As a famous poet said
मंजिल मिल ही जायेगी एक दिन, भटकते-भटकते ही सही ।
गुमराह तो वो है,जो घर से निकले ही नहीं…
One will find their destination one day,
even if by wandering array
Lost are those, who don’t step out of
their home for fear of dismay
Earlier this year as lockdowns eased and I had my bout of
Covid in first week January and got my Covid shots. With immunity developed in
my body or so I thought, the wanderer in me let loose and I had to be on the
road.
As I carried on my wanderings, a combination of long and
short weekends, work travels, balancing my work and family commitments, I went from far
flung areas in India to a new country, it has been a fulfilling experience. Thanks
to good telecom connectivity, I could manage many a things, long solo driving, road
trips with friends, trekking, kayaking, hill stations, deserts, old and new
cities, spiritual destinations, food tours etc. Though the range of places
visited varied drastically, there were some common themes across, which were my
learnings from the travel.
1)
Friends make the achievement and its celebration
more enjoyable: A trek to Triund over a weekend through a beautiful town
called Dharamshala. For reasons unknown to all of us, we took the difficult
path to the Summit with almost 90 degree climb and for which most of us were underprepared.
Heavy rain half way through, made us take shelter in this small tuck shop,
sitting on on food containers and shivering in cold as we gobbled many plates
of maggi, many cups of tea and bread butter prepared lovingly by young shop
owner Bablu. 90 minutes went by in all the eating and chatting away the fun stories
of the trek with him. Reaching the top and staying overnight in a small makeshift
tuck shop, we were blessed to see million of stars and constellations. I can
still close my eyes and imagine those diamonds like stars, true to the childhood
poem shining so bright.
But the best part of the trek was yet to come post our climb down was a sumptuous
brunch at a café in the winter afternoon sun, we had best of wood fired pizza,
pasta, kebabs, kalamari, nachos, beer, tea, coffee, tiramisu and multiple
rounds of it. Hours of non stop eating and laughter, I am sure we consumed more
calories in this luxurious lunch than the ones we spent on the trek. I wish we
could capture the feeling and fun in pictures celebration of this trek and
laughter reminded me of the college days
2)
Childhood memories are fun to revisit : Very
closely related was another trip, this time an official one and we were a group
of colleagues visiting Shimla, another hill station. One of our colleagues had
spent his childhood in Shimla and the love with which he took all of us around
the Mall road, best bakery shops, best restuarants, his school, monkey menace,
fond memories of crossing his old home and how he used to have fun with his
friends and family, tasting each and every savoury he loved in his childhood, I
could see him reliving all his memories in those when he was explaining the
city to us. The happiness for him knew no bounds and thanks to him we could see
the best of the place through his eyes.
We all can grow up to do big things in life, achieve big goals but the
child in us always remains and is as innocent as it always was
3)
Life with limited variables is happy, peaceful
and healthy : Another trip to a small
quiet village called Chitkul at a height of about 14,000 feet simply stole my
heart. A village with about 100 houses, limited vegetation, a small water
stream, limited electricity (now solar electricity is generated) but amongst
all of this I was amazed to see people having such a satisfaction on their face
despite limited means and what we call in urban areas as limited perspective. The
homestay where we were staying was run by young people who would close the
kitchen at 8 in night, difficult to city dwellers like us. In the morning, as
we were roaming around in the village near the monastery, we met an old lady of
92 years sitting in the small window of her wooden house. As we started talking
to her, she jumped out of the window with so swiftly that we were amazed, she
had not moved out of the village for last 65 years but was quiet happy with her
life with limited variables. She was for sure not having any FOMO and jokingly
asked is what are we doing in her village and if we don’t have any work to do
other than coming to these remote places.
I wonder if the life there is happy, peaceful and healthy with limited options and variables
4)
Honesty still prevails despite commercialisation
at its peak : We had two unique experiences in these trips
One of the friends left his Ipad
in the train when we deboarded it and remembered it only after 2 hours or so.
As we headed back to railway station in our faint attempt to recover it, we
were not sure if we are going to get it but the railway police had the
possession of it and gave it us rightfully after few checks. We were all surprised
and pleasantly so to experience this when most of us in the group had lost hope
of getting it back.
On the same trip, one of the
friends left his phone in a quaint tea shop in a remote village and the
villagers were nice to give it back when we went to take it. They even refused
or should I say got angry when we tried to tip them.
Instances like this for sure reinstates
faith in honesty, humanity and simplicity of life.
5)
Nature and spirituality display their true
essence when they are in their true form Going to far flung desert areas, higher up in himalayan
alititudes to historical places in Gujarat, I felt one thing in common when spiritual
and natural places are untouched they send us more subtle messages.
An old buddhist monastery in Tabo, had fresco paintings of Buddha which
was almost 1000 year old, yet it gave such peaceful vibes though one is not
allowed to click pictures or even throw torch light on it. Likewise an hundreds
of year old temple in Gujarat in a quaint village was so peaceful with limited
human intervention there. Just sitting in these places, takes one to a peaceful
zone.
There were no pictures allowed in most of these places, they were devoid
of commercialisation, very less visited, limited people around. Possibly, when human
mind stops apply logic is the point from where consciousness takes it play and
hence makes these places so peaceful
6) Faith is your best and only co passenger in life – Through these travels, few of them with group and others solo, where I didn’t know the terrain, literally and philosophically, the constant companion with me was Faith or call it Trust. A trust that there are paths (read driveable roads!) laid out as moved crossed some very dangerous mountain passes, trust that the pilot who is flying the plane is able to manevour through the choppy weather when the predictions were not strong, a trust on one’s own ability or the group camaraderie that if we get stuck or one of us falls sick, we will be able to manage together and above all a Faith that someone somewhere has designed a path and journey for you and all you need to do is to start walking
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