This is anurag sharma , an avid roadster/roadie who had always wanted to be on the road . The first time I took on the road was when I was 11 and my father bought me a second hand cycle and I just got on it and left for a trip. During this trip with the naiveity and innnocence of a child , I stopped at a temple and asked / prayed that when I get back , my parents do not punish me.
It so happened that when I got back they did not even notice . Looking back I am not sure if that incident made me what I am . That I can get on bike (motor or otherwise) and when I get back no one will notice. I spent most of my childhood in jaipur , which I must say is a enigmatic city that can take a lifetime to explore . And then when I had to take college , destiny gave me the oppurtunity of studying in a magnificient place like kashmir (srinagar).
Kashmir liberated me and I lost fear in place where everyone was supposed to fear from the violence of 90s terrorsim , and the fact that every evening post 7 , it was supposed to be a curfew. In that place I felt my liberation taking a walk when I wanted to , even though the general common sensical thing to do was to stay put. Once I left with a friend of mine , Munda and got caught by army presonal who demanded to know what we were doing at that time in a place so prone to violence . Our answer was pretty naive and simplistic, we were just exploring for which they reprimanded us saying that go back to college and study and do justice to your parent's expectations.
Bujhe huan log , doobta huan sooraj , jalte hua Chinar , sulagtha huan Kashmir ....
This was my feeling about kashmir. A place that was so ripe with beauty , potential and yet so rotten and rotting in the minds of the people inhabiting it. We were the privileged few who could experience it as a student like no other could and in my experince of liberation and freedom , somewhere this context of Kashmir did not seep in enough. So when a Kashmiri friend asked to tag along with him when he wanted to go to his village I naively obliged. At every checkpoint when army used to ask questions , he asked me to give them a reason which they were likely to believe in comingg from a non kashmiri person, I naively obliged . It was much later I realized that he was using me to get past the checkpoints and understood the context of 90s kashmir.
The three years I have been kashmir has enabled me to loose fear of new , sometime uncomfortable places , as even though kashmir was integral part of india , it was as foreign as exotic as it can get , with the native population , even kids treating every non kashmiri as a foriegn person and where pretty much you are confronted by army everytime you move from one locality to another.
There was also a very strong element of kashmir and non kashmiri students within REC Srinagar. Any REC has 50% of native population and 50% from rest of india , and in every REC this leads to groupism of natives vs the REST of india. In kashmir , this was much more stronger and at a different level probably because how ethnically and culturally we were really different.
This was an institution where there was BSF battalion within the campus and army and students coexisted in a non intrusive and noramalized way that did not seem so abnormal at all. But then something happened which changed it all . The details probably will have to go in another blog for another time. But there was regular college skirmish wih ragging and close friend of mine got really hurt and we reacted .
Summarizing this will not do justice to what we went through . But finally we left Srinagar , went to delhi , protested before government of India and over of period of time all non kashmiri students got migrated to other places (RECs) in india. Call it destiny or luck I got the oppurtunity to pursue my education back at home (jaipur).
Attending college from home , I probably lost an oppurtunity of the abundane of experiences I have had in Sringar , but more than that Education in NIT did not meet to my expectations . It was underwhelming , there was lot of theory and not enough education that could have helped me to become a good engineer. In spite of trying to have as much fun as I could have had , I endeavored and learnt and excelled academically as well.
For I knew that at the end of undergraduation at some point I will have stand on my feet. So I took the first job oppurtunity that presented itself to me and was happy to get it. I gained financial independence and that was enough for me at that time only to realize in year's time that it was not enough. So I got back to studying and got IIT for Mtech. But in that one year I was in that god forsaken place in rajashthan , I did one thing that has defined my life forever . I bought a Royal enfield bike. It was like first love.
The freedome to move from oneplace to another with wind on face and explore to unchartered terrorties. To move when I want to an rest when I want to , to speed when I want to , to slow down when I want to . The sound of the machine reverbrating in my heart and the entire globe left for me to explore only limited by my imagination , waiting to be conquered and to be explored. On that bike I first felt a liberation I never experienced before . However IIT was where I found the oppurtinty for actulaization , learnt how to compete , and also had fun at a different level. I loved the education , the people I was inteacting with and felt exhilartion like never before . And then I got my job I wanted and had to move to bangalore. When this happened was when I did my first longest road trip. Kharagpur to Jaipur , 1700 km trip. I am not sure what I liked the most , for I was never interested in speed , I always loved the slow ride , like I wanted to live my life . Second by second , uniterested in the hours and intoxicated by the moments you experience when you are not in a hurry to get somewhere.
With that brief context , I would want to get on the agenda of my blog about my south american experience. The context was necessary for it all started from ther. When I was being interviewed for my job in bangalore , the interviewer asked me , what was my hobby and the brazillian manager during his interactions suggested that i read a book . "The motorcycle diaries" by 'Che guevara'. I actually never heard that name and was not even aware that he is an icon of "all revolutions" . I strated reading the book and than after reading first two pages, I wanted to live it , experience it , It gave me the imnpetus to go on an adventure , to actualize my wish and beleif that i was born to be an adventurer and explorer. I Closed the book and than it happend after 9 years that i made my dream come true.
Autor - Korapatti Santosh
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