Stupendously Sublime

It started with "Ladakh chalte hain" Frankly speaking, I was highly skeptical of our ability to do this road trip. Looking back, I'm still astounded that we were able to do this. But, with each others' support and our ability to problem solve and manage expectations, Theka and I were able to pull it off. The others were just along for the ride.  It was like having a trip with 6 kids, i felt like a school teacher to a menagerie of delinquents. Some excerpts from what i said "No, we cannot stop every 5 mins for photos" "How can you be hungry already, we just ATE" "what do you mean we should look for a bathroom?" Obviously, this is an exaggeration of what transpired, but I will not let the truth stand in the way of a good story - facts be damned. I have seen that any endeavour of such a size has multiple phases, and i will try to describe how we felt them below.  What can i say, I'm a science student and we love our processes. 1. Initial

A little bit of sadness: My grandmother turned 100, the celebration was epic, here was a human who has seen the world literally transform in front of her. We lost her in August, uncharacteristically, gone peacefully in her sleep on a balmy august morning. I knew the day was coming, as all death comes - but knowing something is about to happen doesn't lessen its load when it happens. This was my last grandparent, an entire generation of my lineage has lived and gone. Ave to the centurion, you live on. I'm writing this one a little faster than i have been doing in the past couple of years, what I've realised is that I get distracted really easily, that's why one of my favourite lines from a movie is "Your focus needs more focus" (Jackie Chan to Jaden Smith in Karate Kid). This realisation dawned upon me when the missus (feels so strange to write this) sent me an Instagram reel. That was a real trip down a rabbit hole, i realised that i had been flicking videos