Books are amazing powerful things, they take you away to that place where dreams and reality merge. Sometimes you are just a spectator, and sometimes you are a part of the show.
Especially Kerouac's ''On the Road,'' don't read this book if it's been ages since you last broke the monotony of working from 9 to 6, five days a week. God!!!!! It's been almost a year since I had an amazing trip (pun intended).
Last October I went to Dharamsala with two of my friends. It was not really what people would call a vacation as we were on the road for 5 full days. We just stopped for the night and food.
Once we reached chandigarh, we started searching for a taxi/cab and we had a few conditions for the driver - there'll be non-stop rock music and we'll be drinking/doping non stop. Thought it was a bit hard but we were able to find someone who was very interested!!! We then hit the road in his new indica.
We were an amusing sight wherever we go. A friend's from UP, another's from Kerela and I'm from Manipur. We represented the three major races in India - Aryans, Dravidians and Mongoloids, the faces of India. We talked our own language too - a mixture of english, hindi and tamil. We switched to the few but very effective and strong tamil words and phrases whenever we want to make fun of the driver:-)
Himachal's such a wonderful beautiful place, and the people there are so cool, living their own lives and open to anything. They don't stare and they don't judge. I have gone there just two times, though I stayed for 3 months along the Kullu-Manali highway the first time I went there.
Ever listened to Floyd, U2 or Simon & Garfunkel while traveling the highways, watching the mountains and the forest through your car window? The songs are the same but they make you feel so different when you are no longer confined by the four walls of your room - carefree, you begin thinking about freedom and empty spaces and then there's that peaceful feeling, so soothing yet so difficult to describe. But when the old monk kicks (aka the best dark rum) in, we switched to system of a down, megadeth or metallica.
We blew up about 2000 bucks on charas and an almost equivalent amount on rum and cigarrettes but we had FUN. We talked about everything under the sun, we hardly slept, we laughed, we screamed, and we were high and mighty.
Bet Kerouac would be jealous:-)
4 comments:
hi!
Thanks for dropping by my page.
You write well. See me around.
been reading your posts. you write beautifully arunima.
have read your posts too elf:-) love your fav books, except for "an equal music" and "life of pi" i have read the rest. very few people know about "rebecca", right?
Try 'turn turn turn' on the highway! Its liberating... Gosh I can hardly wait to get out of office.
And between, rebecca is amazing. I read it in class 8... it was awsome.
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