Voyage to Infinity

Welcome aboard!

You have been chosen for the bumpy exploration to the heavenly land of Sikkim. Submit your soul, hold your breadth and tighten your seat belt as we take you up to the most exciting journey of your life. Please nod off the speed traps as we crusade through the journey. Kindly ignore the buzzy sirens and listen to your inner shout for adventure, for the ultimate voyage

Let's start..

The stream down the hills is looking calm

The lovely boulevard is breathtaking.!!

 The twists and turns of the journey are unfolding as we gaze into the playful kids 

Stop for a moment..! Experience the dangerous yet beautiful side of nature

The hill tops alludes to something serious danger

 Some unknown creatures almost on the edge. Looks like humans.

 The sincere kids. Not sure which planet they belong to.

Ok. We are on the slope. Lets measure the angle of depression through the 'Shaktimaan' view

The path to salvation. Exploration never ends here.

Religion is everywhere..!!

Lets face back the slippery danger, travel to the vastness, feel the cold and what I call 'The Infinity'

We humans are everywhere, even at the infinity. I hope you enjoyed the journey. 

Political Ambitions

Political Ambitions! What exactly do we mean when we claim that someone has political ambitions?  How do we arrive at such conclusions? What is the acceptable definition? What are the boundaries?  And the most important question, whether it is good or bad? 

Intrigued by these simple questions and yet struggled to find the right answers, I thought why not give an attempt to understand it myself with some help from the basics. Well, I do not carry enough political patronage in my pocket that I can manage to spend with ease. 

So the most basic approach, I can think of, is to to breakdown the phrase and try to understand the meaning of each word. As per Wikipedia's article, politics can be defined as "the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level." And Ambition is "an eager or strong desire to achieve something". Automatically it follows that political ambition should be defined as nothing but the willingness to influence people i.e. to carry the power of people. Now why would anyone have such inclinations and what kind of power are we actually talking about? I can think of two possible reasons : 

1. Either, he/she is motivated with a materialistic desire to keep resources at his/her disposal 
2. There is a "genuine" drive from within to lead and give the people a direction (right or wrong)

Now it is imperative to evaluate the rights and wrongs of the motives before proceeding further. What is wrong with the first driving factor? I don't see materialism as a bad thing. It comes natural to human psyche. We all are materialistic. Then why do we expect that a politician should not possess materialistic desires? Irony, isn't it? And we are not gaining anything from this prospect, an unrealistic proposition to say the least. For these people, politics is another kind of business and I think there is nothing wrong in it. There can be bad and corrupt practice of doing business but if the motive is to "do business" the harm is limited. And ultimately we are the customer so we can always select a different business person. 

Now what's wrong with the second driving factor? Doesn't it sound too extreme, practically at least? If a politician is rearing a drive inside which is not materialistic in nature, don't you think that we should be more careful? Even a detailed assessment grounded on logical facts can be misleading as the barrier to his dubious inside always remains. One can only gamble in these cases, take a leap of faith. Basically the case of more the risk, more the gain/loss.

Finally, the conclusion should provide answer to the last question. Political ambition, Good or Bad? 

Again it depends on the motivational factors as defined earlier.

Case 1: Definitely not harmful. The onus lies on the public whether they have cracked the right business deal and person. I'll call it a safer option and preferably better. However the mindset toward them should change and they should be seen purely as business person. Evaluate them on the criteria if they'll be able to provide the best of their services. And give them a good offer that they cannot reject. Stop expecting that they should be doing free seva for you.  And I think I needn't say what should you be doing if you find that the businessman is a cheat.

Case 2: It can be very good or very bad. Be ready with your mitigation plans as the risk is too high. Evaluate more thoroughly and extensively. Take a leap of faith but do not not close your eyes. The chances of market crashing are quite high.

A Happy Traveler

Prepare yourself for almost similar responses before randomly asking people about their aim of life. Most of the time the answer would be one or another version of "Being happy and spreading happiness". But there is a great chaos in the definition of happiness, I feel. It can never be objective in nature while the perception always is. The concept is individualistic to the core, varies with taste and like of the individual. For some delicious food is happiness while for some even the access to food is.  Some wish to possess the rarest of rare stone while some prefer to stay away from silly worldly pleasures. Some look forward to a sound sleep while some prefer to play along with their restless soul. The range is astonishingly wide.

I think I belong to the category of a traveler and when I travel I call myself a happy traveler. My definition of happiness is in exploring. My life is meaningless if i am stopped or i am scared to step beyond, if i block myself from moving under the sun or fly with the clouds; if i don't travel the terrains. Happiness has no meaning to me if my soul is motionless and it gets filled with impurity like rested water. Have you ever heard about 'Behta Paani Nirmala'? Yes! Exactly!

The travel story that I'm going to share dates back to the summers of 69. Oops! I think wasn't born then. It must have been 2012 (the year, not the movie). I had dipped myself deep into the pond of daydreaming when suddenly my cell-phone rang and rocked me out of the pond. The manager is calling, most probably to know the status of the work. The brain slowly starts pushing itself back into the pond and starts wondering, "The deadline is near. It's very important to get the work done. Having achieved the last 3 deadlines consecutively, expectations from the team is high. I hate deadlines. Why is a deadline called a "dead"--"line"? What made people name it so? What if one crosses the line? How's the life after that?" Suddenly the phone started ringing again. 3 missed calls already. "Should I pick it? I don't have any such desire but it seems I have to." 

I: Hey!

PM: Good News! The work plan has been revised by the client and now there is enough time for the next deliverable. Enough time to breathe properly.
I: Great news. I think this is the perfect time to take a break and respond to nature's call.
PM: (Chuckles)! Enjoy Bud.

Who would have thought of something like this? Something unbelievable has just happened. No deadlines, no pseudo pressure and I am free to embark upon a random trip. The sheer realization filled my mind with fresh vigor. This was going to be special. And yes it was special.

The trip didn't start with any plan. I phoned some of my colleagues and managed to arrange some co-travelers.  We just packed our bags, took all the necessary stuffs for survival (including a toothpaste) and left for the journey. Journey to the wettest place of the world- Cherrapunji.

Let me begin my journey with a pic of a street dog on the way. We believe it was an early sign from the gods that this travel was going to be full of awesomeness.. ;)

My journey was photographic to say the least. So I'll let my pics speak more

The journey started with a darshan of the revered falls as we started our travel from Shillong- the scotland of the east.

The falls were followed by the majestic beauty of the perfectly carved valley. We had never seen such a perfect valley.

It looked so serene yet so powerful and dangerous. The slopes mesmerized our trigonometric minds.

The respite was when the sun showed his bossy attitude.

The aggression was followed by the cuddly nature of the clouds. We were literally over the clouds.

A broader view of the heavenly hills.

So we decided why not play when the nature itself want us to.

Suddenly the clouds went berserk. We forgot that it doesn't stay in a place for long. The whole area filled with clouds but we could now see the falls beneath. Scary to say the least.

Finally we reached the place that extracted maximum excitement from within. !The Caves! At this point we released our driver and decided to take a walk instead. An unforgettable walk, I must say.

Guess what we found an exit as well, though it was a dead end. 

And finally we decided to wrap up the cave mission only to begin our trek mission and witness the artistic beauty of nature - the root bridge.

Trust me! It was a difficult terrain to trek. We slipped so many times, fell to the edge. We stumbled but didn't stop as we strengthen along our bonding to an altogether different level.

The place was refreshingly peaceful and calm. You continuously hear the sound of insects and birds which was ecstatic. But we had to call it a day as we were in no mood to prove Tolkein wrong "Not all those who wander are lost". And as Tarry Pratchett has rightly remarked, "Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. Coming back to where you started is not the same as ever leaving".

Finally with the following final snap, I'd like to say thanks to you for reading through my journey. A place where I'd like to visit again and bring along my friends and family whom i couldn't accompany in this trip.