November 2007…there i was…fresh from heartbreak…at work, yet another day. My boss was hounding me to get some work done…sorry to say, my mind was not entirely in it. You know how it feels sometimes when you ain’t really “there” anymore…anyway, was plodding along, connecting the dots with a few squiggly broken lines when a friend of mine pinged…he went “Dei Maharaj…have you heard about the Mongol Rally?”

I took a brief peek at it…and then, i knew. This was it. This kind of stuff was what i was meant to do…my calling if you will…

I went on a sailing trip just a few months before that…thanks to my friend Rajesh who was gracious enough to invite me. Its a long story on how he didnt make it…but then i ended up having such a great time with a set of complete strangers. But most importantly, that trip opened up my eyes to this planet that we live on…there’s a hell of a lot to see and explore. I guess i was looking for an outlet for that new-found energy…subconsciously maybe…so, the moment i laid my eyes on the rally, i knew this was it! It was custom made for a moron like me whose dreams and reality gets mixed up at times…but most importantly, the dreams do make it into reality more often than i hope for…

But then guess what, it was too late to register for that year. Naturally, i was a little disappointed. There are people on this world who, at this point of time, would have brushed it off and just moved on…but i am someone who differentiates between a goal and an aim…the Mongol Rally was no more an aim…it became a goal. Even before i could get a confirmed place in next years rally, i went ahead and bought myself a car for the rally….

the car...almost...

The wait was long and hard…immense amount of patience was needed…of course, i couldn’t sit still and not see the rest of the world during that time…i headed off to Alaska for a good 3 weeks of pure nature and sublime quiet. Its a place which you have to see to believe…wild, untouched…its something else.

Anyway, i did manage to get a confirmed place in the Rally almost a year later…and the champagne was brought out. Errr…there were some problems though, the rules got changed and my car was no more young enough for the rally! AND i didn’t have any team mates…and even i would be a bit daft to do this alone! Many months passed…i did spread the word a bit…hoping to find the right combination of daring, stupidity and sheer intensity of purpose to get lost and somehow find some goddamn way out…

A few months went by with no real results…it was then that irony decided to raise its horned little head again… Rajesh was it. I had a team…

Since then many things have changed…the finance crisis hit, salaries got slashed, many more ups and downs…but we are still around. We are now quite a few…all from living in different countries…Netherlands, England, Norway, Spain and Germany to name a few…the whole rally organisation is happening online…but we hope to come together in July 2009 and start what we hope would be the adventure of our lives. I dont know if we will make it to Mongolia with our car (which we have to buy now)…but we will make it even if we have to hitchhike!

God bless our souls.