Hot tea across India by Rishaad Saam Mehta

Price: Rs 195 (got it for 146 through Flipkart.com)

Travelogue

It was the title and an attractive cover that made me to lay my hands on the book....The cover picture tells you all about the book..I usually don't go by review as they take away the element of surprise from it..I have all crazy things that make me to buy a book...In short this book is 191 pages 20 chapter fully packed entertainer...Rishad Saam Mehta has put all his adventure carefully jotted down with such an ease with such an ease, that made me put aside the book only when I had finished reading it..

Its a travelogue in a different note, its about tea across India as the tittle suggests and thankfully its not the only focus of it but the linking points in a distorted puzzle picture...Until he pointed out I have never worked on the aspect of tea ..His passion turned obsession to travel through lonely terrain at night with nothing but darkness and his bullet (that he is in love with) is just as breath taking as much the snow covered himalayan submit that hes been to...At times though the description of his bike becomes cliched..

Author worked for Autocar writing about his experience , may be this experience gives an edge in his writing to be  short,crispy yet thoroughly engaging...I was laughing aloud when author runs with his bike from a local gunda  saving his bike and his embarrassing run clearing his tummy....Almost losing his bike which he had parcelled , his being mistaken as a terrorist...

There are no hard  strokes or word of complain all along, even on his not so good experiences with corrupt officials (Chai-pani moments) is all all  put in a gentle stroke that  the reader almost misses them..With his AMS (acute mountain sickness) its his sheer zeal for travel that took him all through high mountain terrain on and on....Through his buffalo's milk straight from source to LUXAREY bus to guides in khajuraho and Halebid ,Belur one  moves with the author experiencing the same anxiety and urgency through the travel...I wish there were pictures added on to it ..

All in all its a wonderful read that will not disappoint when you are not in a mood of serious reading...