The Ultimate High

- Gagan Dhillon

APPROACHING MY 60TH YEAR, I was suddenly beset with the feeling that my life’s major milestones had whizzed past. With more than half of my life behind me, I was still looking for adventure. I remembered the book The Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey by Göran Kropp where he rode on a cycle from Stockholm to Nepal, and then scaled the peak without a Sherpa or canned oxygen. I wanted to summit the Everest too, but convincing my family was simply impossible. Instead, I decided to pick something that would measure up in intensity and thrill: I was going to cycle from Leh to Kanyakumari.

This 4,000-km ride was to take me 29 days. I would travel across 13 states, through bone-chilling cold, sweltering heat and blinding rain. In my journey, I was alone with my thoughts and my constant companion, pain. Excruciating, agonizing pain. That is how I was to bid adieu to another decade of my life.

People ask me why I chose this ‘hell’? A party would have been painless and a whole lot cheaper. But I wanted it as a gift to myself. During the trip, my batchmates from The Scindia School, Gwalior, became my cheerleaders. They rooted for me, following me in a ‘tempo traveller’.

The Ride Begins

The only place in India where even soldiers give you a thumbs up is the Leh–Manali highway. Cycling up the unforgiving, yet breathtaking, landscape is strangely rewarding— there’s pain one moment, oxygen-depravation the next. On the morning of 21 September 2016, my sister-in-law, my friend (who accompanied me until Chandigarh) and I started out amidst cold winds, under a clear, star-studded sky. It was exceptionally challenging— together we negotiated five snowed-in passes, reaching Manali on day six.