Rohtang was never about reaching the top. Every second person on Instagram has a photo at the Rohtang sign, posing like they conquered Everest when there's literally a traffic jam of Innova taxis behind them. No, for me the ride was about that stretch between Gulaba and Marhi - where the treeline ends, the clouds drop below you, and suddenly you're riding through what feels like the inside of a painting that hasn't been finished yet.
I'd left Manali at five in the morning specifically to beat the tourist rush. The Himalayan was running beautifully in the cold air, that single-cylinder thump echoing off the mountainside like a heartbeat. There's a dhaba just before the first switchback where an old uncle makes the best aloo paratha you'll ever eat in your life, served on newspaper with a cup of chai so sweet your dentist would cry. I sat there watching the sun hit the peaks one by one, turning them gold, and genuinely felt like crying myself. Not from sadness. From that overwhelming feeling when beauty hits you before your brain can process it.
The descent was where things got spiritual, if that doesn't sound too filmy. Fog so thick you couldn't see ten metres ahead, and you have to surrender to it. Can't rush, can't plan, can't see the next turn until you're in it. You just ride, breath by breath, metre by metre, trusting the road and your tyres and whatever force keeps us all upright on two wheels. Somewhere in that fog, I stopped thinking about deadlines and EMIs and quarterly reviews. Just stopped. And when I came out the other side into bright sunshine, I swear I was a slightly different person.