It’s always a good time to give up your general indifference, get rid of recklessness in the name of independence and start feeling a little responsible once in a while. That said, you can only learn to be responsible towards others once you can solely and wholly feel responsible towards your own actions, accountable for your life decisions and answerable to your ever-confronting self doubts. While you can always benefit through your professional engagements to achieve this, there’s another non-methodical, relatively deeper plunge that you can dare to take. Travel .Travel across boundaries and horizons and languages and cultures.
The deal kicks off with the planning itself. You are already levelling up in your responsibility-meter as you chalk out an entire roadmap for the trip, book tickets and hotel rooms at the best price, pack in necessary medications for emergencies, prepare a checklist for all the cuisines to try and work out a line-up of all the locations sequentially. If you are doing this in your early twenties, do it more often. If you’re doing this in your mid or late-twenties, you are already running late. In hindsight, you’ll realize that you could have certainly started earlier.
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All things said and done, now you have taken charge. The dates are finalized, the place is fixed and your leave has been granted as well. But then there’s the glitch. To balance out anticipation, there must be a glitch. Do you have friends who get cold feet at the last moment? Too many rain-checks all of a sudden? Or colleagues whose schedules turn super busy as the time for booking the tickets approaches? Or family that takes up the longest time to make up their minds? And amidst all of this, you have to cancel out on your plan and on yourself? Don’t.
Here’s the amendment : Travel Solo.
The thought of travelling alone morphed with the society’s forced categorization of unsafe places, a ‘proper’ age, the weaker sex and much more can be a little daunting initially but it has everything to give you the much needed push that you otherwise lack from sitting in your cubicle. You get to run your own show here. Want to go hiking? Go for it. Want to do Bungee jumping? Do it. It’s on you whether you want to cut some slack on your expenses or you want a satisfying budget trip. You can take take any number of detours, stop by as many halts as you want, wake up as early as you wish and start with the day. The perk of travelling alone is that you get to change your mind and your plan innumerable times without driving anyone crazy. Revel in this freedom. Always carry a book, a good playlist and lots of snacks to nibble on if you ever feel lonely. Run into familiar inhibitions in unfamiliar people and learn that you aren’t the only one fighting. Document your journey with good photography instead of check-ins. Avoid social media and phone calls except notifying your extremely anxious mom and terribly worked-up dad about your whereabouts from time to time. When you are on your own, you will realize that being responsible becomes liberating in itself.
Allow newer establishments to teach you about older civilizations. Pick up words from the local language, strike up conversations with strangers. Search for the place’s culinary identity, do your taste buds a little favour. Inform yourself about the rooted prejudices of the place. Find out how the system along with its people are trying to curb it. Travelling alone is one of the finest ways to increase your resourcefulness. Don’t think of it as a trip. Think of it as a process to grow independently.
If you’re in love, take the distance to see how far love travels and allow that to make powerful revelations to you. If you are heartbroken, let travelling help you find some respite and maybe, even closure with time. Now, if you are single and lucky, you might come across a little holiday romance too. If you are very lucky, it might materialize into something serious but the odds are very low and there’s a reason why it should be. The prospect of meeting new people, preferably among the likes of Juan Antonio, while travelling is always thrilling and you might even be swept off your feet by a sexy accent or a heavy voice but that is no prerequisite of love and by the time you realize that, it’s already late. So be seduced by it, just don’t fall for it. Use travelling to let go of your baggage, not take in some more. Try to strike a balance between your vulnerability and self-preservation during the trip. Know whom to let in. Know where to stop. If you don’t want anything rash, travel solo and eventually learn to say ‘No’. Take care of yourself in new cities at nights. Do a lot of bar-hopping but be watchful of your drinks. Keep an eye on your valuables. Your responsibility-meter is beaming right now.
Scream your lungs out at the top of a quiet hill. Seek solace at the heart of a new city. Travel alone to lose yourself once. Travel alone and find yourself again.
It’s always a good time to start. Travelling helps you do real-time adulting without the pointless philosophizing part. Give your mundane day a little structure and your frayed life a little hope. While you are coming out of a pub and captioning the night(that you are possibly not going to remember the next morning post-hangover) as #YOLO, there are people with their backpacks on who are literally making the most out of it. No trip is ephemeral on its memory count. You get to decide the ones you will bring back home. Keep a diary, upload the videos, make a scrapbook, start a travel blog. Do things to make sure your time-stamped photos live on forever and not just digitally. Get in there to share your experiences with people who will never be able to afford a trip . Make yourself heard. Write a book. Release your stories out. Let the universe create a cosmic ‘Pensieve‘ for you and others to have a full retrospect of the beautiful life you crafted out of small paychecks and larger than life goals.
“Are you using the m-indicator app that I provided, while travelling around Mumbai.” Nauman asked Jaya.
“Why would I roam around Mumbai? I hate travelling….” Jaya replied.
Jaya and Nauman met for a coffee date. The rains were expected in a few days and as always happened, every Mumbaikar was pretty excited about the coming rains. The rains brought with it, the comfort and relief, and accompanied by sun dresses, it was the most awaited event after the scorching summers.
This was the time when Mumbaikars, took time off and went on weekend trips to nearby locations. Some went to Lonavla, some to Matheran, some to Mahabaleshwar, while some planned and planned and eventually failed, cursing their group.
“….I just love to spend my weekends reading and cuddling my bed.” Jaya continued.
“Wow, you are a weirdo, stuck in a city like Mumbai”
“I don’t see it that way. Anyways do you know we have a place in Pune called Bhosari. I heard a joke about it, but couldn’t understand it.”
Nauman listened to the joke wide eyed, and he knew he had to change the topic.
“Hah, you don’t need to go far for silly names. Have you ever heard of Chembur?”
“Yeah, I hear about Chembur and my mind goes straight to Harry Potter and Chembur of secrets.”
“Harry Potter….more like the boy who was born in Mumbai. What would the first part be? Harry Potter and Santracruz to Sion?
“Lame.”
“I have a good one for Order of Phoenix…..Harry Potter and Order from Panvel.” Jaya continued.
“How about ‘Patient of Alzheimer’s’ for ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’?”
“That will work” Jaya said a little more awkwardly than she always does.
“What about ‘Goblet of Fire’?”
“It should be ‘Ghatkopar ki aag’?”
“This looks even lamer than RGV ki aag.”
“Haha, it certainly is.”
“Wow, this is awesome. We just made the whole franchise Mumbai based. They should put our conversation in the textbooks of Marathi children. They will learn about their city.”
“Give me credit as well, when producers line up at your doorstep.”
“Haha…sure. Anyways I should leave now, as I have an important meeting after this.”
Nauman was going to meet Gaurav to talk about the situation. Neither Gaurav nor Jaya was aware of the special situation that was brewing between them. Day after day, the guilt was getting heavy to carry for Nauman and so he had decided to talk with Gaurav first.
(1.5 hours and 2 local travels later)
Gaurav’s home
Gaurav was sitting at his home when Nauman comes in.
Nauman sits beside Gaurav somewhat awkwardly.
Gaurav was thinking something before Nauman had rang the doorbell. He tried recollecting but couldn’t.
Nauman knew that nobody would be there at home, so he thought it was good opportunity to talk to Gaurav. Though Gaurav was a localite of Mumbai, he used to live in a rented house, so as to be closer to workplace. It was a pretty common thing in Mumbai, for youngsters to live closer to workplace, for the obvious reasons, plus this also gave them the independence to enjoy night life of Mumbai.
“Bro, I need to talk to you” started Nauman.
“Yeah tell me.”
“Have you ever felt something inside you burning and you have to get it out before it eats you alive?”
Gaurav suddenly remembers what he was thinking.
“Oh yes, what a great coincidence. I was also thinking of similar lines before you came in.”
“Eh?”
“Yeah, you know you feel like that when you are about to puke”
“No I didn’t mean it like that. I mean…like when you have something to say but you don’t how to say”
“Are you in love bro? Because that shit happens only when this kind of shit happens”
“Kind of! Not exactly love…”
“Wow that will work as well. What a great coincidence, I was thinking for a reason to party, and now we have one.”
“You don’t understand what I am going through”
“We are gonna have whiskey today”
“Its such a big fear that is eating up my brain.”
“No beers today, only whiskeys.”
“I can’t seem to understand whether should I tell you or not?”
“Why tell me, go tell her. You know what I have been struggling with my drinking problem too much now. You don’t see me crying about it.”
“This is serious dude. This concerns you as well.”
“I am pretty sure you are concerned for me, but leaving it altogether is not a solution I fancy.”
Nauman understood that nothing is going to work today. So he decided to just roll with the flow.
“Yeah bro, we are concerned, please find something or someone worth leaving this hobby for. I would suggest Breezer, but looking at your current status, I think you would finish the drink along with the bottle.”
“I might.”
“Anyways, I should leave now. Thanks for the talk.” Nauman said sarcastically.
“Anytime mate!”, said Gaurav raising his bottle.
Nauman starts to leave, when Gaurav remembers something and calls Nauman.
“Do you know my sister?”
Nauman freezes to death. It was as if Gaurav was waiting for all the conversation to finish so that he can ask this question.
Nauman and Gaurav walked into the office to see Karan and Atush already taking coffee in the pantry area.
“Dude, I told you to wait for us”, Gaurav complained.
“Sorry bro, I have a call to attend, so had to rush early.” Atush explained.
“And you?” Nauman asked pointing to Karan.
“Nothing, I have a KT call to attend to, so that means I am free as a bird. I will join you too. Grab your mugs.” Karan replied winking.
“So, you are not liking your new project?”, Gaurav inquired.
“I must say its incredibly boring. I feel like starting MBA preparations again.”
“Well, as they say, ‘Life is what happens, when you are busy making plans’, I think instead of thinking, you better start doing something.” Gaurav said.
Karan folds his hands in a praying motion. “Please spare me the lecture, and go get your mugs”
Nauman and Gaurav went to get their mugs. Atush also joins them to attend his call. Nauman and Gaurav worked in the same project. While Atush was gaining momentum in his projects working on proposals, Karan had recently joined this office and project. He was taking knowledge transfer(KT) sessions from individuals in his projects to familiarize himself with the work.
Karan started thinking about what Gaurav had said and started searching for inspirations in his mind. A lot of people came; Gates, Jobs, Elon etc. He had to stop his chain of thoughts when Mia also came to his mind.
Meanwhile, Nauman and Gaurav came back.
Then they saw Atush coming with his coffee mug again. Apparently his call got cancelled due to a mild earthquake in Kolkata region. The recurring earthquakes in east India, were making Atush’s life difficult as the workload came to him in absence of the kolkata team. But this time, it returned to give Atush some much needed relief, that heightened his mood.
“Dude, I just saw two HR arm-wrestling over a holiday home.” Atush came running into the pantry area.
“What? Seriously?”, everyone asked puzzled.
“Nah re, just kidding. They were beat-boxing.”
“Oh please shut up and lets talk about something real.” Nauman said.
“Like?” Atush asked.
“Like” said Karan still thinking, “Did you call Akriti yet?”
“No bro, I don’t want to seem so eager. You all saw how different she is. I won’t be doing any standard thing here”
“This is why you should call her soon. Waiting for 3 days to call is the stereotype these days”
“But I don’t want to look needy.”
“Okay, making whole office think you and boss are a Romeo and Romero OR shattering those rumours by calling the girl?”
“I better call her.” He proceeds to dial her number. “By the way, Romero? Really? Is that all you could think of?”
“Go get your gamer Juliet, who kicks your ass.” Nauman was nearly shouting as Atush moves to a more private place to call.
Gaurav turns to Karan
“So, when is your MBA truck moving from thinking stage to doing stage?”
“The driver of the truck has abandoned the truck because of bad
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road conditions.”
“Don’t worry dude, ache din are coming. Your roads would be fine soon”
“Abe what can Modi do, when the truck is shit and….” Karan had to stop as Atush had returned.
He looked distraught and consternated.
Everyone asked him what had happened.
“Some boy answered the phone and said the number doesn’t belong to any Akriti.”
Nauman tried to decode what Gaurav might have said.
While he was trying to make sense of it all, his eyes set upon a set of eyes even more restless than his. He kind of wished her eyes would rest on him, but ofcourse this was real life, so nothing of that sort happened.
Nauman stood thinking of all the pickup lines as he had mugged up during his desperation days. But he kind of knew that pickup lines won’t be necessary on this girl, not in a ‘him like a casanova and its going to be easy’ kind of a way, but in a way where being genuine would easily work.
He approached her making as concerned face as possible.
“You look lost.”
“Can you tell me which train number will go to Churchgate?” she asked.
“What? Trains don’t have numbers here…”
“Ofcourse they have, how else they will distinguish one from the another?”
“Well that’s true, but…..wait a minute….are you travelling in a local for the first time?”
She nodded embarrassingly.
“Can you help here? Just tell me the train number…I will find out the rest”
“Ohh, enough with the train number. You will need to wait on Platform 3, the Churchgate train leaves from there. This is platform 1.
And you see that train going…that is leaving for Churchgate. So you have solid 20 mins before another one comes.”
“Okay” she said feeling a little relieved.
“So, first time huh? Did you move to Mumbai yesterday?” he asked hoping to use these 20 minutes effectively.
“Nah, I have been born and brought up in Mumbai only.”
“Huh…weird”
“Nothing weird, have you seen the rush here.” she explained her predicament.
“So why now?”
“Just a bet to get a gift.”
“Care to explain?”
“I will get a new phone if I get a selfie with the Churchgate station.”
“What kind of competition is this?”
Before she could answer, they were interrupted by a sea of passengers trying to get on the train. They moved to a more central spot on the platform.
“Do you live here? Weren’t you waiting for that train?” she inquired.
“Ohh, actually I am waiting for my friend, who will be coming shortly here. He just got victimized to the passenger love and couldn’t de-board.”
“Ohh that’s scary.”
“So please board the ladies coach only. And which reminds me that you should install ‘m-indicator’ into your phone.”
“Give me your number, I will text you the link to download the cracked version.”
She gave her number with a wry smile and proceeded to uninstall ‘m-indicator’ from her phone.
“You know once I was on the beach and drew a heart on the sand with my name on it…and the next I know is 7 boy’s names written inside the heart. Please don’t be one of those boys.”
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“No I am not, I am Nauman, by the way”
“Ooh, I already like your name. Nauman, as in Roadies wala Nauman?”
“Yeah”
“My name is Jaya, by the way. I should leave now. And yeah don’t forget to text the link, you don’t want me to be lost in Mumbai”.
“Sure”
They parted ways. He saw the confused girl bumping into people, asking for directions to her train.
…Back to Present
“Did you call her yet?” Nauman asked Atush.
After being flustered in the laser tag game, they were back to the pub, enjoying last few moments of their weekend.
“No dude, let me get home atleast. I have tomorrow’s go live to look for. I have my boss hanging on me like a clingy girlfriend already.”
“Oho, so we have a triangle here.”
“I can bet I will receive a message in next 10 mins regarding his concern over the developed code.”
Everyone looked at Atush’s screen. A notification sound did came, but it was on Gaurav’s phone.
“Shit, its my sister. I have got to buy a new phone now.”
He came back to her, bruised and exhausted. She wondered this can’t be real…it wasn’t, but it felt so real.
He could see the pain and love in her eyes, but there was something missing beyond his comprehension. There were no tears. He asked “How have you been”. She hugged him, a hug firm but hesitating one, a tender one yet corruptible.
The distance between them had put them in a position where both were trying to understand each other, just looking at each other, words not required between them, they never were necessary. She thought could this be the reason for putting distance between them. Could something so beautiful once, be destroyed by a mere words; or the lack of it?
Suddenly the pain seemingly felt physical, she thought about the unspoken dreams that she had dared to imagine, the dream of a life adulterated by no one; the only life she could imagine since their meeting 3 years ago. Fighting the world seemed like a formality, when they joined forces.
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“Does it have to be so hard? Doesn’t this pain makes you realize that what we have is real and its a mistake to go apart?” he asked again.
“The pain not only makes it real, but reminds that it is not meant to be” she replied.
That hit him hard.
“Shouldn’t you be happy that what was not meant to be is not happening and you got rid of it.”
“I wish things were that simple.”
He went numb.
She spoke, “What we had was not love”
“We had love. But unfortunately love is not enough these days. Maturity is required as well.”
She chuckled “Maturity! Isn’t it an overtly used term these days. Blaming everything on it. When it comes to adventure and shenanigans, everyone seeks immaturity, but otherwise maturity is required. I am beginning to think that immaturity was what kept us together, in fact led us towards each other…”.
“What?” he cut her off.
“Yeah! How else would you explain us. We are so different from each other. Our interests don’t match. We are like two sides of coin, never destined to meet each other. On some level, we should have known that this day was bound to come.”
“Well, if you put it like that, it sure seems the explanation. But it seemed easy that time and looked like our difference somehow were connecting us.”
“Well, that was our infatuated mind taking over maturity.”
“I understand now” he sighed, dropping his shoulders. “But how are you okay going forward with this?”
“I think I am being mature now”, she smiled. He smiled back.
“But tell me this, how do I get closure?”
“Ha, never the one to shy away from the technical terms.”
“How else to prove I am different!”
“Closure is nothing but accepting that there is no ‘us’ anymore and being brave enough to imbibe that.”
“Like being happy for you and future?”
“No you fool, you don’t have to feel anything for me anymore…be as apathetic as you can. If you care, you are only hurting yourself.”
“It will be the toughest thing to do…”
“Me too”
“Who would have thought not caring would be this tough….”
“It is tough when you have promised ‘Thousand years’ to each other”, she tried to joke, but the gazing intensity of him melted anything that was calm inside her.
“Yeah, a thousand years” his words carried something venomous that even shook the nothingness in her.
Suddenly she felt lighter. The cloudy dust that had shrouded everything seemed to be clearing out and she could sense this from within. The heaviness that his remembrance brought was felt no more and she could un-shackle herself easily.
Atlast she woke up with a smile. After an array of dreamless nights, she leveraged the all important lesson that would catapult her towards an ordeal free world.
She can be herself again, completed after a long time.
This dream had done the job much better than her own consciousness could ever do.
“Thanks for ‘the thousand years’ and I am coming back”, she mumbled as she smiled her way back to sleep.
Its a friday evening. 4 friends(Atush, Gaurav, Nauman, Karan) were talking in their Andheri office about how they never went on a trip, where there would be only friends, booze and carelessness. One of them, say Gaurav gave the idea ‘Lets go for a trip tomorrow to Alibaug by ferry. Everyone seemed excited, everyone looked onboard until Atush explained the plan, ‘So, I have heard that one has to take ferry at Churchgate at 7.30 AM as its very busy there.
Atush started to calculate loudly, ‘7.30 means, we will have to reach the place by 6.30, which means I will have to start from 4.30 in the morning, for which I will have to wake up at 2.30 to prepare myself, for which I have to leave office by 12.30 today.
Then they all looked at the clock, it was 11.30.
‘If I start now, I will make it to the ferry at 6.30’, Atush said.
Everyone’s face saddened. ‘Dude, leave it please’ Gaurav said dropping his shoulders.
‘Lets plan for a Sports Bar then’, Nauman advised.
‘Yeah’ everyone cheered.
That was life in Mumbai, where the most plausible hangout place, ironically was the office itself. But these guys were going to learn it the hard way.
So the next morning, Atush started by his car very early, infact earlier than everybody as he wanted to surprise his friends that he is not a late comer everytime. Gaurav and Nauman lived in the same area, so they were coming together via the very famous and reliable local trains. Karan had to come by bus as he lived in central line and the destination was in western line, so it didn’t make a lot of sense to take local and change it again. Gaurav & Nauman reached local train station at dadar and the intricate and intertwined queue was nearly the length of train itself. Gaurav & Nauman went for different lines, for obvious reasons. After fighting off the counter-guy for ‘change’, Gaurav comes off victorious and now they move to the platforms.
Karan starts from his home to the nearest bus-stop. Just as he is about to reach the stop, he sees his bus leaving. Karan runs a little, but in vain. He comes back to the stop cursing his luck about the bus timings. He looks at his watch, there is still a lot of time. Little does he know that Mumbai traffic makes you pay for every missed bus.
Atush starts his engine along with the music playing. He still is superexcited about the virtual get-together of the 4 Mumbai friends.
Well that is Mumbai, where meeting of a complete group is so rare that once a group accomplishes a full-show, it is quickly dubbed as a reunion.
Atush still is smelling like his deo and revs up his engine to full speed from his home. His excitement takes a full U-turn as he joins the auto and car lines crawling up at 20 kmhr. His mind quickly goes into calculation of 20km at 20kmph mode.
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Gaurav & Nauman are very close by their station. The train nearly stops at their station and just when they are happily stepping down on the platform, they are greeted by a rush of Virar heading commute, which is nothing less than the Kumbh visitors, ready to kill just for the sake of touching their destination. Nauman somehow makes it to the platform feeling violated, when he realizes Gaurav hasn’t yet made it yet. He shouts for Gaurav, hearing his faint voice amongst the shouts of ‘Pude station! Malad(Please don’t forget to add the irritating tone as well)!’.He tries to make out what Gaurav is shouting, he hears ‘BC….. is that my station?’. He thinks hard but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to him, so he decides to wait at the station for Gaurav.
As he turns around disappointed and kicking dust, he sees a girl who is nervously eyeing him. He smiles as the train leaves the station. He had no intentions of reaching to the Sports Bar now.
