Category: Life & Living

Ten life lessons from the “Kailash Manasarovar Yatra”

  1. The journey is as important as the destination: I had a dream of visiting Kailash Manasarovar for many years but it remained a dream for long. When I undertook this mission, I realised that the journey is as important as the destination. You can admire all aspects of nature as you tread along the mountains and rivers and when you reach Kailash, you realise that the road to the destination is as as beautiful as the destination itself.
  2. Physical fitness is not good enough to make it: I have been going for a walk every day for more than three and a half decades. I also practise yoga every day for more than a decade but this physical regimen was not good enough. You needed emotional and mental fitness to undertake this yatra. We met a few Everest climbers, who were gasping for breath and needed oxygen to survive in this yatra.
  3. Spritual calling is essential to make the trip: About three months back, I had contacted an agency in Bangalore and even on phone they rejected our candidature since my wife has a history of arthritis, bronchitis, cholestrol and BP. I did not want to undertake this yatra alone, leaving my life partner behind. But three months later, a family friend called and this time the tour organiser assured us that we can make it and I would call it a spiritual calling indeed. Today I have returned from the yatra to Kailash Manasarovar , along with my spouse.
  4. A confluence of body, mind and soul : The challenges of the yatra tests you physically, mentally and emotionally. I have never been admitted to a hospital in my life nor taken sick leave anytime in my career. But during the course of this yatra, I had high altitude sickness and was having diarrhoea/vomiting for three consecutive days and was drained out. I recovered from this illness just as we reached Manasarovar lake and was fit to undertake the yatra. A fit body supplemented with a focussed mind and a pure soul, possibly enables us to achieve this mission.
  5. We understand what a luxurious life we lead in our every day life, as we experience minimum comforts during the yatra: In life, we take most things for granted.-A good night’s sleep or clean toilets or a long journey by car. But, when you undertake this yatra, you trek, you take a horse, you walk through landslides and spend sleepless nights too. Sometimes you share rooms with many more people and have to also share washrooms. This is when you realise how lucky we are ,on a day to day living.
  6. Acclimatisation is the key to the yatra: We move from 3000 feet at Bangalore to 5000 feet at Kathmandu and gradually ,go up the hills , to reach a peak of about 16,600 feet. This climb is made gradually , so as to enable the body to acclimatise to the high altitudes. There is less oxygen in the air and the temperature keeps falling too. Our ability to adjust is the key to our success in life.
  7. Adaptability and flexibility keeps you ahead: We want everything in life ,our way. This yatra teaches you the basic lesson to adapt and be flexible to achieve your goal. You are not sure, when you start the yatra ,as to what is in store for you. It could be rain, sun or landslides along the way. Our intermittent stoppages may change and hotels booked ,may not be of use ,as we may be late or early. So, our ability to be flexible and adaptable makes us realise our mission.
  8. Change will be constant in life: The Kailash yatra teaches us this basic lesson that change is constant in life. Many things may not go as planned. Our flights may get cancelled, our route may get changed due to inclement weather, our immigration may be challenging experience ,spreading to hours of wait and so on. But as long as we are willing to embrace change as a way of life, we are sure of achieving our goal post.
  9. Focus on the mission – rest will follow: We need to be focussed in our goal in life. This yatra taught us that ,as long as we are clear and focussed in our goal and are willing to take on the challenges along the way, the mission could be accomplished. If we lose focus and give up along the way, we may return to the base camp, without accomplishing our goal.
  10. Gratitude to God and all elders is essential: Last but not the least, at every stage of the yatra, we need to be grateful to God and all elders ,for providing you all the basic essentials in life, in abundance. This yatra makes us realise that real happiness in life is the product of gratitude and contentment in life ,always.

Let the journey of self discovery continue for all of us ,forever.

S Ramesh Shankar

19th Sep 2025

Heart or Mind

Many of us struggle on what to depend upon – heart or mind – to decide everything in life. This is a genuine dilemma and most of us may have gone through it ,in some stage of our life. While heart tells us what we are passionate about, mind analyses it logically ,if we are capable of doing it.

In my book, we need to decide from our heart and plan to execute it from our mind. Many of us tend to wish through our heart and just dream about it. So, it invariably ends up as an unaccomplished dream in our life.

All of us have dreams and passions in our lives. It takes time to identify, what we really enjoy in life and that is absolutely normal. It is fine to change your mind and change it any number of times ,till you find your calling—Something, which fascinates you and keeps you awake at night too.

We all come from different economic backgrounds and it is possible that we cannot follow our heart ,till we reach a stage, where we can afford to do it. Let me illustrate this with an example. I have been passionate about driving and going on long drives. I started my career in 1981 and bought my first car in 1987 and but it took almost ten years for me, to undertake my first long drive with my family.

My financial status and family conditions ,did not permit me to spend money on this passion ,till I reached a reasonable financial stability. I never looked back after that. I could afford to drive different cars and go for long drives with family and friends, across the country in different cities ,I lived thereafter. Even today, I go on a drive once in a few months and enjoy it.

We need not feel bad that we are not able to pursue our passion at a particular point of time ,for reasons beyond our control. Everything in life has a time and place to become a reality and we need to evolve the patience and perseverance, to wait for the opportune time.

Let me give you another example ,from my personal life. I always was passionate about writing. I used to write articles for my school and college magazine and many a time ,for our company newsletters. But I could pursue writing as a passion and publish books only since 2016. This was more than three decades after I started my career.

We need to find ways and means to discover and rediscover our passions in life. It may take some time and we need to be patient ,to make it a reality. Although, we may dream about our passion, it becomes a reality only when we apply our mind and plan for it in our lives.

A dream remains a dream ,unless we systematically plan for it and make it a reality ,through diligent execution. I had a dream to go to the Kumbh for many decades but made it a reality this year ,through systematic planning and seamless execution. So, anything, we dream through our hearts ,can become a reality ,if we are willing to toil to make it happen and work hard through our mind ,to make the impossible, possible.

Let our hearts continue to dream but our mind should convert those dreams into realities through planning.

Let us begin today as it is never too late.

S Ramesh Shankar

5th Feb 2025

The train journey

I have been travelling in trains since the time I was born. As a child, we used to travel in second class compartments and non air conditioned coaches. Initially, the trains were pulled by steam engines and then diesel and nowadays electric engines

I loved the smell of the steam engines. I recall my first posting after my training period as a management trainee in a public sector undertaking. I was posted to an iron ore mine and the journey from the steel plant to the mine was by a passenger train pulled by a steam engine. It took us 3.5 hours for a distance of about 130 kms.

The joy of travelling by train has to be experienced to be believed. The best part of the train journey is that every ten minutes there would be a food vendor offering tea/coffee or snacks. We enjoyed getting down at every station and buying something – may be a newspaper or a magazine or just filling our water bottles.

Another interesting benefit of a train journey, especially a long overnight one ,was that ,we met people from different states of India. There would be interesting people to meet. Families, young boys and girls and elders. Many families carried enough food for their journey and invariably shared amongst all the co-passengers.

Some of the long journeys would take us two nights or more and it was more than 36 hours. We not only met and made new friends, who could turn out to be friends for life but also learnt a lot of things, from the interactions on the trains.

The train journeys improved over the years. The trains became faster and coaches cleaner. We also could upgrade from second class to first class and then to air conditioned coaches. Having tea in mud kulha (pot) and coffee in glass or steel tumblers was fun.

We also enjoyed snacks along the way and some stations were famous for some things. We used enjoy oranges at Nagpur or good mangoes in Vijayawada. Even ice creams was popular in some stations. The peda at Mathura and Peta at Agra were mouth watering.

My childhood, teenage and early adulthood was spent in train journeys. Even after I started my career, the first decade was travelling by train only – both personal and official travels. We looked forward to the company and the food ,shared in trains.

Watching the sun rise on the horizon or the moon set ,was mesmerising. The trees and the landscape along most routes, are green and breathtaking. Another good companion during train journeys was about reading books. I had a colleague at work, who was a book worm. He used to just buy a ticket from the starting to the destination station and carry a few books and finish them. He never got down. Just took a train to its destination and returned in the same train on the return jouney.

Today, when I look back, I can state that, life is also like a train journey. We start somewhere and end somewhere. We have stations on the way as the cities we move and live in. We meet people along our life journey. Some are entertaining like in the trains and some may avoid us like the grudging travellers, who do not like to interact with anyone.

We need to learn to enjoy our journey as much as the destination.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th Jan 2025