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The Anatomy of Roads
Roads are rivers that do not flow, frozen in time and space. On the banks of such a river you may find forests, mountains, plains, rice-fields, cities or rivers that do flow. And just as the banks of the river mixes with its waters and dissolve a little of their essence into the water, the forests and mountains and cities lend their texture to the skin of the road.
These roads remind me of other roads I’ve been on in the past. Each one has a distinct flavor, and when you run into a similarly flavored road again it brings back memories of the other. With each journey you gain an understanding of different roads, and you begin to classify them. It is an incredible vocabulary to gain, and one that takes a lifetime.
One distinctive virtue of roads is how they acquire or imbibe the texture and emotion of their destinations. So the highway to Coorg is wet and dark, compact and twisting, rising and falling like a folk song. The road to Ladakh is dry, dusty and tough, with a leathered strength that comes from age and winter. The sky- road of Kemmangundi is made of material that weaves clouds; everything feels like it is ripe and ready to explode in a shower of water if touched with insensitivity. There on that road the grass and the flowers catch cold and sneeze when no one is looking. The road to Paradise Beach is hot and grey, the air so thick with the hint of salt and fish it has no room for moisture. And then some roads, like the one that leads you to Ooty, are dark and cozy and melancholic because the trees of the forest block out the sun and the sounds of the jungle remain trapped under the canopy. Some of the best roads we have been on are the ones that gave us stories – like the narrow mountain road that leads to Tadiyandamol, on which we set up camp in the blind color of midnight, complete with a tent and a bonfire, only to wake up in the morning and see that we were blocking the traffic. You can imagine our embarrassment. And then there are the thin, narrow roads, unnamed and rarely used, on which only two bikes could ride abreast so you have to ride single file; roads crowded by tall, prairie grass that try to win back even that strip of land; roads that invoke the nostalgia of the nowhere, that reach out from the city and connect small villages and hamlets and empty grasslands and undulating hills, little nowhere places that lead nowhere and somewhere and everywhere. They are the roads on which you stop to view the storm-lined horizon, and park your motorcycles on lazy, balmy afternoons under the shade of the one single tree you could find, and lean back against the tree to watch the storm roll in with arms wide open, waiting for the rain and inviting it. These are the roads you take in search of the rain.
What intrigues me is the idea that if I chase one unnamed road to its limitless end, I will have in time been on all the roads in the world. I cannot begin to imagine the wide variety of experiences one leading road may allow me. Roads are carriers of friendship; a medium of meeting, and are benevolent in the way they share experience.
I opened my hands and felt the air touch my sweaty palm and brush my fingers, trying to absorb the emotion of the road to Chandigarh. At first contact, it felt parched and political, with no trees and dry, cracking, empty fields waiting to be planted, waiting for the rains. The heat of the plains caused mirages to shift and shimmer over the bone-dry tarmac, and the horizon felt distant and alien. But beyond Chandigarh, the road slopes upwards, taking us into hills that lead us to the mountains. At some unclear point we leave the plains behind, and the heat behind, and catch a skyward wind.
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Chandigarh to Manali
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Matsuo Basho
Day 4
Elevation: 1053 ft.
Distance from Leh: 1010 km.