Why Do I Travel?

I thought of writing about my travels and here I am doing the same contemplating what my crazy brain is going to force my fingers to type next. And in the whole world out of the "n" number of combinations of letter and words I had to choose something like "Why do I travel?" as my 1st title. It is something that has been posted by many and in different ways of one's own perspective. So before I started writing about my travels individually I thought it to be necessary to share my own perspective on the need to travel. 

Everyone has their own way of expressing their deepest thought processes. Great orators speak, some use art forms like music and dance and then you have this beautiful craft of writing (in our current world "typing"). I have always believed it to be the most expressive and effective one of all.

So why do I travel? I do so as it brings me peace, compassion, flexibility, love, understanding, desire to learn the unknown, a need to connect and communicate with an unknown person and still create a bond with him even if temporary (not always though). It also helps me in understanding that it's a basic human flaw to premeditate things as something that is bound to happen will happen anyway. All you can do is speculate and then wait for the end result. In the end it all comes down to your happiness and the outcomes should never affect it.

The concept of solo travel has emerged in the recent years in India. I have been fortunate enough to go on a handful of such trips on various terrains and they all have been good enough to promote them as well as encourage others to try them out. It provides you the ultimate freedom. It makes you open up to new cultures, people and traditions and try out new cuisines as well. Moving around solo gives you the space, time and atmosphere to interpret the true essence of your presence in this universe and understand on what you truly crave for. 

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

Mountains. They teach the need to stay humble. "Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence." All your arrogance, ego, power and money stands to nothing. Each visit brings a new lesson and a new perception to Life. Every time I descend from the mountains there is this feeling, a gap, a void, which just doesn't fill in until the bullshit that surrounds me finally makes me surrender to it and fill it in, within me, inside out. I then try to break free again as early as I can. I fail sometimes and then there are times when I succeed.

Forest. Just like mountains they make you feel small. I had loved the movie Avatar and kept growing fond of it with time. It left a mark on me and the reason was simple. I have always been fond of nature and wildlife. The love that was portrayed of the locals for their forests and everything that had life in it had moved me. For days I felt like “only if I could live in a place like that”. They teach us that although we are nothing considering the larger picture but we are all still inter-connected and so are our actions and their end results. A forest is never silent and same holds true for each one of us and there lies the bond between the both. 

Ocean. Endless. Deep. There's something in those waves approaching you that brings a sense of calm and peace in your mind. The crushing noise of the thunderous waves hitting the shores has the absolute silence hidden within them. They may sometime symbolize your inner turmoil which keeps pinging you time and again in moments of silence and yet it dies out too momentarily as you get on with the general chores, just like the waves. Just an hour on the beach brings me to peace with so many of my internal fights. 

Food. And yes I am foodie. People who know me well also know about my inquisitive taste buds. Travelling gives me the freedom of trying not only the local cuisines but also some hidden delicacies of each region which are not sometimes freely available to all. Amritsar, Indore and Surat have been my favourite cities in this regards so far in India. 

In brief, I have developed these wheels on my leg that crave to keep moving around. All they want is to keep rolling. If not the mountains, then the beaches. If not the beaches, then the desert. If not the desert, then the forests. I am not sure what I am searching for. Maybe it's just the fondness of the unknown.

The more I travel the more my wings feel enlivened with a desire to fly further. I am not sure where I am heading but I am going to keep trying for more, much more and hope that this flame doesn't die out ever.