First visit to The Himalayas

The first call from Lord Kedarnath, Lord Badri Vishal and the Himalayas came in 2005, to Uttarakhand; when we traveled to Delhi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Joshimath, Auli , Badrinath, Tehri Garhwal and Mussoorie. I was mesmerized by the first sight of the sunlit Himalayas on the way to Joshimath. Kundan was only 1.5 years old then, and had just started walking. The driver of the hired car from GMVNL praised us many times that we had traveled with such a young child.

The thought of traveling to Ladakh first came to mind a several years back. However, in December 2015, I inquired with a hotel in Leh about the possibilities of staying at the hotel, and the hotel owner offered a complete package covering Kashmir and Ladakh in 2 weeks. He informed that the temperature in Leh was -13 Deg C that time. Some year-end activities at the office diverted focus back to work and the plan had to be dropped.

Himachal Pradesh

We then traveled to Himachal Pradesh and Punjab in 2016, the second visit to the Himalayas covering some of the beautiful places . At Manali, a visit to Roerich Art Gallery (Nicholas_Roerich) and seeing Roerichs’  paintings of the Himalayas (Svetoslav-Roerichs-Paintings & Nicholas-Roerichs-Paintings), deepened the desire to visit Ladakh.

On these two visits we had seen the Himalayas in their true magnificence, but the desire to explore more, to meet them once again was ever alive.

Rivers – my love of life

I have been lucky enough to see the Ganges and its three tributaries (the Bhagirathi, Alakhnanda and the Mandakini), the Yamuna, the Godavari , the Narmada, the Son, and Krishna and Koyna, Tapi, Beas, Parvati and Sutlej, Bhima, Thames and Seine to name a few. Every time I have seen a river, I have fallen in love with it, its liveliness & flow, its beauty and as a river is an eternal source of life for us. Them Ganga Aarti at Haridwar is a divine experience. A river keeps on flowing continuously, sometimes it is calm and sometimes turbulent. Most of the time it helps growth of life, but once in a while shows its might to the mankind. When two rivers meet at a confluence it’s like they join forces and do even better for the humankind, like the confluence of two cultures. There was and is a strong desire to meet two rivers – The Indus and The Siyang (The Brahmaputra).

Desire to own a Royal Enfield

In 2016, I opened an account in the name of Kundan at SBI Ghodbunder Road branch. A Royal Enfield showroom is besides the branch and that time I stepped into the showroom, and thought of owning a RE. It is a motorcycle that seemed to have character and I could relate to it almost instantaneously. In 1995, Baba (father) had gifted me a Yamaha RX 100 motorcycle. I rode it proudly for 6 to 7 years. I took Shilpa (my wife) on a ride in Nagpur, in May 2002 (before our marriage in November 2002) on that motorcycle. But after the marriage almost stopped riding motorcycle.