Cruising through life

I’m very fidgety today, my heart has skipped too many beats. I’m uncharacteristically fumbling for the right words as I address my audience in the training room.

Ofcourse I know the reasons. The routine daily grind is getting me edgy; I can’t wait to begin to travel. The blood in my vein flows hither thither, my breath annoyed as it abhors settling in some place and breathing rhythmically. My feet itches, as they are dying to be thrown off balance. It is a different matter that it’s hardly a week since I got back to Bangalore.

“I travel a lot. I hate having my life disrupted by routine”. Well, that quite is the state of my mind. At any point of time now, I’m either planning a new trip, on a trip or delighting in the memories of one that went by. So why this lust for the ‘wander’?

Every time I begin a journey leaving behind comfortable havens of my cozy home in search of the unknown and unexplored, the expanse of my existence and experience magnifies tremendously. I love the adventure in the utter newness of kissing alien winds against my face, on unaccustomed roads.

Travel is like a capture. One hears of a place, knows it, imagines it, and then gets there to experience it. Then there is a totally difference experience of the same place, in hindsight.

My soul leaps in joy every time an idea to explore a new place comes alive. I revel in the idea of what meanings the journey might bring, and let the yearning curiosity to build within. I lose myself in all the research and planning till that idea gets a definite form, a vivid vision, and becomes a compelling interest.

So yes, there are plans. Backup plans. Contingent plans. Disaster recovery plans. Inspite of all the plans, the journey gifts too many surprises. Ofcourse one doesn’t plan to learn from the travel but that surely is a consequence.

Travel places life in distinct boxes of varied experiences drawing meaningful contours, though by nature being chaotic and unstructured. Apart from many other things, wander is most significantly very humbling.

Travel brings me face to face with realities I have heard of but never experienced, the nomadic existence keeps me grounded by constantly reinforcing the vastness of the world and my own shallow knowledge of such vastness. As I experience the voracious variety of people and their idiosyncrasies, slowly but surely I learn to let go of prejudices, stereotypes and hypocrisy. The more I know, the more I know of how much I don’t know.

Ironically, wander establishes and constantly reestablishes that harmony with the world outside and peace within. I believe that as we travel to relate to the world around us, we travel that much or more distance within. I’m reminded of a friend who often quotes James Baldwin; he seemed to have said, “I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.” Truly it is in the adventure, romanticism, exploration and chaos we often find ourselves.

Travel teaches you to love. It tells you how differences are fascinating and how one has to give to live. I see myself becoming more liberal, accepting, silent, wholesome and compassionate with the day; surely that couldn’t have happened if I had chosen to veggetate in one small part of the world. The wander pushes me to tear my soul and peep within, only so that I can stitch it back differently.

No doubt there are times when the long roads annoy me, the trains and stink wear me off, a boredom of the newness sets in, a longing to smell the bed sheets back home troubles me and life seems a detour. But then again, that restlessness too is a part of the package, and makes the wander more interesting.

Travelling alone has its own charm. I often converse with locals or other tourists when I’m on my own. Each conversation has a life of its own and creates a bond on its own standing.

Wander has so many parallels to the experiences we have of the way life treats us and vice-versa. It reinforces the necessity to “move on”, and redefines the joyousness and pathos of leaving past behind and looking forward constantly. It tells you how a moment gone can never be recovered, for instance how the innocence of childhood can never be returned to and therefore gives you the strength to seek newness.

Travel also gives a sense of restlessness which is both unsettling and annoying but only till you discover adventure in the unknown. To wake up not knowing where you, why you are and how, and then taking that time to find your place in the world in one of those beautiful sensations that parallels none other.

When you are in a alien place you take nothing for granted and no relationship to be so familiar that you slip from your best behavior. You make friends with dirt and grime, you lust the dust of the long roads, you walk around in wet innerwear after a jump into the waterfall, you chat up the ailing old woman, you kiss the crying little kid, you live in that moment. Most importantly, you live.

So yes, wander is where life is.