I love to travel. Like seriously, I LOVE TO
TRAVEL. If I could do it all day, every day, I would! As a matter of fact, back
when I was in college in Bombay and friends and peers all around me were
looking into possible career options, I actually considered the aviation
industry as one of mine. But then I realised that, apart from me not meeting the
listed height, weight and prettiness requirements for becoming an air hostess,
I just couldn’t constantly smile and be polite to people who were rude and
chose to cross the boundaries of personal space just because they had paid to
travel by air. I mean, no amount of money could stop me from giving back a word
or two (if not a well-deserved slap) to someone who thought it okay to run his
hand up the leg of one of the airline staff. This very incident happened to a
friend of mine and all she could do was smile, excuse herself ever so politely
and request a male colleague to continue serving the person because that was
company policy – no reaction whatsoever (otherwise known as calm
professionalism).
So dropping that thought like a hot potato,
I conceded myself to the next best thing – traveling around the world as much
as I could. I was blessed and lucky enough to have parents who loved the
thought of traveling as much as I did to start me off in the beginning – they
took my siblings and me on family holidays as and when schedules, time and
money permitted and together we traveled to Bombay, Bangalore, Australia and
Singapore, seeing some great sights, doing fun things and having a fantastic
time together, each time around.
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Then, when I was a little older, my father
found me grown up enough to travel on my own and sent me off to England to
visit, not the Queen, but some friends who treated me like royalty. I remember
being so scared that night – scared about doing things wrong, getting onto the
wrong flight and landing up in Timbuktu. I actually cried on the flight
thinking I might not even make it back to see my family. But I survived the
journey and the entire trip, had a wonderful vacation and made it back home for
a family celebration.
With the start of my working life came an
air of independence and pride – I now wanted to do it all on my own but, as and
when I could afford it. And so I regressed to baby steps – paying for simple
bus and train tickets to Bombay and back. Then slowly, as the buses and trains began
to get more crowded and dirtier and my salary began to increase, I found myself
saving up for airline tickets to and from the places I wanted to visit and in a
way, rediscovered my love for flying. You see, there’s a different sense of
wonder when you sit on an airplane for the first time as a child. But for me to
do it as an adult, paying my own fare all the way through, was something else
altogether. It was a sense of achievement equipped with a refreshing spray of
liberation and freedom and a joy unparalleled. So now, every time I save up
enough, I yearn to travel and so far I’ve dived in and around the islands of
Indonesia, seen Sri Lanka and recently visited Dubai. But somehow, every time I
do, I end up adding to my mother’s consternation. She believes that one should
save for a rainy day. But I believe if you fly above the clouds (as you do in
an airplane), there is no rainy day to be had! In other words, life is short
and unpredictable. So when the time, money and opportunity present themselves, one
must travel and explore the world. There’s so much to learn, see and experience
from it. Happy traveling!
