A failed adventure?

On my Twitter timeline someone some where mentioned a remarkable book of this century – Scott Adam’s How to succeed after failing for 1000 times. The book is about non-conventional ideas 💡 of success.

I got interested as I am a genuine fan of his comic strip -Dilbert and I look forward to reading it in the newspaper every day.

Now coming to the point. 👉

We had a long awaited trip planned to Shillong, Cherrapunji and other exotic exquisite locations. After a period of rigorous training, and tenous summer we were all very excited about this. And were really looking forward to it. Bookings were done well in advance. We had an elaborate itinerary planned researching meticulously from various travel blogs and YouTube videos. We were depending on the blessings of the weather God for a beautiful experience.

Meghalaya was called such ‘ Abode of clouds’ by Nobel awardee Shri Rabindra Nath Tagore. The mystical clouds floating across the dense bamboo, supari trees lined highway give you an immense feeling of going away to an enchanted place. Perhaps a meditative trip for some. But myself and my children had been reading Harry Potter over the summer holidays and Hogwarts is where we thought we were going. Our hotel was no less than a castle. And magic was just about to begun. Or so we thought.

Man proposes God disposes!

Cherrapunji is famous for it’s magnificent water falls and we went to one such longest waterfall. The luscious fall, the streams of diamond 💎 water petals splashing across your face, the clouds fleeting across alternatively with the pleasant Sun. The sound of pristine flowing water, the chattering of loud lucid insects, over looking vast panoramic view of Bangladesh and no other buildings or hotels in sight. No modern architecture around Kym-rein falls to disturb the natural scenery. We could only bow at the enormity of the cascading water falls. The scene was even more picturesque with dark clouds ☁️ surrounding the top most hill.

Only two man-made structures were here in this natural abode. One, this beautiful man made road that brought us to this heaven.

And secondly, our most trusted man made companion. Our family car. This car was one of the first purchases that we as a couple did, and were extremely proud of it. We had a lot of cherished memories with our prized possession. It had taken us to the cold towering peaks of Ranikhet and arid dry areas of Jodhpur. It had been handled with love and care for a decade now. There were minor issues here and there. But it was family. And you forgive such tiny mistakes in family.

We were all taken aback when it suddenly stopped. It came to an abrupt end in the middle of nowhere. Truly nowhere.

This is how it happened. We were all coming back happy and excited from our exhilarating view of the falls. Next stop was caves. And then lunch.

Yet, in the middle of nowhere, the car broke down. It gave up on us. We tried and remedied and nice driver bhaiyas of other cars stopped by to help. But..No more dhakkas or anything else would do. No Ford repair mechanics or engineer were present in nearby 300 kms. Only tow to Shillong or Guwahati remained a last working feasible option. After being utterly dejected for 3 -3.5 hours, the logistics were worked out. All this was even more difficult, because the mobile signals were fleeting and only Airtel out of the 4 other mobile 📱 signals we had was available for call, only call..not internet connectivity.

But in all this hell, there was a silver lining…

Our car had stopped at a beautiful location. It was still noon time when we had this unexpected halt. A village Lattireyi was just a kilometer away from where our car had stopped. It had a small tuck shop for our tea, chips and water based needs. The kids thankfully slept through half that time and were as cooperative in the other half as you could expect a 6 and a 4 year old to be. The quiet village atmosphere, a running nala and nice weather with no Sun or rain and just heavenly clouds were perfect. Had it rained, we would all have been miserably holed up in the car or below our umbrellas. Had it been hot and humid, again we would have been uncomfortable and possibly nauseous. But by grace of God Almighty, we were comfortable.

There is a lot of beauty in ordinary things. There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

Leo Tolstoy

It was a day where we learnt that such small incidents can happen at any time of the day with all prior precautions and planning. And the best you can do is be calm, keep faith and look for next more suitable options.

I am not very sound on technical matters, but it was something to do with the diesel injector, which as we read now is something that quite commonly happens to diesel cars after long standing.

To put it in a simpler perspective, the car had stood in the garage for a period of 70 days during our training session in some other city. After coming back, a full detailed service and a lot of other changes like battery etc were changed as required and mentioned by specialists. We had given full attention to get it prepared for this coming trip. But these things still happen! Again, I am no technical expert.

Neither is this a travel blog. It is a blog about faith in God, his circumstances and his people. When we stopped in the middle of nowhere, we had no idea that all cars would stop by and heartily enquire and help. The fundamental human spirit of compassion came together. This encounter reminded me that rather than visiting more touristy places, it is more important to imbibe value of courage and patience in your children. Rather than enjoying pleasurable situations only, they should be able to attend to difficult situations with similar calm and composure. They should be able to enjoy and find meaning in these coincidences and be more synchronous with inner human spirit.

Some old fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat. –

Laura Ingalis Wilder.

The best part of our day was when my children sitting in a humble taxi got excited about the rotating head showpiece on the car’s dash board. We saw a magnificent rainbow 🌈 on our way back. My youngest was so happy with that, he couldn’t stop talking about it. Although we were tired and worried for added and uncertain expenses and situations, but our hearts were full of joy due to experiencing such varied challenges and emotions on a single day.

Yesterday is just a memory, tomorrow is never what it is supposed to be.

Bob Dylan

So living in the present is what it needs to be. There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment, every failure and remember time waits for no one.

So in short, for me despite its shortcomings the trip was awesome. The next day of the trip was spent in multiple visits to workshops and incessant worrying. But it was an experience in itself. Our main goal was to reach our home sweet home with the car and that we all did – safe and sound. 🏡

Coming back to the point. 👉

The real secret of success is enthusiasm. Success is not built on success. It is built on failure, frustration and sometimes even catastrophe. Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.

The trip was a success! Yes, it was filled with uncertainties and poor circumstances, if you call them so. But it brought the foremost human values forth. It taught me that- courage, hope, conviction are the strongest qualities that one must have to feel cheerful in any situation, any day!

Happiness is a matter of temperament, rather than circumstance. It is upon a person’s power of holding fast to such undimmed beauty that his inner hopefulness depends.

Ruskin Bond