What does travel mean to me?

By Guru

What does travel mean to me? As a child, I remember vividly that travel entailed visiting my grandparents in Bangalore during the summer and Dasara holidays. These trips were something we looked forward to eagerly – an opportunity to meet with our cousins and extended family, attend weddings and generally run riot. It also meant a lot of packing and being repeatedly told, what to do and more importantly what not to. When we eventually moved to Bangalore in 1985, travel was limited to an occasional day trip to a nearby place. Having lived in five places across three states, from small town Hiriyur to our present home Hyderabad, one gathers fond memories and varied experiences.

When I entered high school and joined the National Cadet Corps (NCC), I got an opportunity to go on my my first ‘big’ travel - a 10 day National Integration Camp in Himachal Pradesh. Over the next 5 years, More camps were to follow - Bangalore, Tumkur, Mysore, Delhi, Tirunelveli. By the time I was 18, I had calculated that I actually had spent 5% of my life in NCC camps! My first trip abroad too was a NCC Camp, if I could call it that. I was part of the Indo Canada Youth Exchange Programme – a 6 month programme where one was paired with a buddy, had to stay with a local family and also undertaken voluntary work. We spent 3 months each in British Columbia, Canada and Haryana, India. I can today claim to have homes of my own in Haryana and Canada. NCC has given me several opportunities to a RJ at the Canadian First Nations Radio to build additional rooms for the government school in Haryana. I have made friends for life, with whom you can pick up a conversation after several years as though it were yesterday you met them last. Ability to appreciate alien culture and alternate thinking and adapt oneself to local conditions and practices is one of my biggest takeaways from the programme, something that helps me in my ravels even today.

RJing at CFNR radio station in Terrace, British Colombia

With Gill, Daniel and Taylor of host family in Canada and Canadian parter Steve

My work with the Jain Group of Institutions in Bangalore has taken me across the country and abroad - either to conduct road shows, setting up new projects or taking students educational trips. From Vapi in Gujarat to Silchar in Assam; from Kanpur in UP to Port Blair in Andaman these trips were enjoyable since it gave me an opportunity to interact with a wide cross section of society and also savour the local delicacies. When you travel with a group of 70 teenagers on international tours, you have to be on your toes, always! I have had my share of thrills – a student detained in Singapore on suspicion of carrying a banned weapon, spending four nights in a hospital in Pukhet with two students with broken leg and an arm each, making sure that our guide wasn’t kidding when he broke the news of the 9/11 attacks while we were blissfully posing with panthers in South Africa. More enjoyable and fulfilling were the numerous day trips to the villages in Kanakapura Taluk as we went about in a missionary zeal implementing the Kanakapura Cataract Free Project.

My stay in Jamshedpur as a student at XLRI gave me a rare opportunity to experience firsthand the vision of Jamshedji and the concept of labour welfare, Tata style. Probably the only town in India with tap water being potable and practically 24 hours power supply, Jamshedpur is truly a model industrial town.

TATA Steel plant view from XLRI hostel roof top

My present home, Hyderabad is a city that offers a very endearing mix of the laidback and progressive. My current job at the Indian School of Business offers me diversity and challenges that are hard to come by and an opportunity to associated with the biggest educational brand in this part of the world. I travel a fair bit and these are invariably short business trips. Business travel is very different, yet can seem to be just the same, no matter where you are going. Airport lounges, cabs, hotels, meetings, dinners, travel lite – the same routine typically. The experience can sometimes isolate you from the reality outside. I consciously try not to colour my opinion about the city I am visiting, based on the hotel I stay in. Believe me, it is very easy to let that happen. Especially, when you have run out of dinner time talking points!

Staying away from Bangalore also means that Sowmya and I make frequent weekend trips back home to meet with our families. Train nos 2785 and 2786 have become an integral part of our lives.

I have two complaints though –
a) My work in Hyderabad has never taken me to Bangalore. Darn!
b) We somehow have never gotten to travel in Andhra Pradesh – my recent acquisition of the Outlook Traveller’s 45 Weekend Getaways should change that soon.

In between, we have had our share of leisure travel. Our pursuit for a good holiday has taken us to Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Konark, Puri, Ahmedabad, Kumbalgarh, Kumarakom, Goa, Shantiniketan, Kolkata and we have only returned home happier.

Sunset at Kumarakom
So, what does travel really mean to me? I am no thinker. However, I think the great poet T S Eliott sums it up best – “The journey not the arrival matters”.