Be careful what you wish for – Part I (Assam and Arunachal Pradesh)

Even before I read the book ‘The Secret’ this was a concept I truly believed in because more often than not I keep seeing it happening in everyday life.  When I finally read ‘The Secret’, it was recognition of a truth rather than discovery of a new concept. I have come face to face with law of attraction every day but even more often in my travels, in ways that have completely bowled me over. 

Incident 1: My friend and I were on a backpacking trip in Tawang, the lazy next day morning in our hotel, standing just outside our room, my friend suggested we move into a home stay, as the city shuts down very early (by 5PM) and we might be spending a lot of time in the room. Of course we didn’t cross half of India to sit inside a hotel room and watch TV. While what my friend suggested made perfect sense, I wasn’t interested in spending the little time available to look out for a new room. While I was just looking around I saw a beautiful house located lone in a small hillock next to our Hotel, I turned around and told her ‘ If it’s a place like this, we can go’. She looked over my shoulder and said, ‘Nice place, but they don’t seem to have any board on it saying it’s a home stay or guest house’. I turned and looked at her and said “So What?’ She gave me ‘This gal must be mad’ kind of look.

Rinchin uncle in an Army Kitchen

So that day, after breakfast and a walk around the town, Taxi stand, Tawang Monastery, Museum and war memorial later, our good old taxi wala had invited us into his home and on a moment of madness we agreed. We checked out of the hotel, stopped for lunch and then we proceeded to his home. There on our way again we saw a house just like the one we saw in the morning situated alone in a small hillock, surrounded by their own beautiful home garden. Surprise Surprise!!! That was our taxi uncle’s house and that’s the home stay we moved into, and that too for free. The memories of the conversation in the morning looked surreal. There was never a dull moment in our short stay there and the couple became our favorite Buddhist Monpa Hosts.

Incident 2: While planning the same trip I was on the lookout for a stay options in Guwahati in couchsurfing.org. I was willing to try my first couch surfing experience as a guest and was looking for women hosts in the area. I came across the profile of Irani Sakia, who is a wildlife photographer and an adventurer and seemed to be a very popular host. We had a couple of conversations in CS messaging, and she was unable to confirm her availability during our tentative plan dates for Guwahati. I found another host Annjuu Singh who also happened to be a common friend of another traveler I had met through my brother. But Irani’s profile was so amazing, that I expressed my wish to meet her for a cup of Coffee if possible.

One of the coffee Breaks with Escorting Guwahati Friends

On our way back to Demaji, from Mechuka one of the bikers and a fellow traveler from Tamilnadu met with an accident in his bike. A family we met in Mechuka and were on their way back stopped to help him into our rescue vehicle and ensured we found our way around to the local hospital. The Assamese family was also kind enough to offer to escort us from Demaji to Guwahati for safety reasons. So we stopped by on the way for a tea break and were chit chatting with the family. They were actually two families who were family friends and became a very good friend of us. So we were introducing ourselves and guess what I found. One of the Women I met over coffee was Irani Sakia. I had casually mentioned in my email I’d be happy to meet her over coffee and there we were having chai together.

I almost freaked out…What…Irani Sakia… My face detection software hardly works, so no wonder I cannot recognize anyone from a pic.

Incident 3: Every time I travel for a few weeks, my first signs of missing home starts when I start yearning to have curd rice and my friend, Viji was hoping to have nice South Indian Filter coffee.  But we haven’t met one tamil person in the whole time, and of course this seemed like a distant reality that we had to wait to get to Chennai to quench our thirst. But luck was in our favor again, we met Bala da through Pratibu da, who was part of the Assamese family that escorted us to Guwahati. Bala da, was tamil family that had settled in Assam for over 30 years. 

With Bala da

As luck would have it Bala da’s mom played a wonderful host for us and we had a superb filter coffee and a perfect South Indian Dinner (including my favorite curd rice) in Assam.

But it truly was a ‘Be Careful what you wish for’ moment. Thankfully I wished for wonderful things in my life that brought so many wonderful people into my life and ya I sometimes freak myself out. More such moments to follow.

Why you should not Travel?

Travelling can be very very dangerous.

Ya. You read it right. Travel can be very dangerous to your mind and to life as you know it now.  I initially travelled to escape the boredom of work and routine like most people, but it soon became an obsession and I found myself travelling or day dreaming about it. My travel days increased from long weekends to weeks that sometimes crossed a month. My tryst with Western and Eastern Ghats made me bold to try the mighty Himalayas. My successful attempts at traveling with strangers closer to home in a trek club further emboldened me to go across to the other end of the country to states that I knew no local language or customs all alone.

Rays of Hope - New Light, New Perspectives

The goodness that people from similar backgrounds showed me on my weekend escapades made me believe that complete strangers will show the same goodness to me.  And when those strangers showed me love and compassion that I never knew was possible, made me believe I can travel to remotest parts of India without even knowing the language and expect the same kindness from there.

From looking at the holiday calendar for long weekends and Casual Leave Balance, I started looking at exhausting my entire leave balance and go away some place with no plans. From planning my leave based on project deliverables, I started planning my project releases to adjust to my travel plans. Instead of pursuing my career, I was looking at pursuing my passion even at the stake of my career.

Most people don’t ask me ‘How are you?’ they have started asking me ‘Where are you?’ or ‘Where Next?’

Yes, Travel can be very dangerous to your career, your personal life, in fact for every aspect of your life. The boredom is no longer so tolerable. Status Quo and security look despicable rather than desirable. Travel dares you to imagine and pushes you to do things beyond most peoples’ wildest fantasy, it will make you go to places most people had never heard of. It will also make you a much sought after story teller in any gathering.  Some may admire you; some will tell you that you are crazy; some will tell you that you are hopeless. Those who admire you may tell you that ‘you are very lucky. I wish I could do that too’ and when you tell them luck has nothing to do with it and that they can do it to, if they will really wish it that much. They will dismiss the thought with a 100 different excuses of why such a thing was not possible for them.

Some people including your family will call you crazy for what you are doing and shower you with loads of well-meaning friendly advice to teary emotional atyachar.  But like a rubber band extended beyond its elasticity, you know that things will never ever be the same.

Traveling like a traveler is not for all; In fact it’s not for most people. But if after all this statuary warning you are still contemplating to become a traveler, then get ready for your life as usual to be disrupted forever, for the new realities to emerge, for new perspectives to bloom, and don’t be just contemplating it.