I feel I have been trying to write this particular article as back as I could recall. Struggling to try and put together what 'travelling' actually means to me. A mere moving around and across two places? Living a life on wheels? Meeting new people? Discovering new destinations? Or discovering myself?
It all seems a big dream I am living in. The surroundings seem surreal as I look outside the window just now, seeing the rain pour outside. The drenched trees and the cool weather reminds me of the rains in Mumbai, Pondicherry, London, Chennai, Ooty, Binsar or Lonavla. All those places I've travelled to seem to be like an untrue set of moments bound together forming my life till date. I can't quite remember any year when I did not travel at all. May it be a day long travel to Mumbai and back. Or a 15 day journey across the country, Jagriti Yatra. Life on wheels have been the best way I could live my life.
I feel overwhelmed each time I come across my travel experiences. Photographs and memories are mine forever to be at these wonderful places at any desired moment in time. The beauty of time spent at such places. Trying to learn different languages as I travel to different lands is the all the more alluring. The common phrases in these places seem like a lifeline and a small gesture to fit into that place for that little space in time. Learnt from local shop owners, vendors, watchmen or school children. All so priceless.
Even though being more of an introvert I really look forward to meet new people, maybe from a distance, but that is the way I usually meet anyone. With a gaze. An admiring one. Observing and trying to take in all that I could in the small duration of my stay. I cannot imagine a life of a person who has never moved out of their city or town almost every once in a while. This quote i recently read somewhere kind of sums up my feelings,
"Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground." ~Judith Thurman
