The Reason I Travel

Recently one of my friends posted a question on FB as to why do you travel? He got many responses to the question including mine. Many of the responses had the common thread of exploration, perspective, life is short etc. Even when I was writing my response I wanted it to be brief, but ended up writing quite a few lines. Many days have passed since, and I have visited some more new places and gained new experiences. But it is not always about the pleasant experiences and beautiful locations. Sometimes you are stranded at a bus stop and meet some unpleasant people or have the beautiful image of the place that you have in your mind, destroyed by the ground realities. It is at these times I think to myself, why do I do this? I know this sounds corny, but such questions inevitably occur when you are waiting for the train for 10 hours. (I reached 6 hours early and the universe rewarded my overzealous punctuality by delaying the train by 4 hours. I finished a novel in that time, cleared the candy crush level that I was stuck on for months, had conversation with twins from Bengal who were pursuing MBBS in Bangladesh and destroyed some pigs in Angry Birds who seemed angrier because of the delay.)

So why do I do this? The answer that I gave to my friend's question was this:

"To get perspective...We read so many things, fictional, non fictional...It gives me a background to whatever non fiction I have read be it historical, geographical or any other thing...when I visit the place suddenly the temple architecture that I read about in school textbooks or the wars that were fought on the forts come alive....You also get to experience the unexpected which broadens your mind and makes you more humble...Also I like to be left alone with my thoughts, that's why I travel alone most of the times...frees me from the constraints of our time like social media, negative news and such...And finally, there are so many beautiful places to be seen, it feels a waste of life if I don't visit at least some of them.

Now since this is FB, we all try to be a pompous ass. From heavily 'beautified' photos to 'vadhiv' photo captions, FB is the place where everyone is supposedly living their dream. And I was no exception here. The answer I gave isn't necessarily untrue, but it glosses over many aspects and just presents a one-dimensional, pleasant and perfect image.

Initially when I started to go on outings it was always with a group of my school or college friends. It is that time in our lives when you will blindly follow the group,  even though it is towards the lecture hall (this probably - just - might be overstretching a bit). For those of us who were damned to pursue engineering, the decision is groomed long before we even know what is engineering (As a kid, I used to think engineering means building train engines, since that was the only engine I knew. I am actually surprised to not get it completely wrong.). There was always someone in the group to suggest the outing and since there is never a shortage of bikes for the college kids, we would literally kick off our adventure. These trips were something out of syllabus (feels weird writing 'out of syllabus' with a positive connotation) for us who had arrived at engineering by following a very structured path. At this point in my life, the reason for travel was just fun and the company of friends. No hashtags, no philosophical thoughts and none of that perspective bullshit.

But life is not always about roses and unicorns. Sometimes you have things to deal with, thoughts to process, which require calm and quiet. So I went searching for places, where I will be left to my own devices. I would find some obscure hill on Google Maps and just take off there early in the morning. If I was fast enough, I would watch the sun rise through the light fog, perched on the top of the hill. There would be no one there to disturb me, and I would realise that there aren't many thoughts to process after all (The dominant thought at those times usually was - "Why the hell did you wake up so early, idiot?"). But even amidst my sleepy thoughts, I liked the loneliness, the peacefulness of it and the sunrise. These are the times when I am travelling not because I want to go somewhere, but to get away from everything.

The book "India: A Sacred Geography" by Diana L. Eck has had a great influence on the selection of my travel locations. I came across this book somewhere around 2015 and liked it very much. There's a map given at the beginning of the book showing all the major pilgrimage places in India. The book gave me another lens to look through while visiting places of religious significance which people might miss when they are just following the "15 places that should be on top of your list" fad. I tried to cover all the locations shown in the map which were nearby to where I was living at that time. But this was a whole new ballgame since these places were quite far and there were no bikes. But then the ubiquitous Indian Railways came to help, and I found that most of the places are easily accessible by public transport. And then I was introduced with one more aspect of travelling - interaction with strangers.

I am not very keen on talking with people (although I know some who wish that I shut up, at least once a day). But I think this is one of the most humbling and enlightening aspects of my travels. This is something you can't plan and you have to deal with the situations as they come. When I look back at the places that I have travelled to, most of the memories that I am able to recollect are about the stories that these people lived.

I met a French woman, travelling from Khajuraho to Varanasi in sleeper class. The train was stranded just before Varanasi for more than two hours. Without any official explanation as to what was happening, the foreign tourists in the compartment were getting restless. So this French woman started talking with me about why the train is late and soon a conversation started flowing. Finally when the train reached the station, I helped her navigate the chaotic railway station. While we were alighting the train, I asked her where are her other friends to which she replied she was travelling alone. I was astonished to hear that. I usually went alone on my trips and people used to be surprised that I was travelling alone when they came to know about it. But it is a different story for me because I know the language, the culture and the implicit Do's and Dont's in India. But for a foreigner to manage solo travelling with hard to understand English accent in India,  without any hotel booking or tourism package tour, was admirable and little frightening too. Until that point a slight sense of false pride, hubris had crept into my nature. When people repeat the same thing over and over you kind of believe it to be true and I had started thinking that I am doing something extraordinary when I travel solo. But those simple soft words shredded my ego to a million pieces. I saluted her silently from my heart to have that courage and passion to travel solo in a foreign land. Finally she negotiated with the rickshaw drivers outside (she was really good at bargaining, one more thing I admired about her) and we parted our ways after a goodbye handshake.

Then at Chitrakoot, I met a young rickshaw driver who must have been around 18 years of age. I had started walking to the places of interest there, but after some point I realised that it is impossible to cover all the places on foot. But since I had already covered a fair distance from the main town, I was not getting any rickshaw. Finally at one of the sites on the banks of river Mandakini, I found this kid willing to offer a ride. The auto was already booked by a family for sightseeing, so after taking a verbal NOC from the family I was able to travel in the rickshaw, sharing the front seat with this kid. And so the journey started and I was able to see the remaining beautiful places there. The last place that we visited was 'Gupt - Godaviri' a cave which has a small stream flowing through it. It was really good, wading through the cold water and seeing the caves from the inside. After paying the respects to the deity there, me, the kid and the family came downstairs to have some evening snacks. The head of the family, a middle-aged person offered us snacks. While eating he casually asked this kid, "What is your caste?" I was shocked to hear that. Never before I had heard someone ask so openly and so casually about anyone's caste. The kid too in reply told his caste coolly as though it was a normal conversation. The question itself didn't contain any malice nor the answer had any hint of anger or shame. The incident didn't bring about any change of behaviour from anyone for the remainder of the trip but I just couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness that I felt on that day till today.

I have met people offering me a ride, becoming my tour guide for a while by their own accord and people who have trained monkeys to climb on the pilgrims back and exhort money for the peanuts that have to be offered to the monkeys to get them down. I have met an elderly woman walking with me to show me the bus stop and tell (more waving and less telling) me the bus timings because I couldn't speak the language of her region and on the same trip I have met a man who refused to help because I couldn't speak the language of the region. I have heard people talking about the holiness of the Ganga water and the pujas and prayers they do everyday and have seen the same people pocket my mobile phone which had slipped out of my pocket in the rickshaw. I have had people denying me a place to sit even though they could easily manage it and people who have shared their food with me overriding my nay saying. I have met fellow travellers who have left well paid jobs to do farming and others who have braved the tents and the mosquitoes to follow their passion of travelling. I have heard life stories of people emptying their hearts to me, probably because it is easier to do that with a stranger and have unexpectedly met old friends to spend the rest of the day recounting memories and watching the sun set.

Again, it all seems great to read, but this is the accumulation of experiences over thousands of kilometres and many years. You are going to realise that we have formed many notions about things without ever stepping out of our district or state or region. And when you get out many of them are just going to turn out to be false notions. You are going to meet many bad people and some good ones. You are going to have few good experiences and some bad ones. But not every trip has to give you that perfect moment or that great story. You just have to let it come your way and keep walking to your destination...
Without any expectation...