Our Six-Month Backpacking Adventure Through India

In Which We Decide to Go On a Six-Month Honeymoon Backpacking Adventure Through India

In 2004, Sona and Navdeep met. In 2005, we got married. For the first time. In a secret wedding in Vegas, just the two of us. Then in 2006, we got married again. Twice. In Jersey. A Sikh ceremony and a Hindu ceremony, all in the same day. So, yeah, you could say we have a flare for the dramatic. (In fact, our company is called Dramebaaz. Appropriate.) Which is why it should be no surprise to anyone that just when everyone expected us to settle down, we packed up and left on a six-month honeymoon backpacking adventure through India. Here’s how it all started.

Now Settle Down Kids

After our big, fat Desi wedding, we went on a perfectly respectable week-long honeymoon adventure to Mexico, where we took cooking classes at a small boutique hotel in Puebla, climbed to the top of a (small) volcano, jumped in the fountains at the local market, and caught some live-action Lucha Libre. We learned that, despite our very different styles, we loved traveling together. And we wanted to do more of it.

For a while, though, life got in the way. Sona was still working fulltime in New York City, where she had left People magazine for TeenPeople (one of her favorite jobs ever). Navdeep was wrapping up his MFA in Fiction at Fresno State, crashing at his parents house and pondering the short story form. We had about 4000 miles separating us, still. Something needed to be done. Eventually, Sona wrapped up her TeenPeople gig when the magazine folded (RIP), and she moved to California to be with Navdeep and began what would be a long, fruitful career as a freelance journalist. And Navdeep graduated his MFA and started teaching English at the college level. We were both in that nearly 30 stage of malaise that starts to settle in, like “is this what being an adult really means?”

To which we answered with a resounding NO. We refused to simply grow up and settle down, a house, a dog, a few kids, and grey hair before we know it. Nope, not us. Somewhere along the way, a germ of a thought became an idea that wouldn’t quite leave us alone. We could ditch the whole thing and go somewhere. And we knew exactly where.