Skip to main content

The journey matters

The company mattes on the way


If destination is all that mattered, the graveyard would be the happiest place. What really matters is what happens between the cradle and the grave. That is true about leisurely travels too.

Some of my happiest journeys were the treks in the Garhwal Himalayas which were all made with students while I taught in Delhi. My first trek was to Hemkund which is at 4633 metres (15,200 feet) above sea level. Dr S C Biala, the principal of the school, was a passionate mountaineer and he introduced mountaineering to the school. Though I was initially hesitant about my physical ability for a trek of that sort, I fell in love with trekking after that first experience. In the next few years, I trekked to quite a few peaks in the Garwhal Himalayas with my students and loved all of them.

The destination is not what really matters when you go trekking. Most of the places like Hemkund or Gaumukh have nothing much to offer for sight-seeing or anything. It is the trek that really lingers on in your bones. The ascent and its excitements as well as exhaustions remain in your memory for years.

However, when it comes to the usual tourist destinations where we reach by vehicles, I don’t know if we can say that the journey matters more than the destination. I remember the long journeys I made with students to Goa from Delhi or Coorg from my present school in Kerala. The journeys were quite harrying and the destinations were the real fun.

Some of the places I visited with Maggie alone, such as Gangtok, Darjeeling and Shimla, offered much thrill on the way as well as at the destinations. The journey becomes bliss when you have the ideal company, I guess. Travel has its romance too. I still remember our car ride from Bagdogra airport to Gangtok and the long hours spent waiting on the road for the landslide-caused block to clear. The bumpy ride from Gangtok to Darjeeling on a shared taxi driven by a drunken surly young man who kept grumbling all along the way had its own memorable excitements too.

Life is a journey too. The sights and smells on the way make that journey worth and meaningful. The bumpiness of the rides and the grumpiness of co-travellers also add charm to the journey. When I look back at the journey so far, I’m amazed by the variety of experiences I have had. I learnt a lot of lessons along the way. The tragedy, perhaps, is that the lessons were learnt rather late. If only one could begin the journey with the inherited wisdom of generations!

PS. Written for In[di]spire Edition 260: #TravelTrends



Comments

  1. Ruchira KhannaFebruary 9, 2019 at 11:05 PM

    Well said!
    Loved your post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. voicesFebruary 10, 2019 at 3:07 PM

    Travel bliss nicely put in words

    ReplyDelete
  3. Neeraj KumarFebruary 10, 2019 at 4:55 PM

    This post per se is a journey related to different experiences of travelling. Loved it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 11, 2019 at 2:29 PM

      I was a lover of travels. Now i would rather drive.

      Delete
  4. Arvind PasseyFebruary 11, 2019 at 11:40 AM

    Ah! Loved that reference to the graveyard as a travel destination... and it brought the essence of the topic immediately to the forefront. This is something that only accomplished writers can do. Thanks for sharing your point of view, buddy. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. जितेन्द्र माथुरFebruary 18, 2019 at 10:52 AM

    Your experiences are heartening and the concluding views are completely agreeable.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whispers of the Self

Book Review Title: The Journey of the Soul Author: Dhanya Ramachandran Publisher: Sahitya Publications, Kozhikode, 2025 Pages: 64 “I n the whispers of the wind, I hear a gentle voice.” Dhanya Ramachandran’s poems are generally gentle voices like the whispers of the wind. The above line is from the poem ‘Seek’. There is some quest in most of the poems. As the title of the anthology suggests, most of the poems are inward journeys of the poet, searching for something or offering consolations to the self. Darkness and shadows come and go, especially in the initial poems, like a motif. “In the darkness, shadows dance and play.” That’s how ‘Echoes of Agony’ begins. There are haunting memories, regrets, and sorrow in that poem. And a longing for solace. “Tears dry, but scars remain.” Shadows are genial too occasionally. “Shadows sway to the wind’s soft sigh / As we stroll hand in hand beneath the sky…” (‘Moonlit Serenade’) The serenity of love is rare, however, in the collecti...
7 comments
Read more

Jatayu: The Winged Warrior

Image by Gemini AI Jatayu is a vulture in Valmiki Ramayana. The choice of a vulture for a very noble mission on behalf of Rama is powerful poetic and moral decision. Vultures are scavengers, associated with death and decay. Yet Valmiki assigns to it one of the noblest tasks of sacrificing itself in defence of Sita. Your true worth lies in what you do, in your character, and not in your caste or even species. [In some versions, Jatayu is an eagle.] Jatayu is given a noble funeral after his death. Rama treats Jatayu like a noble kshatriya who sacrificed his life fighting for dharma against an evil force like Ravana. “You are blessed, O Jatayu!” Rama tells the dying bird. “Even in your last moments, you upheld dharma. You fought to save a woman in distress. Your sacrifice will not go in vain.” Jatayu sacrificed himself to save Sita from Ravana. He flew up into the clouds to stop Ravana’s flight with Sita. Jatayu was a friend of Dasharatha, Rama’s father. Now Rama calls him equal to ...
15 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Golden Deer: Illusions

Illustration by Copilot Designer Maricha is the demon who changed his appearance as the golden deer that attracted Sita’s attention. He doesn’t want to do it but is forced by Ravana to play the role. Maricha warns Ravana of calamitous consequences if he dares to do any harm to Sita. Rama is very powerful, in the first place. Secondly, he is very virtuous. Thirdly, he doesn’t do us any harm. Rama doesn’t even bother about us though we do immense harm to the sages in Dandakaranya where Rama too lives with Sita and Lakshmana. In spite of being an exceptionally learned and intellectually gifted person, Ravana fails to understand Maricha’s counsel. Ravana is a Brahmin by birth and was well-versed in the four Vedas and the six Vedangas. He has a deep understanding of scriptures and rituals. An ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, Ravana composed the Shiva Tandava Stotram, a complex and powerful hymn in praise of Shiva. He had won many boons from Lord Shiva through intense tapas (penance). Ye...
22 comments
Read more

Hanuman: Zenith of Devotion

Illustration by Google Gemini When you conquer certain heights, you won’t descend; you will spread your wings and fly. This is one of my favourite quotes from Richard Bach. I have used that quote again and again in my classes to underscore the importance of pursuing excellence. Hanuman of the Ramayana illustrates the quote best. He met divinity; nothing less would satisfy him ever. The divine is a personal experience, I think. It is an experience that transforms you. Once you have encountered the divine, nothing less will ever satisfy you. Hanuman’s devotion to Rama is because of this. Hanuman meets Rama in the forest. His heart senses that he is in the presence of the embodiment of dharma, love, and cosmic order. One of Hanuman’s first utterances after encountering Rama is: “You are Narayana Himself, Lord Vishnu, the refuge of all virtues. When You dwell in this world, what is left for the righteous to strive for?” Experiencing the divinity is conquering the highest peak from ...
18 comments
Read more