Travel travails...

Let me introduce you to my constant twin companions, but that would be a futile exercise...my apologies if the picture doesn't look great, in all fairness they deserve a better deal...not counting the abuse they have suffered from my own hands ever since I landed in this country... this picture was taken last evening after a delayed flight from Cleveland was further delayed due to bad weather in Newark whereas I was in Boston :(, and some further delay as the shuttle I use to commute from my pad to Logan was long gone; and I had a few moments to spare, to stretch my rusty limbs, and get some fresh air...

It's been a full year on the move...and it doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon, but that is a different story, for another time....

Being a small time consultant has its own charm, but it erodes after a while...and all that you thought was exciting; traveling, going places, meeting people and the fun that is usually associates with these activities begins to diminish...sometimes you feel like you are on the run, pushed into places you never though you would have to see, and fake smiles to unknow faces every week...not to mention the vagaries of hotels, the expensive beds that you wouldn't manage a decent sleep in, just because your body is not used to it..the vagaries of traffic in every city, from the turtlesque traffic speeds of Ohio and Minnesota to breakneck in California, to perpetual bad weather in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the sunshine of New England; from the mountainous terrains of Pennsylvania(not again) to the flat corn fields of Ohio..to crazy roads and traffic rules of NJ to the fluidity of Michigan...the great desi restaurants that you can find in California, NJ and New England to the not-so-decent stuff thrown in by desperate people in other places...ah...the list is getting long...not to mention the crazy salespeople from airlines and rental car companies who talk to you as if you were still wearing diapers and sucking your thumb (this is one thing I really hate)...and would ask you the same stupid questions time and again...to meeting all sorts of people on board a plane, varying from ones who would sleep through the flight to the ones who would move every muscle in their body while sitting in their cramped economy class seats and wearing seatbelts...to some charming flight attendants to the not-so-friendly ones...from the air traffic radio you get to listen to on united flights, to the cacophony of security announcements on others (read Continental)...from the mini pretzels I have never eaten except on flights to united's wonderful in-flight meal service (you have to pay, but it's worth every penny) ..from the routine takeoffs and landings that you see...to the thrill of watching a plane swoosh across yours in mid air in the blink of an eye... when you actually feel the speed of air travel....the experiences are more than humbling....There is so much more that you absorb than you see. And I say this only because I never consciously thought of most of the stuff that I talk of above.

Sometimes, when you cannot get something you have yearned for most of your life, when misses are by whiskers than by miles, when your life is halfway into doldrums, when someone somewhere is lost... for ever, when all doors are shut, all alleys appear blind, the wind has been knocked out of your sails, and you are beginning to lose it, there are no answers to glaring questions....when you feel it is time for you to start all over, when cognition becomes synonymous with fear..... a fear of loss, defeat, pain...and disaster....when there is hardly a thought that evokes dulce et decorum est; when your past is the proverbial albatross and the future a bottomless pit....when you feel like getting away from your own self...the self which you once dreamed of nurturing...the self which is hurt more than you are; when your sounding boards appear distant and isolated...it perhaps is best to get away...to run..run hard...and fast..to alien lands..amidst alien faces....where there is no one to run away from....to a place where this song befits you...

Get this widget | Share | Track details

I made such a choice (as if there was another) sometime back...and I thought I had escaped...when my demons continued chasing me...there was no getting away from them...but an escape provides you a breather...to think...and act....

It has been more than an year since I made that decision....I am not sure if I have chased my demons away, but surely fear of my own self has dissipated....I am still not back to where I could start nurturing my soul.... on a side note, this reminds me of someone who actually made me say those words more than 8 years ago...where are you my dear....and where is that diary of yours where I wrote 'what I wanted to do' and this was one of those things...ah..those were the days..but coming back...I am still alive...and human...and that is enough...I remember reading somewhere that travel was as good as education...and there is no denying it. No university could teach you what you learn under open skies, in shady streets, amidst foreign cultures between unknown faces....So if Harvard rejected you, it may not be such a bad thing, after all. Happy traveling!