Royal Appointment

Spent five days getting dusty and high on Royal Enfield’s Himalayan Odyssey. 2013 marked the 10^th edition of the factory organised ride, the first of which was in 1997. Although this was my third Odyssey, the ride was very different as it was the first time I rode down from the mountains. On the way up, riders are too awed by the terrain to focus on anything else. On the way down, the participants were clearly more focussed on the ride. 

Some of the riders were freshly minted college graduates who had waltzed through final exams wrapped in warm and dusty dreams of Ladakh. Other riders, irrespective of how old they were, where they came from, and how they rode, were similarly smitten by their Royal Enfields.  

It’s always exciting to meet people who go to great lengths to chalk out three weeks of their lives for some “Me time”. I met three colleagues who worked in the same department of a company. They had the Herculean task of convincing their bosses to letting all three of them go for the ride together. The bosses, kudos to them, did just that. Evidently, their passion did the talking.