Thursday, November 14, 2019

Wild and Meditative

I wrote this when I was hallucinating in the passenger seat of the car, driving thru the Siberian wilderness, when I thought I saw people outside running at the same pace as of the vehicle, but inside the woods that surrounded us. Permafrost, the new concept I had just learnt in the trip, caused the trees to not remain straight and parallel to each other. It had already contributed to creating shapes. It was pitch dark, closer to the midnight and I didn't know that I was dehydrated.


Yeah. That actually happened. That beautiful mind stuff. Or simply mind blowing stuff, as I decided to call it, finally.

I got on the road at GMT+1 and reached GMT+11 within 20 days. A lot happened (as they say in my hometown... लै कल्ला केला). From being wild, to being meditative and then experiencing wild and meditative at the same time. It was all packed in there. This post is about the second part of the trip. इंटरवल के बाद वाला पार्ट.

You find yourself stripped down naked when out in the wilderness such as this. You come Rubaru with yourself without any layer in between. It's not a comfortable encounter at first but then you grow fond of it, to an extent that you may find it difficult to return back to the old self. My time out in the wild had its own rhythm. Hundreds of kilometres and several hours used to pass without anyone crossing by. There was always a river, within the eyesight or not, but almost always audible, the mountains, and generally straight muddy highways. The only way to keep going without any incident was to get the rhythm. Get back to the basic. Plan the food. Plan the water. Plan the fuel. That's it. Of course, I had no freaking clue of it. But then let's just say that I was in an awesome company.

For no reason at all, one day, I came across Nidhi. And then along came Satty. And Milind. And the Hulk. And WBB. Each one carrying own distinct personality, and also offering a tiny window for others to peep in. I met them all in person for the first time in the Yakutian cold in my t-shirt n trousers, just a few minutes after the airport staff told me that they haven't received luggage. Of course, right? And then it took only a few more days to become buddies who shared the chai, sutta, dava, daru, and a dip in the Indigirka river.

While all this was happenjngy, I didn't even realise when I silently welcomed my old pal. me. And said. Thanks for stopping by.

PS: perks of having an awesome company and a photographer in it, is that despite being so poor in saying things impromptu, you still get to feature in a stunning video, hogging all the limelight. Thank you to Milind. And indeed to team WBB for carving out an otherwise impossible journey that I could join in.







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