It was another one of those early morning flights. Any flight I need to catch before 6AM, I usually manage to catch the flight well before on time because I’m dozing off at the airport instead of home. Then I get onto the flight I am still dozing, and usually drooling over the person next to me. I’ve been lucky so far that I’ve not sat next to a woman. After effects of drooling over a lady, I reckon won’t be very pleasant.

But this time, while I was browsing in Landmark I stumbled upon, Hot Tea Across India. To be honest, the reasonI bought it was the picture of the Bullet with the rocket silencer and the Ladakh carriers. Looked like a bullet rider traveling across India, sipping on hot tea across India. So for the first time I stayed awake for an entire 15 minutes before I dozed off and started drooling.

I finally completed the book when I was on the ride to Gurgaon for Rider Mania hosted by Royal Beasts, Delhi. I had read half book at home and the remaining half on the road. Not that the second half of the book was better, but it seemed to make more sense when I was on the highway.

Rishad shares some very interesting and rather outlandish stories about being on the road. The one that takes the cake was of course one where he had to empty his bowels near a dhabha; or rather inside the complex of one where people were sleeping surrounding while he indulged in the noble act of relieving himself. Rishad is a great story teller and if you are a traveler you would easily identify with quite a few those; only wondering how you managed to get away with you while he got into trouble.

The vivid detail in which he has painted the ride though Ladakh; does make you go back to your own escapades. Every moment of the very different travelogue; takes you back in time wishing it had happened to you. The people we meet, the places we see and the human will and grit to go beyond the ordinary pushing the man and machine. Being a rider myself, the conversations that Rishaal paints with his bike are the ones that I’ve had too!

But whether you’re a traveler or not, this book takes you through some of the most interesting journeys across India. Describes people in great detail, making friends on the road, taking a dump with people snoring around you or even when he was almost bullied into selling his bullet in Ladakh. Its all there, and there is still more of it. If you really want to enjoy this book, here is what you do – drive out to the nearest highway dhabha and not one of those commercial ones. Go to one of the non-descript ones which might mostly not even have a board sign (Rishad gives a very good reason for this, which I tend to agree with fully and follow myself) and pull up a khatia. Don’t just flip the pages, but soak in every moment of the journeys. Make a list of those if you haven’t already. Please don’t take your noisy brats, your spouse or a friend. No one would appreciate an anti-social reading a book on the highway after having driven/ridden so long. Leave the brats to your unfortunate wife and go alone.

A lot of Indian authors are there on the book shelves; a few make the cut. Rishad does that with this, and its not just because I am partial to riders and their writing endeavors its because this book connects with you. If you are a traveler you’ll love it, if you are not a traveler, you’d want to become one and if you are a bullet rider, you might be tempted to ditch your boring job and sell this book at every traffic signal.

No reason not to buy this book! Pick it up now from here (click to open!)

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You can follow Rishad on twitter or check his website