Thursday 17 November 2011

Journeys and Dreams... the real and the imaginary....

Every time I embark on a journey, it could be a weekender, a vacation, a trip, I'm lost in dreams..... The initial excitement starts from the day of tentatively planning, it goes a notch up when the plans start to take shape, buying tickets, booking hotels. Depending on the tenure my mental check lists for packing starts. Usually I'm a light traveller, that goes for a toss when I'm travelling with my son. When its a new country I try to lay hands on maps, read up on google about the place. The thing that excites me most about travelling, is not so much the place, as the very life it holds. The cuisine, the textiles, the jewellery, the language. I love taking pictures. I love going to the old portions of the cities and towns to get a feel, to listen to the heart beat. My dreams take flight, as soon as I'm boarded onto my train or aircraft. I wonder who I'll meet, will I fall in love? with the place, with the food, with the people there...will I make friends, will the romance of my life happen here? AS it happens my favorite read on any journey is a good , racy Mills & Boons :)

There is just some unknown promise a journey holds during transit, during the commute, during the whole journey. A promise of an untold story. A promise of an unknown dream coming true.... a dream takes over and becomes a filter over my eyes, its like wearing pink goggles . Everything is exciting, everything is a part of the adventure that I read in famous fives. I just become the protagonist of my tale for those few hours or days. Daily life leaves us very little time to day dream, to fantasise, to take center stage. Life becomes all about getting things done. On trips I try not to have any fixed agenda. I make sure there is one highlight for the day. I remember this trip I took to my childhood places. One day the highlight for  a trek, the other night it was a bonfire in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of the Himalayas, one morning it was waking up before the crack of dawn, shivering through layers and layers of clothes to witness the miracle of watching the sunrise across 180 degrees of the Himalayan range. i was speechless. I witnessed God splash his colors of joy across the sky, reflected them off pure white huge mountains, bounced off the light on the opposite mountain...It was beautiful. beautiful as a word doesn't come close. I had tears in my eyes as I witnessed such untainted beauty. 

The highlight of my trip to Kerela ( though it was on work) was the ride in the motor boat in the back waters. Suddenly when the boat was stopped, there was silence all around. I experienced something similar yet so vastly different in the Mediterranean ocean, I was in Spain. We stopped the paddle boat in the middle ( so it seemed to me) I couldn't see the shore, I couldn't see the sky line. There was only water. There was no wind in that moment, no birds, nothing.....bright blue waters all around....

The Leo in me love drama, it loves romance, journeys make it happen, always.... regardless of incident or not. It happens in my mind, in my heart and my soul expands from the experience.... 


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