We are what we eat and whom we meet.

How about listening to locals talking about their life and aspirations while sipping a chai and dipping a Parle-G; or sharing a drink with an unknown traveler listening to their experiences; or cooking meals in someone’s kitchen creating chatpate menus; or weaving sari with a local weaver; or gobbling those lovely cutlets on Indian Railways while chatting with the most known strangers; or just covering the entire length of the country in a month, away from the weekly routine of working and waiting for weekends? Sounds decently interesting? Just a bit of what my India, or desh will be like for the next month.

For a month, I will be traveling across the country, biting my way through local cuisines and eating the brains out of all the adorable people I meet. It excites me as I get to do what pleases me the most, eating, learning, writing, and above all talking to people.

Ironically I have a much organized and clear plan for the chaotic Northern India, and a much more random one for the prim and proper Southern India. Half my tickets are booked, none of my stays are planned, and I am still to figure out of use a DSLR which my sister is lending me for a month. But most importantly I have planned what I intend to taste at each location and the kind of people I want to meet.

There are few people who have inspired me a lot recently, most notably Paul Theroux and his travel stories captured in The Great Railway Bazaar, and few travel writers but most notably a girl named Shivya and her writings at The Shooting Star.

I will be crossing most of the following cities on my travel, in case you happen to be in any one of them would be glad to catchup. The list includes: Varanasi, Agra, Mathura, Delhi, Shimla, Punjab (Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana), Bangalore, Pondicherry, Coonur, Kochi, Kannur, Bekal, Mangalore, Goa and Mumbai.

To follow all the updates from my trip please keep visiting the blog, like the Facebook page, or follow @desh on twitter.

Featured image by Ankit Varshneya.