The idea floated past my head on a trip to Srinagar in 2005. And while I knew that turning the idea into something concrete would be no less than a Herculian task, I never let go of it. This was on my list of things to do before I turned 30 and this was something I would do; come what may. After the plan failed to get off the ground in 2006 and 2007, I felt dejected, but never stopped trying. Its always difficult to find people as mad as you are, people who'd support your adventurous (sometimes foolhardy) ideas and would be party to it. The surprising bit of course was that I found support where others find trouble- my parents, who were all out in support of the idea.
Spurred on by this, I floated the idea again to a few friends in Feb this year. As is usually the case, it was met with great initial enthusiasm, since the plan really wasn't in place. A couple of months down the line and everybody except me had pretty much forgotten about it. When I raised the idea again in May, only a few hands went up; these hands too, were shaky. To cut a long story short, after great deal of planning, bickering, arguing and more planning, it was finally four intrepid young men; Siddharth Krishnamoorthy aka SK, Manu Saxena, Abhinav Dhar aka Dhar, and Dhruv Goswami aka Gussu, found themselves waiting for the Manali bound bus in Janpath on a warm night. While Dhar and my parents were all out in support of the trip, Manu was nearly eloping, and Gussu's parents had basically given up the fight against his will. In their defence, their fears weren't misplaced or irrational. The road was dangerous, both human and natural threats, potentially deadly, lined up the road to the gates of paradise. But a risk must be taken to reap the rewards and hence these men warred against their kin to undertake the perilous journey.
The first leg however from Delhi to Manali wasn't supposed to pose any danger and the four of us were bursting with excitement (and heavy luggage) that usually characterises the start of a journey. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know what man or nature would hurl at us; and that made us secretly happy albeit in a weird, scary way.
With the bus operating on the standard, stretchable and adjustable schedule, we were running about 2 hours late as we crossed Ambala. While Manu and I were engrossed in a long midnight discourse on philosophies in life, women and the like, Gussu was fast asleep and Dhar was humoring his first love; his Ipod Touch. The crossed the night.
When we woke up next morning, we realised that the bus was running further behind schedule and therefore everyone would need to curb their natural instinct. And then we ran into, for the first time, what would be the most regular feature of our trip. No, not a loo. A nice kilometer long traffic jam. There had been overnight rainfall and a landslide and traffic was stuck. On top of that, when our driver decided to gun it, he scraped the tyre on the mountainside and caused a puncture. So there we were, staring at a kilometer long jam with no wheels to move. I reminded Manu of the recent bad luck I'd had with visiting places that were disputed with the Chinese!Then we also spotted a poor bird whose name would be contorted badly over the trip, a Jackdaw. It would later be called by myriad names such as Jack Black, Black Jack, Jack D, Blue Jay and the like!
Morning went by and it wasn't before three that we landed in Manali and booked ourselves in a small place in Old Manali, far away from the noise of the bustling hill station. We paid a short visit to the Hadimba Temple and clicked pics where we weren't supposed to. On the way down, we spotted one of the old carnival games of toppling 6 glasses with balls. Macho men Dhar and Gussu decided to show off their prowess and did so by not toppling a single glass in 6 shots!
Meanwhile Manu was jumping with joy. We soon discovered the reason for this. Our copy of Lonely Planet read, "Manali literally means Abode of Manu". A visit to the town soon proved this. Manu had his name stamped all over the city. He even had a temple to his name!Manu, in Hindu mythology is the person who recreated the world after it was sunk in a flood and prescribed a code of conduct for Hindus to follow. Anyway, after Manu got all the self gratification he could handle, we headed for dinner to a place peculiarly named "Crazy Funky"! Manali receives its fair share of foreign tourists and one gets a lot of foreign cuisine. Crazy Funky was one such place. A hutment by the river, it looked like it was from the 60s hippie era. A song with the lyrics "Govinda Radhe Shyam Gopal Radhe, Jai Shree Radhe" completed the ambience! I must confess, the song was infectious. To this day, all of us hum that song intermittently.
After a satisfying meal, I claim we went back to our room and retired for the night, to prepare for the journey ahead.
No! Wait! The official version's different! We did go back. Far from asleep, though. My three companions got very 'happy' once we got back. There was of course, that staple sport of Texas Hold'em that was played and not to mention some brief breaks one had to take from sleeping to get up and laugh at Manu and his horror stories!
And then, of course, we retired to prepare for what would come swinging by next morning!
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