to Delhi instead. Back to the humdrum and the mundane. In time, this ride will transform into pure nostalgia. It will have been, a worthwhile investment of experience.



“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.”
– Pat Conroy