Travel

Because travel makes you wiser, makes your life richer. Because you’re not smarter than Einstein

Different people define their lives in different ways. Some define it through their desire for stability. Some define it by the amount of wealth they can create, for themselves, their families and so on. I don’t know about you lot but I believe that life is a kaleidoscope of experiences. The more you gather, the more colourful your life. The big question is, how do you add colour to your life’s experiences? The one word answer to that is, Travel.

There is nothing in the world, no book, no show on the telly, no amount of results on the world’s biggest internet search engine or the most popular photo-sharing social media app, which will give you the kind of exposure to experiences that travel – real travel – will ever do. There’s no amount of engagement that you can drive in the virtual world that will be near as involving as a genuine conversation with a person. There’s no breathtaking video in the world that can really take your breath away in the same way that standing at the edge of Cabo da Roca can.

I have been one of those lucky people whose profession takes them to all corners of our beautiful planet. With the sole exceptions of Australia and Antartica, I have been fortunate enough to see parts of every other continent on Earth, and I can tell you that such crazy travel, the lunacy of airports and the madness of flights have all been worth it. For I have come out, at the end, much richer than when I had started.

Take for instance my first experience of Ladakh. It is achingly beautiful, and lonely. Miles and miles of emptiness, the silence of the mountains combined with the gurgle of a green Indus scything her way through the lunar landscape blew my mind away. If I had the abilities of verse, I am sure I would have composed some. Or the first time my eyes beheld the beauty of the Taj Mahal, for example. I gaped at it in full wonder. That such a thing could have been made by the hand of man was an incredible notion. I remember the time when I had driven up the hills around Lisbon and found myself at the Cabo da Roca, a cape that was literally the westernmost edge of the Eurasian landmass. It feels strange to think that just on the other side lies what was once the New World that Columbus had discovered.

Landscapes and architecture are however only the tip of the iceberg of experiences that travel has to offer. The real experiences are always gathered from the people you meet. The bunch of Turkish motorcycle journalists for instance. I met them in Spain on a bike ride and they asked us (the Indian group) why we conversed in English. We proceeded to explain to them that there is no one language in India. We only succeeded when I fished out a 100 rupee note, showed them all the languages on it, explained that they all meant the same thing and that they were all Indian languages. The guy’s wide eyed wonder at the sheer plurality of languages in our nation is imprinted in mind even though I speak of an event from at least half a decade ago. I could see that he, and his friends, were staggered by the revelation. Then there was the time when a chance meeting with an elderly gentleman ended with his story of how he had evaded capture by the Indian Army and had slipped back into the safety of Pakistan. He had been shot down somewhere over Punjab in 1971. Or my friend and colleague from my days in Oman who explained to me how no one really wanted Palestinians even though a lot of the world professes to stand by the Palestinians. He was of course a Palestinian by birth who had acquired a Syrian citizenship (wasn’t such a bad thing at the time) so that he could migrate.

No, I cannot tell you how much colour has been added to my life by my myriad travels. Sure, there were times I’d wish it would stop and I’d just not have to face another long haul flight. But having spent a particularly colourless year through this horrid 2020, I can tell you that I am thankful for all the places I have seen, all the people I have met and all the experiences I have gathered. And while I can lay no claim, not even a glimmer of a claim, on the genius of one late Albert, I have to agree with his hypothesis that Einstein ably summed up with the words “I love to travel, but I hate to arrive.” Sheer genius.