The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
I always imagine a point in life where I would have the liberty to grab my backpack and travel to places unknown at will. This is because travelling never fails to inspire me and that too in a new way every time.
My freakish love affair with travelling started while I was still a kid. It was the first time that I had an opportunity to visit a hill station where one of my uncles lived. Unlike the normally crowded and over-commercialised hill stations, this was a place about which one could only dream of. The house was perched right on top of a hillock with a stream running next to it. The virgin beauty and the pristine landscapes left me awestruck. Waking up every day to the sights and sounds of the forest was incomparable and straight out of a travel book. Life is a struggle up there due to the difficult terrain and scarcity of water but people still manage to live a happy and satisfied life, which in many ways is ingenious.
Cut to present time. Delhi is one such place that never fails to inspire me. The incessant pace and the lively atmosphere is infectious and affects even the dullest of the souls. I remember discovering Delhi. Every weekend I used to zero in on a location and went exploring it. The bus rides were bumpy but provided a flavour of the heady pace at which life moves in big cities. It was as if I was a William Dalrymple criss-crossing the length and breadth of Delhi in search of the djinns of the past. While on my mission I met people and characters who changed my perception towards life and the way I chose to live it. You have to travel to experience this thrill and the huge amount of energy it generates from within. Each journey is unique and teaches something while it slowly unfolds.
Watching ‘The Amazing Race’ or the ‘Man Versus Wild’ on the tube makes me envy the people who get to travel to unknown places. It’s a fantastic challenge to get up everyday and to find your backpack as the only known object around. Gets the adrenaline rushing and the thrill that it brings with it is tremendous.
And so journey after journey my love for travel only grows stronger.
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