“Life is a journey,” says a wise Seer.
Preparation of life is something that one cannot and must not do. Since being surprised by life is much wiser than pretending to be surprised; when mathematically it has been predicted with outcomes in technicolour.
More than reaching a destination, I am fascinated with just travelling being enroute to any place. Yet, if I decide to stay put in a place, I could do the lazy version of myself too to impeccable precision.
It is true that if one goes through an experience being fully conscious of the moment and staying present in its vortex. I believe one would find that next level of the self that all of us are searching for within us.
Here is a splattering of my travel to other states and experiencing the diversity that is advertised on Indian screens. North-South and East-West each corner of India is different and our melting pot of cultures and people who have the same heart and soul yet are different.
I found this most interesting to understand when I travelled. I love travelling but I don’t want the hardship of travelling from one place to another. But mind you the kind of physical sensations that pass through me in a new place is different. The first time at any place cannot be replicated.
With each consecutive passing the experience seems less exciting. Yet the way I see it in my childhood when I first started travelling by bus to School, I never liked to be crowded (more precise I detest it) I want to travel as if I have all the time in the world to go from one place to another. I don’t wish or desire to be pushed, rushed, and flushed.
I want to arrive just as collected and calm. So, since my school days I started going to school, college, or office much earlier than others. Travelling by 9A from Ayodhya Mandapam bus stop to Powerhouse bus stop the closest stop to school. It was such a fun moment. I felt the empty bus and choice of window seats, and I always pick the one next to the bus conductor seat. I could get my ticket or bus pass punched and spent the rest on enjoying the drive on the bus.
I know that I have it even now. When I took the bus from my sister’s place to Lekha my internship place in San Jose. It was thrilling and exciting enough to get my awareness in full volume and high speed.
But I can equally refuse to budge from the bed and do the complete lazy and unmotivated person too. There is joy in everything being busy and being lazy. Whenever the motivation is low getting me to do the right thing becomes very difficult. Though I know that there are much to learn every single moment of our life. Every extra moment is a blessing for that day. Was I able to make a change not in others but myself if that is done, I feel the day’s achievement has been crossed and well lived.
I remember my childhood with my siblings were never about travelling to places, though I didn’t lament about it as my siblings, because my travel was not about grand places but just home-school-home. Travelling in an empty bus meant everything, it was not the quality or quantity, it was just the feeling of sensing the breeze on my face and my being.
When it was decided during our school summer break in 8th grade our reduced family of four from five (missing person my brother) had gone with my eldest uncle’s bhajan group friends making tour of all ‘chaardaam.’ Starting at Bappa’s temple in Mumbai to Mathura, Brindavan, to all the religious routes of North India culminating in Vaishno Devi temple, a quicky at Kashmir’s scenic gardens, and Shikara.
My sister and I agreed because we going to Kashmir and our first travel outside Tamil Nadu. The trip ended with our deciding to never go away from home seems childish now. After which both my sister and I have travelled to various places and lived in various places.
My brother took offense at not being included in the trip and made sure he travelled a lot with his family. We all take lessons from our parents and interpret it differently. I enjoy travel only if I have something that I need to do and so I get to Point A to Point B while I gain takeaways from the travel.
So, the Bhajan tour and families arrive at Mathura and an Inn already booked and we are fore warned not to offer food to the monkey. These monkeys were not puny ones but big plump ones with eyes as fierce and anger ridden; there were many mothers with her child clinging to their chests. The random of their movement was a fascinating fear that we tried to circle around.
I took pictures of the monkeys and maybe they are in the album…I am not a picture person. Though last visit to US had taking pictures of flowers for my Haiku collection that was forming in my brain.
In Brindavan we encountered peacocks…or was it elsewhere I am not sure. Or was it while travelling to BITS’s Meera Bhavan I heard the creature cry early in the morning. My sister was repulsed by the sound, but it was not that bad, but their tails seemed to have been balding…I didn’t see any joyous enough to spread their tails.
But I remember watching a video YouTube I think of a Peacock with his tail feather spread and joyous. I love the cloudy days with sun playing hide and seek while the day slumbers waiting for the first shower. That way monsoons are interesting too.
Interestingly, I find myself to immerse in the moment and at the same time experience the expanse of the place by going back and forth the history of the place. I wonder at the travelling that keep me alive and yet oblivious to the notable things.
I am not a fan of boat or sea faring; I don’t like to be on a ship at all. That one travel leaves me high and dry and uninspired. Yet if push comes to shove, I will endure it. Because one should have an experience to know why you don’t like it, right.
Do it at least once is my motto! Of course, later you would have material to dissect and do an Analysis-Paralysis with it. Whether I take a favourable liking or disliking to it will be a studied understanding not a whim.
Transport of Bull cart ride even now remains in my imagination or recalled event. When our paternal cousin brother from my father’s elder sister was deft enough to drive any vehicle. So, we travelled from Kumbakonam to Vayalore in a bull cart ride. My sister and I were too young, so my cousin drove the cart. Once when my brother took the reign, he sent the bull towards the green hedges lining the narrow village road.
My MFA days taught me to travel alone and overcome my nervousness traveling to a place all by myself. I am a planner who knows that the best way to overcome fear of travel is to get all the information and points where interactions and verification are needed have clear route to follow.
One thing I found was that every travel makes you a wiser person. To expand the horizon of your own understanding one should travel to other places with different culture and diverse people in them.
Challenge yourself to see a different culture. That is why I have couch travelled a lot during my college days. I would return and be glued to watching travelogues and experience various places in the comfort of our family couch.
I was super fascinated with Egyptian Pyramids and during my youth television was a great source of learning at the comfort of home. But I also know that when you experience actual places the body reacts to the weather, people, sights, scenes, and other world sensation that clamour for attention at the same time. You wonder at that moment that one place is not equal to another place. But one ingredient that is same is the onlooker called the visitor.
In this journey on Planet Earth, we are all fellow travellers. Some want window seats, some want aisle seats, but some are stuck in love in the middle seats; yet, we travel alone. These days I may travel alone within Chennai but the act of travelling with self-assuredness takes some getting used to.
You can still travel in your memory or make your imagination take flight across the oceans of this entire universe only to land at your dinning table watching a cat stretch itself on the beam of your neighbour’s flat which you realise that Samai dosai has been polished off without any self-awareness.
Whether you travel consciously or unconsciously it doesn’t matter. Because we are all travelling in a spinning globe while universe itself is spinning on its invisible axial poles.
