Shillong Stories I -- The trip that was


When you go chasing your dream of a high flying corporate job in a b-school in India, you are asked to be prepared to handle the role, the life and the stress. 12-14 hour workdays, incessant parade of class presentations, piling project work, pending research work, surprise quizzes and the regular grind-mill of lectures mercilessly running into Saturdays and Sundays, fusing the torrid weeks and the weekends into one painful breathless whole. But all of this most of us know. What those of you, who look at this life of a b-school student from the outside can’t see is that we miss on a lot of other things in life. Things like freedom to roll on where our heart would take us, to walk on grass, to gaze on flowery landscapes, to splash in rivers, to feel the wind under a cloudy sky, to feel exhilarated by nothing but nature.

We miss the use of our unbounded spirit and the absolutely liberating pure pleasure of driving on snaky mountain roads in a chilly mountain country under puffs of clouds driven by fresh winds from the peaks. And this is all that a lot of us want. We are human after all, and it was not so long ago that our forefathers lived a life not much different from this.

So when MBA seemed set to give us an opportunity to experience all of this in 9 days, 27 of us mad crazy nature loving rustic bumpkins of XLRI set off to live a tiny part of our lives in the lap of pure nature. And to this day, we all would agree, that that tiny part of our life spent in this heaven is what has made us different in some way or another.

So if you will come with me on this journey of ours, I will ask you to come with a mind free of all you do, leaving behind all your daily routine and tension. Forget then all your bills and dues and files and virus scans and sales targets and stock research for a few moments. If you do this, then I will show you slowly how we 27 young and zealous guys and girls journeyed in the wilderness and the hills of Shillong and Cherrapunji. I will show you what revelry and happiness is unlocked when young hearts roll on where their hearts guide them. I will show you what can be achieved when fear is crushed under the obstinate vanity of adventurous youngsters. I will show you what serenity and satisfaction descends when the dwellers of concrete jungles sleep under the starry sky, caressed by the playful breeze from the mountains.

Come then friend, come quickly, and lets us join in the singing that is beginning to get high pitched in a compartment of the Kanchanjunga Express as it rolls on its rails from Sealdah to Guwahati.

Let the trip that was, begin!


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