A truism for motorcycle travels is that it always pay out on the arterial roads. One minute you are sitting with your tea at a roadside dhaba, the next you are seeing slides of history unravel before you. This was just another mausoleum or small-time warlord’s zenana that you see as nipples in the distance, dotting the Delhi-Mathura highway, remnants of the sultanates that ruled these wild stretches eons ago. We rode down to take a closer look because we were early and making good time; the Delhi sun was still not in its element. Up close, the signboard tells us this is Kotwana village. Past the long-forgotten ASI signboards and the crumbling stone-and-mud walls, an unexpected treasure in the central atrium. A small, lovingly grown crop of cannabis indica, ganja for the soul. The crop was still tender, yet to take bud, but some good stills came from it as the light filtered down and played shadows.

A note from Sasi Nair’s diary

Sasi and me took several rides in and around from Delhi. We become close friends since 1998, after i moved to Delhi in 1997. Riding across India is always a dream, awaited to be fulfilled.