The Anatomy of Journey
Page 7
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As they tend to do when one’s mind is focused on a point in the future, things began to happen quickly. Suhas and Manoj dropped out of the trip. And Sumanth joined us. A crazy biker, Sumanth had embarked on a seventeen-hundred kilometer, week-long, solo road trip across Kerala when we were all in ThoughtFunction together. His enthusiasm for biking was only exceeded by his passion for photography.
By mid-May, the date of the trip was postponed a week to July 23rd. The train tickets to Delhi and the flight tickets back to Bangalore from Delhi were purchased. The itinerary I was working on was modified a million times over heated discussions between 3, Moham, Sumanth and I. Three bikes were set aside for the purpose of the trip. They were stripped apart piece by piece over a period of three weeks to make sure they wouldn’t just stop working on a cold and windy mountain pass in Ladakh.
In June, 3 and I went shopping. I wanted to buy a really nice leather jacket, but 3 saved me the trouble by giving me his riding jacket. We bought balaclava masks, goggles and shades, helmets, few lengths of bungee cords, a Swiss army knife, ponchos, rope, large plastic trash bags and gloves. Sumanth and 3 were both bringing their Nikon SLRs, so we weren’t short in that department.
We also bought two strips of Diamox, a tablet that helps prevent altitude sickness, which can be dangerous and life threatening. Acute Mountain Sickness or AMS is a condition wherein you can suffer symptoms ranging from nausea, vomiting and dizziness to insomnia, nosebleed and peripheral edema (the swelling of extremities). This condition is caused by the increasing lack of oxygen per volume of air as you ascend vertically. In other words, the higher up you go, the lower will be the oxygen content in the air, which will have a negative effect on your body.
To prevent AMS, it is important to acclimatize yourself. Tourists to Leh are generally asked to spend two days acclimatizing to the conditions before setting out to explore the nearby areas, as those roads can take them even higher up the mountains. Within a day or two, however, your body will have normalized to the rare-air conditions. It is important not to ascend too high too fast, as these symptoms can progress quickly to HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) and HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema), both of which can be fatal.
This is why I had suggested to the gang we ride instead of fly into Leh, as the slow and eventual rise in altitude from Mandi to Leh would allow us to acclimatize to the conditions of the region.
Also, of course, flying into Leh would mean missing out on the stunning vistas from Chandigarh to Manali to Leh. The almost thousand kilometer long ride from Manali to Leh and back was the whole point of the trip.
As days flew by, a familiar feeling of excitement and euphoria surged through my veins, the flow of a strange and addictive elixir. Falling asleep became difficult; no conversation began or ended without Ladakh being a keyword; a slight paranoia set in. But most of all, there appeared, in a slow, strengthening crescendo, this undercurrent of an impending something, of the uncertainty of something heavy, large and beyond. It is surprising how similar these emotions are to those of romantic love.
Friday, July 22nd arrived sooner than I had anticipated, and I found myself hauling my large duffel bag into the IBM office. I was working the night shift that month. I logged in, sat at my cubicle, day- dreamed and did not work. Sorry IBM. My colleagues knew I was leaving the next day and they were excited for me. At 4 AM, I walked out with my bag and a couple of friends who wanted to wish me luck.
In the pre-dawn dark, I walked to Manoj’s house, which was nearby and found 3, Moham, and Manoj still ‘celebrating’. I forced them to go to sleep, telling them that we had only three hours to go before we were to get up and rush to the Railway station and catch the train. There was a ton to do still – we had to pack the bikes neatly before loading them on the train, make sure to empty the gas tanks, buy a hundred little things and manage to do all of this in rush hour.
‘The train leaves at 1 PM!’ I had to shout, not kindly, before they all went to sleep. I don’t remember falling asleep.