Why am I doing it?

I once sat and mused 'why should I write such a book?' I tried to find a few good reasons that I could commit myself to. And this is why I am doing it...

• I write about a phase that triggered a latent interest in a subject as exquisite as history to resurface, with such an intensity that I find myself ready to devote a great part of my time and life to it.
  

• I write about a phase that expanded my horizon of understanding of something I have always held dear - music.
  

• I write about a short period of four months during which I shot more photographs than what I have in my entire life before it! That's what a place as beautiful as Europe can do to you!
  

• I write about that phase during which I had some of my weirdest experiences - something I would probably never venture into again!
  

• Very rarely does life decide to give one such a concentrated dose of experience. So much so that it pretty much changes the way he looks at many aspects of life. At the end of it, this was one such opportunity - a great cocktail of good and bad experiences

It begins

Taken from my earlier post on 'Depth of Waters'

Scene 1:

"You can have a thick slab of beef with sauce, or ham sausages, fried in oil, or fresh cut raw meat salad, or just forget about eating"

I raised my eyebrows, "er... vegetarisch?" ('vegetarian' in German)

"Very well, I can give you a pair of sandwich bread slices with two cabbage leaves inside"

"Awesome! Make it three!" (To myself... "finally some food after 3 days!")


Scene 2:

"You can have an assortment of things to drink - beer, vodka, rum, whiskey, gin or any mix of these!!"

I raised my eyebrows, "er... wasser?" ('water' in German)

"I can give you a peg of aerated water! We don't serve plain water!"

"Ah! Okay. Make it two glasses!"


Scene 3:

"You can have many ways of dealing with your experience... chit chat about it here and there, possibly write a few blogs, and yeah, just forget it after that"

I raised my eyebrows, "er... bessere Methode?" ('better method' in German)

"I can suggest you to write a book"

"Ah! Right!"


A once-in-a-lifetime experience, my four month stay in Europe between August and December 2008 saw my feet trudging through 40,000 kilometers of a cocktail of good, bad, beautiful and ugly experiences. And the 'Book of 40,000 kms' is going to talk about exactly this!

My sincere gratitude to the following folks who were a part of this story (for a change, I would write the names in reverse alphabetical order):

Vivek Jain (MDI Gurgaon)

Rajiv (IIM Ahmedabad)

Rajesh Balaji (IIM Ahmedabad)

Deepti I P (IIM Bangalore)

Balaji S (IIM Bangalore)

Balaji S Iyer (IIM Ahmedabad)

Avni Mehta (MDI Gurgaon)

Ashis Kumar (IIM Calcutta)

Ankit Kansal (IIM Lucknow)

Anand Gautam (IIM Bangalore)

I will keep posting updates on the book as the writing work progresses.

Cheers!