Dilli's departure from Hyderabad was more than a physical journey—it was a pilgrimage of the soul, stitched together by railways, winding roads, and the heavy burden of his father's suffering. He began at Secunderabad Railway Station, boarding a north-bound train that would carry him through the heart of India. As the train rattled past Warangal's red soil and into the broad plains of Nagpur, he sat by the window, his eyes fixed on the horizon but his mind elsewhere. He thought of people—their fickle hearts, how they remembered the five unintentional wrongs but never the ninety-five quiet kindnesses. Society, he mused, was quick to cheer a man's rise but quicker to throw stones when he stumbled.
From Nagpur, the train carved its way through Bhopal's lakes and then to Jhansi, where history whispered of warriors who defended their honor with steel. Dilli felt a kinship with that spirit—he too was fighting a war, though his battlefield was unseen. At Agra, the train paused, and he gazed at the distant haze of the Taj Mahal. So much marble for love, he thought, and yet people cannot spare forgiveness for the ones who once fed them.
Reaching Delhi, the capital's chaos embraced him in a roar of horns, vendors, and politics. But Dilli's eyes were set further north. Boarding a bus to Haridwar, he left behind the smog for the holy banks of the Ganga. Watching pilgrims dip into the icy waters, he wondered if faith was less about answered prayers and more about the courage to keep believing even when the gods stayed silent.
From Haridwar, a jeep carried him into the rising foothills, winding through Rishikesh's ashrams and into the rugged beauty of Uttarakhand. As the air thinned and mountains rose like silent guardians, Dilli's thoughts grew sharper. Each bend in the road reminded him that life was never a straight path; it twisted, it broke, it tested. He crossed into Nepal through the border at Banbasa, feeling the subtle shift of language and culture, yet also sensing the same hunger in people—the hunger for respect, for survival, for meaning.
Kathmandu became his staging point, where he secured permits for the pilgrimage. Walking through Pashupatinath Temple, watching smoke rise from the ghats, he thought of impermanence—how everything men fight for, land, status, even grudges, would one day turn to ash. Yet still, people clawed at one another for scraps of pride.
From Kathmandu, he joined a convoy of jeeps and buses heading towards the Tibetan Plateau, crossing through Syabrubesi and onward to Kyirong on the Chinese side. The roads were rough, the altitude dizzying, and the silence of the mountains overwhelming. Nights spent in monasteries or guesthouses became lessons in humility. Dilli's chest often burned with the thin air, but he told himself this was part of the price for confronting Shiva.
At last, the convoy crept across the vast plains of Tibet, where the sky was so wide it seemed to swallow every doubt. Here, he realized how small human quarrels were against the canvas of eternity. After days of travel, he finally reached the shimmering waters of Lake Manasarovar. Standing on its shores, the reflection of snow-draped Mount Kailash glimmering on the surface, he felt the weight of his questions press down harder than the altitude.
He dipped his hand into the icy lake and thought, The world is quick to condemn but slow to understand. Perhaps even gods are the same. Still, I have come to ask—not for myself, but for my father, for my family, for Bharat. The journey from Hyderabad to Manasarovar had stripped him of comfort, tested his body, and filled his mind with the contradictions of faith and society—but it also brought him to the doorstep of the questions he had carried his whole life.