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An old tea stall keeper watches the clouds go by.

For forty years, Anandrao has brewed hot ginger tea on a cliff edge where empires once marched.

Bhuibawda Ghat, Maharashtra
Anandrao fans the glowing charcoal embers of his small brass stove, his wrinkled face lighting up in the dim morning light. The sharp, spicy scent of crushed ginger and boiling milk drifts out into the cool mountain air. His small wooden stall sits right at the top ridge of Bhuibawda Ghat, overlooking the misty Konkan plains far below. He has watched this rugged route change from a rough dirt track used by bullock carts into a smooth, winding highway.

He knows every mood of these hills. He can tell a storm is coming simply by the way the valley wind whistles through the iron railings. Truck drivers stop by at dawn, their eyes tired from driving up the steep, dizzying loops all night. Anandrao hands them hot glasses of tea, his rough hands offering a silent, warm gesture of safety before they face the dangerous descent. He doesn't earn much, and the winter winds often shake his flimsy tin roof. Yet, he refuses to leave his post. To Anandrao, protecting travelers on this misty mountain pass is the ultimate purpose of his quiet life.

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"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." — Gustave Flaubert "To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." — Aldous Huxley "The journey not the arrival matters." — T.S. Eliot "Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul." — Jamie Lyn Beatty "Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." — Anatole France