When Navdeep repeatedly warned me about the uber-bumpy buses we’d be taking on this trip, I didn’t really take him seriously. After all, I was used to dealing with the horrors of New Jersey Transit and Greyhound. Not to mention the fact that I once took one of those video-buses that play old, scratchy Bollywood flicks at eardrum-blasting levels the whole ride. It didn’t seem so bad. I was shoved out of my false sense of security by our first “Semi-Deluxe” bus ride, from Chandigarh to Malout.
Oh Ma! My Knee! : Sona and Navdeep Climb to Vaishno Devi
I don’t really know when or how it was decided that Navdeep and I were going to make the pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi. Neither of us are terribly religious, he had never heard of it, and it was an 18-mile hike up and back. Not something to be taken on lightly.
Perhaps it was my mom who planted the thought. She seems like a likely culprit. She’s been a few times herself, and seriously believes prayers delivered at Vaishno Devi will be considered and answered. This concept of manate (muhnatay) drives millions to the site of the Mata Ki Darshan every year. Despite the treacherous hike, despite the heat, despite the fact that the actual darshan is maybe three seconds at best, a blur of armed guards, marble and gold.
We’ve all had a tough year though, and I know my mom saw our trip as an opportunity to sprinke a little hope, at the very least. So Navdeep and I made the trek carrying the prayers of our loved ones. Not that we didn’t have a good time doing it. We looked at the hike as a bonding adventure, and we took it seriously. Though we were amongst the few pilgrims who could afford a 250-rupee pony ride or even a 3000-rupee one-way helicopter ride to the top, we wanted to make the trip ourselves, along with the thousands of other Indians from all over the country (and the planet) who chose that day to make the climb.
But it wasn’t easy. My mom promised us that the hike would be two hours up and two hours down. Ha! Maybe if you take a super-speedy pony. I’m no avid hiker, but I can handle a good walk. So Navdeep and I set out at 11 a.m. at a leisurely pace, stopping for ice cream, cold coffee and juice, posing for pictures, admiring the hilly countryside. By two p.m., we had barely hit the half-way mark. By the time we reached the actual site of the shrine at six p.m., it was sunset and we were exhausted.
Oh Ghee, If You Were Only Calorie Free!
Between the two of us, Navdeep and I have probably already gained 15 lbs. in two weeks. And we haven’t been hoarding junky street food, though we still have big plans to. It’s just that we’ve spent the last two weeks in the heart of Punjab, devouring hearty home cooking. Paranthas, samosas, pakore, daal makhani, paneer in all its wonderous forms, deep-fried buttery omelets. All very tasty. But all very heavy. It wouldn’t be so bad except that the etiquette here dictates that you can’t really say no to what is being offered, especially if you are visiting someone’s home for the first time.
And the daily menu always includes morning cha, inevitably with cookies or other snacks, followed by breakfast, then a mid-morning snack, then lunch, then afternoon cha with samosas or pakoras, then an evening snack, and finally a late dinner. Add to that the occasional 140-calorie Limca or ice cream indulgence, and you’re likely double the already weighty 2000-calorie per day FDA average that fat Americans consume.
Given our comprehensive daily menu, we haven’t really had the urge to splurge on paneer pakore or gol guppas on our own. In fact, we’ve started strategizing on how to cut down on our cholestrol-laden consumption. The problem is that every breakfast item on the Indian menu is fried: eggs, chole puri, paranthas. And Navdeep says toast and/or fruit doesn’t count as a real meal in India. Plus, they put hot milk in the cornflakes here, rendering them completely soggy and useless. Eeeeeeeew.
And the daily menu always includes morning cha, inevitably with cookies or other snacks, followed by breakfast, then a mid-morning snack, then lunch, then afternoon cha with samosas or pakoras, then an evening snack, and finally a late dinner. Add to that the occasional 140-calorie Limca or ice cream indulgence, and you’re likely double the already weighty 2000-calorie per day FDA average that fat Americans consume.
India Travelogue: The 17-Hour Plane Drain
We woke up at three a.m. and were out of the house by four, stuffing samosas and sipping cha as we headed to the airport. By seven a.m., seated in the back near the toilets, we were both revved up for our trip, watching intently as the plane took to the skies. By 7:30, we were both fast asleep. Navdeep doesn’t even remember waking up to consume half of his scrambled egg pita pocket thingie.
Sona: Our Kahani 2007
When Navdeep says we’re part of the Tech Generation, he’s not kidding. We not only blog as a couple, we even met online. A little more than three years ago, I was a reporter at People magazine, toiling away on the frontlines of celeb culture (and pursuing my masters in screenwriting and South Asian studies). Navdeep had just returned from two years teaching English in China and was pursuing his MFA creative writing in Fresno.
So Many Gadgets, So Little Time
Okay, so it was supposed to be simple. Navdeep and I hit the road with just the clothes on our backs. (And the ones stuffed into our super-sized backpacks, of course.) He kept drilling it in—pack light, pack light, pack…
Travelogue India: The Countdown Begins, So Much to Do and Only Three Weeks to Go!
When we booked our tickets, way back in June, this trip seemed ages away. And now, there’s less than a month left. It seems surreal to think that in three short weeks my life as I know it will end—at least for a short while. Right now, to me, the daily grind is pitching stories and interviewing the random celebrity, pretending to work on my writing, endless loads of laundry, the occasional episode of House Hunters on HGTV and making often-elaborate meals for my husband, who’s been working his ass off teaching endless English classes to make up for our time off.
In the meantime, we’ve also been doing the things that make this trip seem a bit more real. Tickets. Check. Camera. Check. Backpacks. They’ll be here any second now. And we finally ordered the sleeping bag, too. But really, it’s the slow build of this website, Navdeep painstakingly learning Dreamweaver and Flash, me dictating design and writing content, that’s making it seem real. Slowly but surely, we’re getting closer. And as we add pages, we mark off another day—or four—on the calendar. And now it’s almost time to flip the page.
For three months, it’ll be just be me and Navdeep, on the road, a different city every week, lots of new tastes, people, places to explore and absorb. It’s exhilarating, but at the moment, it still seems unreal. And though I’m really excited, it’s also kind of scary.
I keep second-guessing other goals. What if this is the right time to get that script out, as studios stockpile under the threat of a long, grueling writers’ strike? What if I should have taken that job opportunity in New York a little more seriously? What about the fact that I’m going to miss several birthdays, or a big reason to celebrate that we’ve all been waiting for? I’m stepping out of my life, but it will go charging full speed ahead without me. Britney will lose custody. Lindsay will end up in prison. (Hey, these things are breaking news when you’re in the celeb content trade.) But it’s also that Meena will move to L.A., my cousin Arun will start college (oh my God!) and my brother will get a new (fulltime, with benefits!) job. Those are the things I’ll really be missing.
Sona’s Take: Deciding to Go
Just a little over three years ago, I was chained to my desk at People magazine, working sixty-plus hour weeks. Yeah, I got to interview celebs and blah blah blah, but to me it was all just a day job. I was too wimpy to quit to pursue my real dream, filmmaking. And then I met Navdeep. A hardcore traveler who’d lived in China and backpacked overland through Tibet into India. An adventurer who scoffed at the idea of staying in one of the fancy pant palaces converted into hotels in Rajasthan (as my sister and I did on our trip there). He thought nothing of sleeping alone in a tent in the middle of God-knows-where in Mongolia. I didn’t know it then, but his free spirit (and indie travel bug) were about to rub off on me, big time. Now, at 30, I’m a fulltime freelance writer with all the instability that implies. Journalism, unfinished novels, screenplays gathering dust in a pile on my bookshelf.
I’m not sure exactly when the idea of a three-month long honeymoon jaunt in India started to percolate between us, but for the longest time I didn’t take it seriously. We both had strong roots in the country, but for me, a trip to India simply meant being shuffled from one relative’s house to the next in Delhi. Besides, who really quits their dayjob to pursue something as amorphous and unstable as writing fulltime—let alone pursuing the fantasy of filmmaking? Even with the clips from those glossy magazines everyone picks up at the newsstand, the decision was impractical at best. Besides, shouldn’t we be thinking about serious married-people things like health insurance and 401Ks?
But the idea just wouldn’t die.
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