In 2021, Angelica Daniel, then 14, was preparing for the prelims of her Class 10 Board exams, when her father Ajay Daniel (46) suggested “something crazy”. “Join me on a road trip to Khardung La.” The ask was a last-minute one, Ajay shares.
“I had been planning a with a few friends from Chandigarh to the Khardung La pass (one of the highest motorable roads in the world) in Leh. My bike had been shipped to Chandigarh and my flight tickets were booked. A week before setting off, everyone backed out.
” Watching her father disappointed at the plan — that was now threatened to flop — Angelica said a ‘yes’ when asked if she would oblige to be his travel buddy. “It’s not every day that someone gets to share in something like this,” she says in retrospect. The trip was phenomenal and the duo made it back just in time for her exams.
“Definitely, an adventure,” affirms Angelica, now 17. The trip set a precedent for years of such adventures to follow, with Ajay riding the bike and Angelica as the pillion. But looking back, they say these were more than mere travel expeditions.
The bike rides forged a strong bond between father and daughter, letting each see the other in a new light. Angelica’s is rooted in her subconscious. “When she was all of four months old and her neck was stabilised, I would tuck her into the baby carrier, which I would then place on the bike tank.
As soon as I began riding, she’d fall asleep within seconds,” Ajay shares. Then followed rides to school, trips to the hill station Nandi Hills and Hampi in Karnataka, and drives to Puducherry and Goa. Road trips became the duo’s love language.
Currently, they are reeling from last year’s trip — covering 7,000 km from Kanyakumari to Thang in Ladakh in 24 days. In a conversation with they revisit the past few years and the travels that have brought them closer. A lifetime’s worth of lessons What does being stuck in a landslide for four days, driving through crumbling roads and being deserted without fuel, teach you? It makes you more intuitive, says Angelica.
Like her teen counterparts, she recalls being “fussy” about her food preferences, luxuries and comforts. Bad weather would tick her off. But it was the time she spent on the road, where she was forced to , that she truly discovered herself, she says.
“And I discovered my father too,” she adds. Recalling the trip to Nandi Hills in school days, Angelica shares, “It was the trip where I observed how seriously my dad took motorbike riding, learnt the proper way of sitting on the bike and holding when hairpin bends approached.” These short trips taught her the nuances of becoming a good pillion.
“I started helping my dad by spotting traffic coming from the other side of the curve and watching out for road crossings. These things helped my dad focus on the road,” she smiles proudly. has ups and downs.
Ajay and Angelica were no strangers to this. But ironically it was these sticky moments that gave Angelica an insight into her dad’s way of approaching problems. “His perspective is pretty cool as is his logical bend of mind,” she commends her father.
Picture an expanse of white undulating terrain. The motorbike’s steady rumble, the whistling wind, and the chirp of a lone bird are the only things that interrupt the silence. Angelica would find these moments perfect for striking up a conversation with her father.
City life has a mundaneness to it, she says. “We live under the same roof but rarely have quality conversations.” The bike rides flipped the script.
“Deal breakers” is how Angelica describes she has taken with her father. Elaborating on this, she says, “Prior to every long road trip, my dad would worry about my safety; whether taking me along was the right decision; would I be okay being so far away from home; what would happen if something were to go wrong.” “But it was only when we started travelling that he started seeing me as his morale booster,” she says.
Whenever the duo would hit a roadblock, Angelica wouldn’t hear of turning back. The only way was forward, she’d say. “He began to see I’m not a child anymore.
” As a Bachelor of Arts student, Angelica’s , significant roads, and historic spots were known to Ajay. But it was only when she was briefing him about these while standing at the spot in question that he understood how well-versed his daughter was in these topics. “He [my father] would listen patiently and then proceed to compliment me that I’d been paying attention at school,” shares Angelica.
The duo concede that their favourite bonding moments happened at the end of the day when they’d settle down for the night. “Though exhausted, sleepy and hungry, we’d speak about different topics; topics that many parents would not broach with their kids. My dad would listen to my thoughts and it made me feel like my opinions were validated, heard, and recognised,” she shares.
During the trip from Kanyakumari to Thang (the northernmost village in India), Angelica learnt two important lessons — help will always come, and until it does, stay positive. “We were driving to (the world’s highest saltwater lake),” she explains. “On our way, we came across a patch of land that was completely deserted without a trace of civilisation.
It was an eerie sight.” While riding through this dystopian landscape, the duo felt snow falling steadily. “We weren’t wearing warm clothes, had lost signal and so couldn’t access maps.
It was beginning to get dark and we were scared,” she adds. While Ajay continued riding undeterred, his 17-year-old pillion wasn’t as calm. “The roads in Ladakh are incredibly narrow.
If the bike skid even a little, we’d be thrown off the mountain.” But it was during these “freakish” moments that Ajay encouraged Angelica to calm her mind by singing. ‘Let It Go’ from the Disney movie ‘Frozen’ was the song of choice.
“Eventually we saw a milestone indicating a village nearby,” she sighs. Making memories on the road Following the trip from Chandigarh to Khardung La in 2021, the duo drove from Chandigarh to Umling La (said to be the highest motorable road and one of the most challenging passes in the world) in 2022, followed by the 7,000 km ride in 2023. The third ride made Angelica the youngest pillion rider to complete such a , according to the India Book of Records (2024).
The trail covered Madhurai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Jhansi, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Udhampur, Srinagar, Kargil, Leh, Thang, Pangong, Nyoma and Hanle, including steep passes such as Zoji La, Namika La, Fotu La, Khardung La, Photila, Umling La, and Tanglang La. The duo were accompanied by Ajay’s friend Praveen Paul and Praveen’s daughter Abigail for most of the expedition. But while the ride was exhilarating, the weather played spoilsport.
On their way to Manali in a cab — after completing the road trip and shipping the bike back from Leh — Angelica and Ajay had a nightmare awaiting them. “We were stranded at Sissu (a town in Himachal Pradesh) for four days,” Ajay elaborates. They’d been warned of bad weather and landslides.
“It was 1 am and a landslide hit the road. The driver suggested we turn back and stay in a nearby town for the night. But as we made our way back, another landslide hit.
We were trapped,” he adds. Drawing parallels with this situation and they had previously witnessed, he says, “Usually, you see people getting down from their vehicles and attempting to move the rocks. But in this case, the boulders that had fallen were twice the size of a JCB Backhoe Loader.
” It would take days for the debris to be cleared. “We were given a space in a hotel’s restaurant next to the tables where the owner put up a few makeshift beds and blankets. But we were cut off from the rest of the world for four days with very little food and water, not to mention no electricity and internet.
” Ajay adds that the warmth of the locals compensated for these tough times. “Whenever they would prepare something they’d invite us to eat with them,” he says. Finally, on the fourth day, the duo managed to make it out safely and reach home.
While these experiences are scary, Angelica says they strengthened the bond she shares with her father. Grateful to that many others her age wouldn’t have the fortune of, Angelica does not take her luck lightly. “Like any other teenager, I sometimes regarded my father as unreasonable.
But these trips have made me appreciate how his brain works, and his fatherly instincts. These trips have made me see the world through my dad’s eyes,” she remarks..
