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 As a travel enthusiast, I raced through the first few chapters without even realizing that I was reading a book. The author, Rishad Saam Mehta, a travel writer and photographer, starts off by informing the readers how he landed his dream job of traveling while writing for a new automobile magazine one day, just as he was daydreaming about visiting exotic places while unwrapping a sandwich and reading the newspaper advertisement asking for applicants. A wise man on one of his travels in India told the Bombay based electronics engineer that nothing in this universe happens just by chance or coincidence, but is part of a Greater Plan. Reading about Mehta’s travels makes one tend to agree that the author was indeed destined to travel and take his readers along with him on his many trips via his crisp narration of events.
For his work Mehta gets to test drive some of the best cars like the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG and Ferrari on roads many can only hope to travel upon. His book also shows how he deals with delays and airline strikes during travel, with his sense of humor intact. Leading an irate passenger away at Madrid airport despite his own disappointment when there were no seats, so endeared him to a service agent that she later got him a confirmed seat to Munich where he got to drive a BMW Z4 roadster. Many misadventures are related in the form of hilarious anecdotes.
The chapters relating to his fidgety feet take us on various treks such as the Alpine Lakes of Kashmir and the Annapurna Base Camp. Gadsar Pass at 13,800 ft, skinny dipping in glacier-fed Alpine lakes, trekking past an army camp and games of Frisbee volleyball are all par for the course for the whacky group which generally covered eight km a day over seven hours on the Alpine Trek.
The chapter "Arctic Chills,” where Mehta gets to ride his own snow mobile in sub-zero temperatures, best describes the chill of winter in inclement weather conditions.
An excerpt from the book: "A few weeks after I’d returned to Bombay from Australia, I received a phone call from a travel agent who organizes tours to the Arctic Circle in winter and spring. She had a group going right away and asked if I wanted to join them. I wasn’t terribly keen on an organized tour to Finnish Lapland, where the temperatures at that time would be around -15°C, and I told her so. But then she mentioned that this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill, travel-by-bus, take-in-the-sights-with-a-guide kind of tour. ‘You’ll be riding your own ski-mobile,’ she said. ‘Okay, I’ll go,’ I replied. A ski-mobile or a snowmobile is much like a jet ski, except that it runs over snow and ice, and the chance to ride one for a few days was reason enough for me to brave the bone-chilling cold. As it turned out, I was glad I accepted anyway, because the four guys with whom I was clubbed with were travelling to Lapland for the wackiest reason ever — to argue with Santa Claus about his judgment of their behavior through the year.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another trip to Spiti in Himachal Pradesh in the thick of winter to try and spot a snow leopard is described vividly with a large dose of self-deprecating humor. The author says that there are two check lists required for a winter trip to Spiti. The first one is the rather normal one of woollies, sturdy shoes, stove, pressure cooker and so on, while the second check list needs to tick off qualities like ‘a bit mental’ and ‘awfully adventurous.’ Indeed, trying to melt the frozen diesel in the Thar’s fuel tank needs the traveller to be a bit of both! Descriptions of a seemingly frozen river with cracked ice, electric blankets which when turned on knock off the electricity grid of an entire Himachal village and no sign of the elusive snow leopard, make an interesting chapter.
Then there are descriptions of wonderful friends like Neville, Navaz and Karandip, and coach trips, unlike any that an ordinary traveller would take, various adventures in Italy, France, Poland, Russia and Mexico, to mention just a few of the countries covered in this book; scuba diving and even a sky-diving experience in New Zealand.
This book is a must for a travel-enthusiast. The photographs are the icing on the cake, transporting the reader to many a place that one can only dream of visiting.                    

BEYNIAZ EDULJI