If you travel beyond this point, you will be responsible for your own brain damage

While I have tried to keep a non-personal perspective in all my blog posts so far, today I intend to indulge myself by way of divulging my proclivity to stay on the move. Especially now because I have started to see a number of articles floating around on the world wide internet claiming that travelling isn’t all that it’s made out to be. You’re damn right. It isn’t.

It’s no wonder that social pundits have taken to condemning our generation of pretentious Millennials to excessive self-indulgence that does nobody no-good. I salute you, whoever-wherever you are for calling a spade – a spade. But not necessarily for the right reasons.

Travelling is not some Utopian idea of heroism

Unless you join Greenpeace (wait! Are they any good?) or some equally sensational non-profit that claims to be saving humanity from the next zombie apocalypse (if you ask me – it’s inevitable) or helping children rehabilitate from the repercussions of society’s inclination to strike out and shoot dead anybody who doesn’t agree with (for example, the United State of A). Truth is travel is a hedonistic indulgence by which we assert our presence in a world that could be hosting a very-real version of the Hunger Games in the near dystopian future. Once that happens; who knows; maybe we’ll just die of a flying spear or a poison arrow before we can say Czechoslovakia (PS it took me three attempts to get the spelling right). That brings me to...

We are a bit too aware of our morbidity

I don’t say mortality because mostly that word has been used to refer natural causes of death. And let’s be frank; there’s nothing natural left in this world. We’d have to go to Mars to die a natural death (of course Mars Terms & Conditions apply). To put in social-media-parlance, it’s like giving your share of thumbs-ups for a page like Nihilism. I mean the only reason I get this humour around death is because my alter ego is shit-scared of dying and I’m in denial – so I make a joke and laugh it off.

And what does travelling have to do with all this morbid balderdash? In a world that’s conspiring to annihilate itself, you can’t blame us for YOLO-ing our way through life. Would the last dinosaur that lived, ponder on the extinction of his/her race or try his luck hunting the ape for dinner? My bet is on the second and that’s probably what got him killed anyways. My point is that I want to see and enjoy every bit of the time I have left before I’m killed by a Messenger Bot that reaches sentience and does the right thing to save the planet. In case you’re wondering, I’m referring to the extinction of human-folks (I’m told that this could happen in less than 24 hours. Care for a glass of freshly melted Arctic ice anyone?)

Why walk it when you can Wiki it

In an age where Google is God, is it really necessary to see-it-to-believe-it? There are a million cat memes floating around but who knows what these furry felines are saying anyways. That doesn’t stop us from believing. The truth is we are a doomed generation, anyhoo. We are stuck between the previous one that believed hard work can get us anything and the one ahead that are doing batshit crazy things too young and too easily by being in the right place at the right time with bootstrap luck. So forgive me, if I don’t find 360 degree augmented reality real enough to glean my life experiences from. I’m still a bit of an internet ape that way.

While very soon we might be climbing Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon on our iPads, I’ll settle for the less virtual experience, thank you.

Human interaction is overrated

Before you go gaga over the travesty of that statement, consider this. The only reason Facebook is a multi-national giant and middle-man apps are making people real paper money is because they cut out the whole ordeal of human interactions. Yet, here we are, gloating over inane experiences like living and travelling like locals. In this dog eat dog world, why are we so keen on knowing the dog we are definitely going to eat? Are we sadists or plain stupid? But then again, it’s a fear-mongering lying duplicitous world out there where even shit can be sold for a buck (advertising anybody?) and I’m just as confused. I definitely like to order my food on Zomato sans the overrated hi-bye but hell, it cannot be compared to sitting down for a sumptuous meal of snakeskin and porcupine innards in a tribal province called HeebeejeebeeBurg. I guess the difference is between survival (boring conversations can kill ya) and life experiences. Just to be clear, I’ve never had any body part of snakes or porcupines. I wonder what porcupine guts look like? Maybe I’ll Google it.

On a more serious note...

Travelling has nothing to do with Instagram pictures or Facebook check-ins; it’s not about copy-pasting unoriginal quotes over beautiful horizons (not another sunset!); it’s not about listicle-ized blimps with pretty over-the-shoulder photos exposing tanned shoulders or (god-forbid another) selfies with your brand new wayfarer. This is a distorted version of what travelling is all about, just like everything I’ve said so far in this post.

Instead, it is a lot like Schrodinger’s cat. Science facts aside, in that whole neither-here-nor-there scenario, I would like to believe that the cat’s outside the box. Probably sipped its fair share of cocktails on sunny beaches of Indonesia, maybe had the opportunity to meow at a South-American feline in Patagonia or discovered the illuminating transcendence of catnip in the Himalayas (or may be Schrodinger was simply trying to cover up for accidentally killing his neighbour’s cat. Tssk). For whatever it’s worth, the only way the cat would’ve come to appreciate the cosy safety of home is by being outside. Because in life, we don’t necessarily know what we want till we get it. And to me travelling is mostly about just wanting to know. Get it?

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PS. Certain chronological facts have been distorted to serve the purpose of my argument.

In case you were riled up or had some sort of extreme reaction to the above post, here's a song from the queen of badassery -Nina Simone, to tide things over.

When Joan Didion said, ‘we tell ourselves stories in order to live’, I think she meant - the stories we delude ourselves with.

I used to think that if I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer through the noon and end it with a Thud! Whack! Clanggg! before I hit the sack. But once I had a hammer, I realised I wasn’t hammering as much I said I would.

Other Names #3: Brojesh

The best way to describe Brojesh is to think of him as an old, inhospitable house at a part of town that had seen its peak more than half a century ago. It has no claim to architectural beauty yet remarkable in its thickness of walls and the fewness of windows, most of which has been grated over time. It was built to last. Without talents. Without arrogance. Read about Project Other Names here .

A road-tripper’s recipe to beach-hopping: Sri Lanka south coast

Nay-sayers said it couldn’t be done. Well-wishers said it probably shouldn’t be done. The fact that the mercury would rise to its zenith high in the peak summer didn’t stop us from travelling to the southern coast of Sri Lanka last month. After a rickety eight hour bus-ride that saw us descending into the plains from the hill country, we reached the bustling sea-board town of Weligama. If you are travelling along the same route, keeping a day in hand for the Yala National Park would seem like the most obvious choice. However, short of money and time – my fiancé and I headed straight for the holy trinity of sun, sea and sand. It would be safe to say that any road trip involves the road (duh!), a pair of trusty-ish wheels and at least one companion (who you will most likely fall out with at least once a day. But regardless the offense these silly skirmishes that start with ‘let’s stop for a cola’ have a knack to smooth itself out soon enough). Like life, which’s about the journey and n...

Other Names #10: Mrs. Ghosh

She sat on a wooden bench facing an empty communal pool, contemplating its green chlorinated waters, with her hand resting on the silver handle of her cane and thinking about death. The first time Mrs. Ghosh had visited Dolphin Square, she was no more than five herself. Her father, a district magistrate in the Calcutta high court and a skilled swimmer himself had unceremoniously doused her in the pool. It was the first of many days that would become her entire adolescent years. The pool was emptied and cleaned once every year in the winter. There had been numerous deaths at the bottom of the diving board but all of Calcutta’s best swimmers frolicked to the murky green pools to compete with children from nearby slums who inevitably turned out to be stronger and swifter in the district championships. Every second Sunday of the month, young people who couldn’t afford the membership fee of the government run swim club, competed against each other to earn their place by merit. It afforded t...

Other Names #12: Kaamkar Das

The rain pelted incessantly for six years and five months and twenty-two days over the city of Someplace. There were periods of drizzle when people stepped out but soon, they began to realise that the respite was only a forecast for more rain. At first life came to a standstill and then boredom set in. People stopped going out altogether so establishments had no reason to stay open. The public gardens were flooded and turned into veritable marshlands with crocodiles and snakes which put an end to walking. A thick layer of moss covered the asphalt under the waterlogged streets that made cars and motorbikes skid off their paths and often into death. People received their weekly supplies of grains from a government helicopter that came twice a week to drop sealed packets onto the terraces. Time stretched into infinite seconds over Someplace and its people came to be characterised by their glassy eyes, wet yellowish skin and a perennial dry crust around their mouths. Kaamkar Das was one of...

Other Names #4 and #5: Ahana and Asha

Other Names #4 Ahana belonged to an aristocratic family. But as a rule, Bengalis think more of influential friends, than birth. Ahana was lucky to be esteemed and even loved by people of consequence in society, whose example was followed by others of lesser means. It seem hardly necessary to remark that her family worries and anxiety had little or no foundation, or that her imagination increased them to an absurd degree. But if you had a wart on your nose or forehead, you imagine the whole world is looking at it, sniggering behind your back. Because you can’t see past the puss-filled elephant sitting on your face. Doubtless, Ahana was considered ‘eccentric’ in society, but she was nonetheless esteemed; the pity was that she was ceasing to believe in that esteem. Other Names #5 “I’m going through a phase. And I’m awfully glad it’ll all be over in a couple of days”, Asha whispered to herself. For a fleeting moment the weight slid off her shoulders and she felt a breath of fresh ...

Footnotes from college and my holiday in Istanbul that has nothing to do with the former

The following is best enjoyed with food or beverage that's a tad bit sour, bitter or whatever seasoning that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Besides teaching me calculus and semi-conductors that have been of no future consequence, the four years at an engineering college furnished me with an elementary knowledge of scientific thinking. I was glad to learn that the minds of people (themselves a product of natural causes) was a function of the brain subject to the laws of cause and effect, like any other part of their body. And that these laws were the same as those that governed the movements of star and atom. I exulted at the thought that the universe was no more than a vast machine in which every event was determined by a preceding event so that nothing could be other than what it was. These conceptions not only appealed to my dramatic instinct; they filled me with a sense of liberation. It gave me such satisfaction to learn that the Earth was a speck of mud whir...

Other Names #14: Girija

Girija was a woman. It was a condition she suffered from birth. The ailment limited her to talk a certain way, dress a specific way and behave in a manner that did not draw negative attention to herself. The slightest aberrations tended to anger or at least annoy people with inevitable ease. It was especially tough for Girija because she did not see herself as a woman much. The condition for her was purely physical. It did not dominate her thoughts or passions every waking minute. If she had to put a gender to her inner world – she would’ve said that she felt like a mixture of all kinds of people and sexes we don’t even know about and she liked it that way. Eventually she came to the conclusion that it was more than the condition of being a woman that plagued her – she was also a feminist which came with a daunting side-effect in her twenties of self-awareness. It made her head pound and her stomach churn at harmless words like ‘pretty’ and ‘feisty’. But Girija rarely discussed t...

Other Names #15: Balwan

Settling into a chair for coffee with his friend, Balwan felt his heart race and tension creep into the tops of his shoulder, pulling the nerves at the base of his neck into tight knots. Anger vibrated in his solar plexus. But he was not upset. His friend sitting across from him was. Balwan soaked up other people’s moods like a sponge. If you’ve met Balwan, chances are you’ve already made him cry. He often described himself as someone with an exposed nerve, fine-tuned to every little flutter in his environment like an emotional weather vane. Sometimes these moods were pleasant but even those moved him to such overwhelming awe that he was often reduced to tears. A glimpse of a bird’s nest or a half-furled leaf filled Balwan with inarticulate joy. An unexpected compliment could send his mood soaring and fill him with unbridled enthusiasm. Balwan noticed details that most people missed – a heightened sense of smell and touch and sight. It was like he felt the world around him with f...

Three salad dressings with a side of honesty

Salads. The healthy-and-mighty of all meals. The snooty accompaniment to a glass of rosé. The veritable rainbow on your plate. In Fran Lebowitz’s words, a salad is not a meal – it is a style. Well, as long as ‘style’ includes a fair amount of mud under one’s fingernails – I couldn’t agree more with Fran. Sure, it’s fashionable to eat a salad – but there’s a certain panache to going down on all fours in wet mud, rummaging through fresh lettuce pods every morning and wondering what you’re going to dress them in. While it’s far from the fashion statement that salad has come to symbolise, growing your own food definitely is a style of its own. There are many categories of salad snobs – the ingredient minimalist, the chop-it-right evangelists and the brigade of dressing-goes-first, but the only consensus between the salad factions is that you don’t actually need packaged dressing. A homemade vinaigrette made from basic ingredients lives just as happily on your refrigerator door, not to ...

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