Discovering Heaven With Zeppelin: A Tribute to Roadtrips and Rock

A self-indulgent little piece on my fondest memories growing up.

Miles to go before I sleep. (Photo: The Quint)

Here’s to the hearts an’ the hands of the men that come with the dust and are gone with the wind.
- Bob Dylan

At 11, I fell in love for the first time, with all the wisdom of my adolescent heart. I learnt to heave and sigh from my elders and betters: the impossibly gorgeous women in the rom-coms I wasn’t allowed to watch. I was taught that unrequited love was the stuff of great literature and I dutifully luxuriated in my solitary passion.

I found solace in music, in the rock ballads that were the most incredible tributes to love. Thirteen years later, men have come and men have gone, but in words that the ‘Grateful Dead’ immortalised, “the music never stopped”. Through the good times and the bad, the classics have been my constant, faithful companion.

Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, ‘The Doors’, ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Simon and Garfunkel’, ‘The Beatles’, ‘CSNY’, ‘The Traveling Wilburries’, Elvis – this is my tribute to you.

The altar at which I worshipped. (Photo: The Quint/Isha Purkayastha)

My dad is a 60s child who loves to drive. The combination worked well in my favour. Almost all of my fondest memories are of holidays where we’ve just driven around. Every once in a while, when time and means would permit, we’d pack our bags and disappear into the hills, beaches or the forests.

Travelling with the family (Photo: The Quint/Isha Purkayastha)

Irrespective of where we went, the music went with us. Over the years, as cassettes gave way to CDs and CDs to iPods, I received an education that I will value for the rest of my life.

I’ve been to Goa in the safe company of Bob Dylan; to Coorg with Eric Clapton. Elvis has seen the temples in the South and ‘The Beatles’ have travelled the world with me.

Every once in a while, when time and means would permit, we’d pack our bags and disappear into the hills, beaches or the forests. (Photo: The Quint/Isha Purkayastha)

Tucked away in the Western Ghats is Munnar, a lush hill station in Kerela. Among rolling hills and tea estates as far as the eye could see, ‘Creedence Clearwater Revival’ asked me a question that I’ve never forgotten to ask myself ever since:

Have you ever seen the rain
Comin’ down on a sunny day?

A decade ago, when the road between Bangalore and Goa was in shambles, we bumped along the picturesque coast road, singing along wistfully to ‘Pink Floyd’s’ enormously popular love ballad (and the song that had become my life’s anthem by then) – Wish You Were Here.

Elvis and his powerful, impeccable baritone kept me company as we drove along Cape Town’s impossibly gorgeous beaches, where expanses of sugary white sand gave way to blue-green waters that glittered in the sun.

Penguins on South Africa’s sugary beaches. (Photo: The Quint/Isha Purkayastha)

On a night safari in Kruger National Park, I watched in awe as spectacular sunsets gave way to vast night skies, frescoed with countless stars. ‘Led Zeppelin’ and Eric Clapton kept me company, teaching me to feel, at once terrible joy and terrible sorrow.

A majestic sunset at Kruger National Park. (Photo: The Quint/Isha Purkayastha)

I’ve been on more holidays than I can remember and listened to more music than I can possibly include in this self-indulgent little piece. My heroes are many, and many of them are no longer alive. Their legacy lives on, in their immortal words, the iconic guitar riffs, in the numerous broken hearts they have healed, in the literature they have inspired and finally, the little girl they nurtured to womanhood.

And as a tribute to the father who introduced me to the music that continues to nurture and sustain me in times of great happiness and despair, I can only pass on what I have received.

For indeed,

... in the end
The love you take
is equal to the love you make.
- Paul McCartney