About Us

Trained Army Professional, relentless Traveler and a Landscape photographer, has many interest in ambit of exploration and finding happiness. Works as an IT profesional & Educationist for living.

Hardened by life a keen explorer, Fighting all odds with adrenalin of adventure and passionate about Photography. Hailing from an Army family and have gone through the rigors of combat Army Officer Military training. A keen adventurer myself, have been organizing photography and adventure tours for friends.

In the beginning, Thelongroad.in came to my mind at a time when I thought of sharing my travel and photography experiences with friends who have similar mind set. With Modern pressures on Life One realizes the importance of Nature as a Teacher and resolution to our problems, with this thought, I realized the importance of inculcating exploration urge in young minds. Its been long that I have been organizing such adventure tours voluntarily. It’s a not for Profit initiative to help people conquer fear and develop winning attitude despite all the odds we face. The outdoor activities instill lot of life skill & group dynamics in the participant helping them to be a better human and more poised decision makers in life. It’s an important step towards taking them out of Virtual world into real challenges and real situation to win over it.

My Journey so far…

“Life is what happen to us while we are busy making other plans.”- John Lennon.

It is this unpredictability and un preparedness that makes Life fragile and at the same time beautiful.

Born in a middle class Army family with a wonderful childhood and adolescence, I was the typical 80s and 90s Kid. Typical of those times, good grades and preparation for the competitive exams was the key to open the land of your dreams. As life could have it , That was the most enjoyable phase of life. Any thing and every thing I had dreamt of, was happening to me. I could crack all competitive exams I appeared in and got all the attention I wanted from friends, family and society.

By the time call for Indian Army came I was already pursuing my MCA. But such was my Passion for Joining the forces, that despite family pressure, I left MCA midway and joined Indian army at age of 22 yrs. Dream Career, High merit and the Life of A Soldier.

Inducted in the Indian Army at an age of 22yrs at Officer training academy Chennai, little did I know life was planning something else for me. It all started subtly. During the last days of my Military training I met with an accident while doing night patrolling exercise. As bad as it could get, it resulted into an injury into the right eye and further I was medically boarded out from the Armed Forces.

I still came to terms, and heart in heart knew that I would bounce back as destiny is what one makes from hard work and grit. I restarted where I had left, and went to Pune for a computer course and decided to pursue my second life, with out the dream of my career in forces though. Life was shaping again and a sincere attempt to come back was underway.

It was then when the second jolt happened. Out of the Blue, I started losing vision and this time it was not only the right eye, but the left eye was inflicted too. I was loosing vision rapidly. By the time Local Doctors could try to get hold of the situation, I was rushed to Sankara Netralaya, Chennai for the medical attention; the vision was deteriorating at a fast pace. The Doctors were increasingly clueless, as to what was happening to me.

By the time, I was diagnosed with Atrophy of Optic nerve (Degeneration of nerve) an irreversible phenomenon in medical science. The sight was already lost to 6/32 and 6/36 just next to complete blindness. Though the vision was stabilized by then but what was gone was gone forever. Emergence of Color Blindness added to the problem. I was left with the fact that no medical treatment for this is available on earth to restore the vision.

The new ordeal with life had begun draining me from all directions – mentally physically, financially and emotionally. I was terrified as I could not see and decipher anything around me even the most familiar things like the face of your mother. A young boy who was riding high few days back was now a visually disabled liability. With each passing day, searching for an answer was becoming difficult. Questions about life, destiny and God. Recalled old days of college when I served humanity by donating blood (Nine times) and being awarded college color and here I was, devastated, horrified by darkness and with no hope. Depression started to grip me with suicidal tendency growing each passing day.

And then the life happened again.

It is rightly said in army “ Once a Soldier Always a Soldier”

It took just a moment, that fine day, when I decided to reverse my misery and take charge of destiny once again. I wanted to conquer my darkness and I decided to step out. Mustering all the courage I had, I went up to my scooter from my college days, put the keys in it just drove out on it. I could hear the nervous shout from my father in background, but it was a day to break free!. Though I drove aimlessly that day, but that drive gave me the biggest Aim of my life, to be unstoppable!

It was a small step but it changed my outlook and gave me my confidence back. I started taming faculty of mind to see without eyes using more of other senses I was gifted with. Thankfully mental faculty responded well to the new challenge and started making day to day decision without relying much on eyes. Instead the sixth sense was activated. The new dimension of Chitt (Inner self) took over and after two long year of Almost blindness with no medical / clinical hope here I was with my own understanding and rising to a new world. Rising above the normal, adding newer dimensions.

THE NEW DIMENSION:

Its been 15 years of my new journey and each day I wake up and thank god for the beautiful life & family he has gifted me. A large part of my story is the a gambit of experiences, the highs, the lows, the fame, the despair, the trauma, the darkness,t he helplessness. Its not actually about the incidents, It is about finding sense behind it, finding meaning in it. We take life for granted and event like this force us to think beyond dotted lines. A disabled person will have problems but what’s important is too focus on solutions and inculcate a profound winning attitude. No body can help one self unless you yourself are ready to rediscover and reclaim dignity back.

No matter how prepared we are in life, there would be surprises. Life will always throw some challenge from somewhere. But we have the choice of either getting consumed by it, victimized by it , let it become larger than self and get defined by it or we can turn it around as a platform for our growth. There is a message, a lesson behind every challenge we face in life. We can make the worst situation of life into a narrative of our triumph. The wisdom the courage is all within us.

In year 2003 I started IT & management consulting. I further diversified into consulting schools for HR, Admin and IT. In 2008 I Co-founded a leading school at Amritsar adding new meaning to life and values to young minds.

Since then I have pursued my passion of mountains. I conduct treks and Landscape photography workshops in Himalayas. I have ventured into deep Himalayas on motorcycle. I actively blog my travel experiences on a self hosted/managed site www.thelongroad.in

The life is a long Road and we all have to walk upon it with right meaning and purpose. No matter how the turns and off roads we undergo, at the end what matter is walking steadily and firmly on the road.

As I always say it’s The long road, come walk along us and exploration should never stop.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. – Mae West