My way or Highway

All of us have heard this phrase ‘my way or the highway’ at some point of time in our lives. I have lived this phrase for 6 whole days when my wife @Tuhina Ray decided to drive down from Bangalore to Manali (she has started a small 3 BR homestay in a sleepy hamlet of Simsa, just 2 km before the bustling town of Manali). 2800 km, 11 states, difficult terrains, miles of melting asphalt in the scorching heat of Telengana, Maharashtra, MP, UP & Punjab. She braved her trip through all of these with a packed luggage boot with household goods and her favorite appliances and artefacts (read, a full-size OTG, food processor attachments, a toaster, a sandwich maker, a hand tufted woolen rug, zillions of glassware & tableware, clothes, and everything she thought would come in handy to run her homestay in the hills). The evening before we left for our first leg of the journey, I saw a flash of sadness in her eyes when she gave away her favorite Ladakhi Flask, her Tupperware food containers, her ever faithful Induction cooktop, the thick quilts to our housekeepers, but I knew from within that this girlfriend of mine for the last 25 years is meant for bigger things in life. She runs off-road trails on a Sunday morning, 15 km for fun, does 80-100 kg of deadlift in the clubhouse gym, is a rookie boxer in a boxing club by the river Beas in Manali, a die-hard mountain lover, loves to live in a tiny log cottage instead of a swanky apartment. I had taken the Manali cottage on lease from a renowned Doctor, an avid golfer, in the month of April. My plan was simple, to work from the mountains, to write blogs on weekends, drink Rum and Diet Coke on the colder days, and read all the books I’ve bought in the last five months and share my learnings as much as possible. Tuhina was very clear about running an Airbnb with our spare rooms in the cottage, she named it ‘The Haus.’ Amazon delivery executives became her best friends within a week during her last visit, she had ordered tableware, home accessories, lamps to Rugs to toilet papers, and more from them. She quit her job, we put up our Bangalore Apartment on rent and I spoke to the @RenaultIndia team for a pre-journey vehicle check and roadside assistance in 8 cities during her drive. We filled up the Renault Kwid’s fuel tank, checked the air pressure and was on road. I had the GPS turned on in my phone, had an eye on the fuel gauge, Toll Fastag balances, Air pressure check after every 400-500 km, and oversaw the breakfast and lunch timing and pitstops, and the Airbnb/Booking.com bookings in Hyderabad, Nagpur, Jhansi, Delhi & Sundarnagar. I made sure she was hydrated and nourished by offering her the bottle of water and a snack of nuts and biscuits from time to time. She never removed her vision from the highway, munched her snack and gulped down water with a firm grip on the steering wheel. During the entire journey, she handled multiple tricky situations on the highway of MP, Punjab, and Himachal. We had lost our way due to a GPS snag in Hyderabad, had a real challenge to come out to the highway from Nagpur city, the ‘shortcut’ from Jhansi to Delhi through the ravines of Chambal, a sudden detour from Ambala avoiding the city traffic of Chandigarh to the Manali highway, a difficult 25 km climb from Mandi to Kullu due to the patches of road construction. I was the ‘observer’ throughout, offering no suggestions, only offered her the snacks and water seating next to her, and helped navigating through the cities and the highways.

We had small celebrations on the go, when we parked the car in a shade of a large tree and had tea in paper cups on the highway, found out clean toilets in the most absurd locations, a Haldiram’s dinner in Nagpur, a warm homestay in Jhansi, a beautiful Golf hut in the Airforce Sports Complex, Delhi (our daughter had also joined us there for a quick dinner), a night’s stay with a friend and his family in Himachal and when we reached our cottage in Manali. Many of our friends had suggested to record the trip on a GoPro camera but we refrained from it, sharing a short 35 second video and a couple of photos just for the infographic effect. Before closing the blog, I’d love to share my learnings from this event.

–Have faith in your team, have no doubts (in terms of skill, they’re capable when they decide on something). And always give the due credit to the team-member instead of snatching it away for personal gain.

–Trust your vehicle on a long drive (applies to personal life as well, seriously). Don’t think whether it’s an 800 cc, or a top-end vehicle with 4WD. Have absolute trust in its capabilities. Say sorry to the vehicle, if you hit a pothole (Tuhina fondly patted, and apologized to the steering wheel every time this happened on the way).

-Get all parameters checked/a detailed assessment done before launching a big initiative/project.

–Don’t look away from the windscreen, ever (except the side-view & the rear-view mirrors) while driving.

–Delegate the desired tasks to team-members based on their skills.

–Continue nourishing yourself on a long haul.

–Recharge your fuel and air pressure and toll-tags (Don’t get stuck or delayed because of neglecting even one of them, again applies in life as well).

–Give away things/favours when you wish to move ahead in life. They drag you backwards (swanky apartments, social life, gadgets you had never used, artefacts, household goods collected over years but hardly used).

–Invest in a strong hobby which feeds your passion (reading, blogging in my case, gymming, driving, and boxing in Tuhina’s).

-Just check on your current lifestyle. You want to be a socialite in every glitzy event in town, go pubbing on every weekend, or you are happier in the mountains or a seashore? (Do more often what you like more).

–Communicate more with your team from heart, celebrate small successes.

–Capture the moment when you reach your destination (GoPro or no GoPro).

–Share your experiences with those who’d love to learn with you.

-Don’t just stop there, start planning the next trip.