On a recent lazy Sunday, I met an old cohort who has refused to go down with the pressures of family life and is still as much the hippie in spirit as 15 years back. Travelling mega-manager that he is, he has set up home in Navi Mumbai and is very happy with his new Godin, a Vox amp and a sizeable record collection. I didn't exactly ask him, but I'm sure B enjoys post-work quiet times with the guitar and the ever-present rolled-up number.    
I missed my first ride aboard the Rajdhani Express because I sort of passed out at his place, back in 1995, while visiting my mum in Delhi. It was a scream because both my father and me got the train timing wrong — you know, the via Gaya, via Patna bit which was usually confusing especially back in the day, especially with that much intoxication in my system — and there was, well, quite a scene. I finally hitched up on the general bogies of the departing Delhi-Kalka mail and managed to reach Delhi just fine; albeit without a single pullover in November. I forgot, what the hell. 
The subsequent 10 days in Delhi are etched in memory as my first adult-life travel to a different city. It was fun; partly because my mother hadn't seen me since I joined college and thus had no clue of what I was doing (you know, playing drums in a band, smoking reefers etc etc). It made for a sociocultural disconnect that I somehow had great fun observing, even while I was a part of it. Then of course, there was the November weather and soaking in the varied bits of Delhi that I came to know: its ancient heritage, the very existence of an education campus like Jawaharlal Nehru University, the large expanse of everything. It was a trip.