| I studied very hard and went to B School Calcutta. I decided that I wanted the money. I also decided that I would never forget Duluoz and his mountain. I decided that even if I had money I would visit the sleaziest eat out joint in the city is was in. I would get drunk in a meadow though there was a barstool for me in any expensive hotel. I don't know what sort of choice this was. A coward's choice. I would travel to Shillong by train. I had money to fly but I would remember that the Dharma bum was happier than the rich man take the boat ride in Kerala and smoke on the slopes of the Himalayas. But I would always know that the moment I wanted I could step out of bumdom. Because I was highly qualified, highly valued as a marketing genius and someone who created markets by brilliant innovation. When B
school finished I go a job with cisco. I had to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. In months I had lost track of my dreams of dharma happiness with money. To be the best, I worked like a dog. I had to be the best. I went up the organization but the higher I went, the more there was to be
achieved. I earned a fantastic salary and had two weeks in a year to enjoy it. And in those two weeks I had to keep track daily of events in the office. With the way the two weeks went in Taj Goa and me thinking constantly of work. I might as well have not taken the break. I enjoyed the
success. But what was the point of success. I got married at 29. My wife Gowri took care of our beautiful flat and enjoyed painting and singing. I would return home at 7 in the evening and go to sleep in her arms. I was too drained to go around the city, driving in that traffic, with her to a beautiful restaurant. I couldn't bear to hear the cars horning and their exhausts spewing smoke and the illiterate idiots cutting lanes in front of me. Days became more days and months and years. Where was I headed. If I had time to step out of the competition for a minute, maybe I would have been able to decide.
Three months ago I quit my job. We sold everything we owned in the city. I spoke to the owner of a small communications service provider who I had met during those years in the telecom field. I told him that I would work six months in a year. In these six months I would handle the entire gamut of his marketing requirements. But after six months I would take off for the next six. He would have to pay me a pittance as compared to my previous job but I would work for only six months. The other six he wouldn't know where I was. We had money in the bank. We invested it in bonds. The returns were about 1/50th my annual salary. The interest would be transferred to my checking account every six months. We packed what we needed in a suitcase each. That night we left the big bad city for shillong, second class. That was all the budget would support. We travelled to Nepal and trekked to Ladakh with some foreign tourists. We ate in the mountain side dhabas and drank water from the mountain streams . Someone told us about the city of Lhasa. We took three days to get there changing buses, sleeping in small Inns and walking a lot. Lhasa was a beautiful town surrounded by gigantic mountains. Little boys in a monk's robes seemed to be the largest demographic group of the beautiful town. He camped around for a couple of days till we found a small little cottage to live. I built a neat little fence around it while Gowri put her paintings on the wall and planted a small garden. I read anything I can get my hands on. I've read a lot of the buddhist texts from the monastery down the hill. We take long walks in the forests behind the mountains. Some nights we take our sleeping bag out and I would lie on Gowri's stomach while she lay down on her back and we would both look at the zillion stars in the sky and she would sing for me and around us there would be only trees. Of course I always have my axe with me but Gowri and I are the most beautiful people in the world then. Its been the most wonderful three months of my life. But what if I had got bored of all this. What if I don't want to travel any more. What then, Jack Kerouac?
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