On the Road Again!

A Few excerpts from my diary while on the move. Most of them were recorded while traveling in a bus, my handwriting transporting me temporarily to those blissful, ignorant (and shaky) times of 2^nd grade -

In India, whenever someone is going abroad for a long time, there are quite a few rituals to be followed during the last few months at home. One has to earn up some last-minute good karma by say feeding the dogs, please the deities by performing pujas and jaagrans, dodge questions about marrying a firangi and settling abroad, but the most inevitable ritual of all is visiting relatives. And no matter how distant, if you ever gonna see them in your life, the time is now, or so my parents insist.

For me, visiting relatives has always been a painstaking HR exercise of huge proportions. Innumerable that they are, some of them are located in the remotest corners of India. And not the good ones either! Right now, I am headed to Khatima, a small “town” located between two equally weird-sounding, remote “towns” in Uttarakhand. Though the weather is good, and a glimpse outside the window presents a nice scenery, a glimpse inside isn’t half as good. The floor is littered with the all-pervading moofali-ke-chhilke and empty raj-darbar sachets, the seats are a bit rickety and having the last row of the bus, my rear is definitely in for some action.

But all of this isn’t enough to dampen my spirits, as I feel like a student on his last day of school. Even though he cribbed about getting up early in the morning, packing up, rushing through breakfast and catching the dilapidated school bus to be dumped at the place he doesn’t feel the need to go to, on his last day, he sees everything in a new light. The feeling is definitely the same, as I aim to seek adventure everywhere during this last in a long, long time, two-week long trip down to my roots. And though I have been to Khatima a lot of times, if I’ll ever remember a journey to that place, it will probably be this one.

Rest of the journey is quite uneventful, as I fall in and out of sleep, the conversation about recipes and sweater-weaving techniques happening between two ladies on the seat ahead notwithstanding. I’ll post more about the trip later!