Why?
So, I wrote a few words in The Indian Express about why quit a job and went traveling for most of last year:
Travel, and particularly by the Indian Railways, is probably the only way to humanise oneself. The rawness of the experience doesn’t allow one to detach oneself from it. There is no way to escape the foul, swarthy smell of a hundred unwashed bodies in a space meant for 30. There is no way around other than holding your urine for three hours because the toilets are overflowing with fellow passengers. There is nothing you can do other than clean up by yourself the dried vomit on the window sill of your favourite seat.
In addition to all the stuff I mention, I’ll add a couple more
First, travel (and taking photographs) makes me less of an introvert. In order to absolutely immerse oneself into a place and take in everything it gives, one has to be out there. I’ve written about this before but it is worth emphasizing as it is the one true thing I take away every time I set my foot in a new place. I have to leave my fears behind. I have to talk to strangers. I have to make new friends.
Second, my own problems are given their proper perspective. I don’t mean to belittle my condition - it is a difficult and terrifying thing to talk about and deal with - but those context switches that happen put me in my place. Suddenly, three day bouts of depression pale in comparison when encountering people who have to walk 10km to get a drum of potable water or have to shit in the open and risk disease.
