“A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” “

Thus John Augustus Shedd

“I CANNOT RUN IN A PACK, I cannot be limited to a boundary. I cannot spend all my time working to make someone else’s dream come true. I need to get lost.” These were the exact thoughts floating in my mind as I was sitting at my office desk, looking through the window, back in February 2015.

Then I planned my motorcycle journey from Telangana to Meghalaya, covering six States and touching two international borders in a span of 28 days.

All I needed was my Royal Enfield Desert Storm, panniers, a military kit bag for luggage, a tank-bag for my camera and lenses, reflective stickers, bungee cords and jerry-cans for fuel.

On 12 November 2015, I embarked on a journey that would be an experience of a lifetime. My route map took me from Hyderabad to Vijayawada, then on to Bhubaneswar and Kolkata, from Siliguri to Guwahati and, finally, Shillong. I mostly rode during daytime and daily covered 300 km on average. I also stopped en route a lot to take pictures and videos.

Different State borders had the same story to tell with hundreds of lorries waiting on one side, sometimes for routine checks and sometimes just stuck there for hours without any reason. I rode through the villages of West Bengal during Durga Pooja when women, dressed beautifully in traditional attire, was a common delightful sight.

I travelled around the border of Bangladesh and Bhutan to reach Meghalaya via Siliguri. The roads were dusty and rough but equally enjoyable. Sometimes I was as close as five kilometres from the international border.

Entering Meghalaya was a breathtaking experience. I was riding via the city of Shillong towards village Mawphlang, encountering local citizens who spoke a language not known to me. I realised with guilt how little I know about my own country! Therefore, I decided to spend a week at Mawphlang, camping at a farm in freezing temperature, which at night could go down to -2° Celsius. This helped me to realise how amazing our country truly is.

One of the best decisions I made was strictly not to use navigation. Although I did get lost at times, I met people who directed me towards my destination and, in the process, I learned a lot from them in terms of language, food and gossip.

Living in a comfortable city apartment tends to silently detach you from the real world. My idea of an international border turned out to be very different from what I saw. After interacting with locals at the border of West Bengal, Assam and Meghalaya, I realised that the people are the same; it is the government that projects a different picture.

This is just the beginning. We live in one of the most magnificent countries in the world, and I want to experience and live every bit of it.