Passage through India – on a Rs 500-a-day budget

Five years ago, Devapriya Roy and Saurav Jha had an "insane idea" – they'd travel to the four corners of India in a hundred days, spending no more than Rs 500 a day. They were young – Devapriya was 26 and Saurav two years older – though not young enough to take a year off without worrying about how it would affect their lives and careers. All around, people like them – university-educated, reasonably well off, culturally liberal – had their noses firmly to the grindstone, steadily clawing their way up without a thought of "opting out".

It's a term the couple is uncomfortable with. "We were living some stupid 70s socialist dream, shacking up and slumming it out. This was not about avoiding self-indulgence, but accepting over-indulgence," says Saurav, his self-deprecatory tone indication of the many times he has had to explain their decision to friends, family, and perhaps, themselves too.

It takes courage to just up and take off, especially as the couple saw it not just as a journey, but a life decision – irreversible. They didn't just take leave from their workplaces; they resigned, vacated the apartment they rented in Delhi. "We did not want a dilettantish engagement, a dalliance," says Saurav. "This was to be our life, the way we lived," says Devapriya. As for money, their savings and a modest advance from their publisher – yes, a book at the end of the journey was part of the plan - was to be the "slender noose" by which they'd either, metaphorically speaking, hang themselves or break free. And so on a cold, foggy winter morning in January 2010, they start out, boarding a Silverline bus for Jaipur – they couldn't possibly travel in greater luxury, as the Rs.500 had also to cover their board and food.

Needless to say, they, they failed to cover the length and breadth of India in a hundred days. The Heat and Dust Project, the just released book that chronicles leg one of their journey, covers 29 days through Rajasthan and Gujarat, then a gap of 10 days in Delhi, followed by their journey to Mathura and Dharamsala.

But fulfilling the goal soon ceased to be the point of the journey, as the "hurtling pace" they promise to set themselves at the beginning soon slackened and they ended up staying in each of the cities they visit for a few days, taking in the sights, talking to people and making friends.

Saurav, like most husbands who blame their wives for plans gone awry, holds Devapriya responsible. "Left to her, we would never have completed the journey," says Saurav, good-humouredly. "(In each city) she would say, shall we stay here for five days, ten days and I would be telling her, that wouldn't do, we have to leave." "But it was my idea," says Devapriya amiably. "And I was the demon executing it," responds Saurav.

Devapriya and Saurav had been married four years when they embarked on their adventure, and had known each other for four years before that. Theirs had been the quintessential Presidency College (Kolkata) romance – she, studying English, and he, Economics - their relationship is characterised by banter and an air of irreverent regard of two people who know each other long and well, and more important, respect, their differences.

But, of course, travelling for so long on a shoestring budget would test any marriage, however great. And so while, they worked their differences amicably most of the time – Saurav was the practical navigator and budget-keeper, while Devapriya was the romantic, more instinctive one – there were clashes too, and fierce ones.

"It was no honeymoon," says Devapriya feelingly. "It was the anti-honeymoon," her husband smirks. In fact, the book was originally to have been called Two Honeymooners and the Criggly Map of India, but became The Heat and Dust Project because the second leg was undertaken in the heat of summer. Because "heat and dust are the words usually associated with India, even as late as Elizabeth Gilbert", says Devapriya. Somewhere, they also had Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who wrote a book by the name, also made into a Merchant Ivory film full of steamy sex scenes, in mind. "It was to be the ultimate response to Jhabwala," Devapriya says, to which Saurav responds – "Maybe we should add the sex next time, it's conspicuous by its absence."

As of now, the couple has the project panned out as a trilogy – part two, which they haven't begun writing yet but promise will be out next year, will be about their travels through central and south India. As for the rest – Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Kashmir, the east and northeast of India – they have yet to visit.

But the couple is unapologetic about how long-winded their project is turning out to be. It was, they say, never meant to just about the outward journey, but also the one inwards to find themselves. "Most books about India have been written by foreigners. When you travel to another country to do a travelogue, there's a point of entry and also of exit. But we live here and there's nothing stopping us from going and living in Pushkar for a year," says Devapriya. "That is what makes the whole thing so contingent - it is never going to be really done-done."