Trippin' on wanderlust with anti-drug message

WHEN Binu Varghese and Nijas Thamarassery, two lawyers practicing in the Kerala High Court, set out on a road trip across India, beyond the obvious quenching of their wanderlust, what also motivated them was a yearning to understand the country.

- Krishna P S

A true, immersive experience that would peel away layers of India—its geography and culture, and boundless diversity, enlivened by its people.

Binu and 28-year-old Nijas are longtime friends who first met while studying law. Binu, who's twice the age of Nijas (58), was originally an engineer and only took up law recently. He has travelled to several places abroad.

"But I felt, without travelling through my own country and witnessing its beauty," Binu points out, "all my other trips were meaningless." "That's where this idea of a road trip stemmed from," he adds.

The first leg of their nearly 80-day trip began in 2023. The duo travelled from Kerala to Ladakh in a jeep. "A road trip is the best way to experience how the geography, language and culture change with every mile," Nijas highlights.