Peregrination follows ruination. When Naropa decided to leave Nalanda it was because of a devastation of epic physical proportions – the ancient university lay razed by a series of invader ransacking and burning of texts that took Buddhism itself back by several centuries. Born into a Brahmin family in Bengal he was a dutiful son and a devout husband, living the family way for nearly a decade before giving it all up and embarking on a path of freedom and enlightenment. At the age of 28, he entered Nalanda University
Nothing comes in the way of your interaction with the locals other than laziness and prejudice; even an alien tongue doesn’t. I say this with conviction as I wrote a road tripping book on Chhattisgarh when there was no GPS (definitely not in Chhattisgarh) and my Hindi was pidgin at best (it still is). My friends were surprised to see that I actually returned after 40 days on the road in this heavily forested central Indian state besieged with its own set of unique problems. I made up for all
A sudden blizzard – a regular occurrence at high altitudes – caught us unawares as we approached Khardung La and we stopped to chain up our tyres. Flaky snow fell on our jackets which were blown away by strong winds. There was nothing much we could do about the meltwater, ice-cold and mucky, that threatened to penetrate our trekking boots through submerging eyelets. Our drive up from Leh had alternated between treelines and skylines; approaching Khardung La at over 5,000 metres we drove straight into the clouds. An old stray
