A journey of clutch, brake & broken dreams

IT was meant to be a quick hop. Just 13 km from Shoghi to Shimla. A drive shorter than most people’s morning motivational reels. But as I left the pine-scented calm of Shoghi and merged onto what can only be described as the Highway to Hell, I knew this would not be a commute. It would be a character-building experience. A Himalayan pilgrimage, undertaken not on foot, but with the left foot eternally bouncing between clutch and despair.

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By the time I crossed Tara Devi — somewhere around what felt like my second reincarnation — I had given up on reaching the Himachal Pradesh High Court on time. Or with a functioning knee. Or with any remaining faith in linear movement.

I was headed to the HC to report a case. As a journalist, my notepad was ready, my facts in place — but what I hadn’t anticipated was that the real drama would begin much before I reached the courtroom.

What used to be a road was now a highly participative social experiment in human patience. An unending column of cars, honking in no discernible rhythm, like a jazz performance gone very wrong.

On one side, towering mountains whispered “serenity,” while on the other, buses inched forward like ancient tortoises with suspension problems.

Somewhere near Sankat Mochan, I started hallucinating that I was driving a vintage sewing machine. Clutch in, brake, half clutch, slight release, brake again, sigh, scream internally, repeat. The car moved in millimetres. I moved in metaphors.

Behind me, an irritated tourist in a rented cab shouted “Shimla kab aayega?” and I wanted to tell him that Shimla wasn’t a place anymore. It was a concept. A dream. A misty ideal that one moved toward but never quite reached — like utopia, or a functional municipality.

At some point, the road became so congested that I had a conversation with a monkey sitting on the railing. He nodded, as if to say, “We warned you.” I offered him a piece of my soul. He declined.

Children grew up in the car next to mine. A couple that had just met at the tunnel entrance broke up before the Lift. I think one of them still lives there.

At two hours and 20 minutes, I reached near the High Court.

It struck me that the 100-km drive from Chandigarh to Shoghi had taken the same time as this 13-km crawl to Shimla. Only in Himachal, I thought, can distance be measured not in kilometres but in karma.

The journey had aged me. The left side of my body now belonged to a 70-year-old ballerina with arthritis. I parked, unfolded myself from the car like a creased legal notice, and limped into court, a broken man clutching a notepad and the last shreds of his will to live.

And the irony? The court adjourned the case in two minutes. Naturally.

On the way back to Shoghi, I considered walking.

But then again, I’m not that reckless.

Moral of the story: Himachal is beautiful. But if you are planning to reach Shimla from Shoghi, do what the clouds do — float.

Or just leave a day before.