The day is winding down, making way for a graceful night and I feel a steady gush of wind over myself, disrupting my carefully done hair and flowing through my loosely fitting top. I am in an unlikely place of quiet content, the state I often find myself in, when I am travelling by autorickshaw. It is engrossing and subtly delightful for the senses, through the slanting afternoon sunshine finding where my feet are perched and the blink-and-miss sights of the cityscape. Perhaps I should dare not romanticise autos because of the bumpy reality of it, which often starts with the unpleasant and tiring haggling for fares.
And yet, autos are my favourite mode of travel to get around the nooks and crannies of the city, the long stretch of the beach road, the bustling streets full of bazaar shops, the roads with offices on either sides that are punctuated by tea stalls and roadside eateries, and the residential areas, with bougainvillea lending colour to otherwise-sombre terraces, just as unfettered plants enliven abandoned buildings. There is something about the auto journey that feels adventurous, perhaps the lack of windowpanes to draw a distinction between the outer world and yourself, the enclosed space thereby instantly making you a spectator, a witness to ongoing life but never an inherent part of it.
For all the cliched and superficial ‘wanderlust’ trend on social media, travelling can never be overrated. And not just travelling to exotic places but even simply getting around the city that you grew up in, witnessing its transition over the years, noticing how much of it has been improved to keep pace with the times and yet finding its heart and soul intact. There is something about travelling that leaves you lost in thought but perceptive at the same time, pensive yet alert, whilst taking in your surroundings, sharing a dignified silence with strangers who are also in transit, and sometimes, circumstantially, having conversations and finding commonalities in the lives of those you have crossed paths with.
There is, of course, a vast difference between undertaking a journey with a predefined purpose, a destination in mind, and those times when you are still weighing in your options in your head. In the latter, without strict time constraints, the journey is more fluid, more relaxed. In a sense, the more lost you are, the more freedom you have, to find your place in life. There is a joylessness in utter certainty the same way there is thrill in patternless chaos.
Journeys could be enriching, regardless of the destination, even if we take back with ourselves no souvenirs except our insights gained from wandering. And perhaps, every encounter we make, every place we go to, and everything we learn, is a gift of another experience.
