‘We travel, then, in part just to shake up our complacencies…’ Pico Iyer writes in a reflective and philosophical piece on why we travel. His keen eye on how the experience changes the traveler and the place he travels to, is revealing in a way. In these years that I have re-read the piece, it appears as though I have been graduating from one reason to the other. ‘We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.’ Check and check! At different times in life, both these observations were true of my travels too.
Lately, when I venture out, travel seems driven by a compulsive need to be in a state of movement. The movement, as though, will counter the slowness of inner life. The transitory state, where every place on the itinerary serves as a transit camp, seems appealing. The temporariness of program and of intent brings along a lightness that stands in contrast to the planned and predictable everdayness of home. Plans and precise knowledge of what one will do a month later, and the meetings one will attend three months in the future, for some, stand against the vital nature of life. Unnerving too. To travel, then, is to resist this. Resist, in a way that doesn’t destroy anything. At best it destroys one’s financial prospects. This resistance is constructive. It is a conduit to that high-pressure frustration (or just fatigue) that some of us are building up in our professional and personal lives. We travel to heal. In this healing, one learns to love all over again. Unlike other experiences, the place that we leave behind, doesn’t always conditions the character of the destination ahead. We learn to cast away, molt fast enough to arrive at the next destination and take it as new, formative experience.
Healing, by tuning-out of the regular, taking time to get back (if one must) and renew oneself, is how I’d describe the deliverance of travel. This, of course, doesn’t apply to all. It is also dubbed as ‘escaping’. I have avoided that word because one doesn’t escape by undertaking an uncertain travel. If anything, this strikes more fear than the familiar spaces of one’s own home, locality and city. If one must see this as an escape, then it sure must be an escape as Santayana describes, observing that ‘the world is too much with us, and we are too much with ourselves’ –
We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment at no matter what.
In these words, I see an unhinging that Santayana speaks of from the daily (‘into aimlessness’). It is unsettling, as I have experienced, yet empowering. I write this note on travel again (wrote earlier on meaning-making) to record this shift in perspective on travel. In these months, I have come to see its healing potential. Perhaps, the explorers, adventurers, expeditionists, Sufi saints and sadhus who have tramped the vast expanse of this country for aeons have known it all along. On me, it dawns this morning as I sit looking out of the window, awaiting the train to roll past the beautiful Chilika lake on the Eastern coast.
Contested Realities 
Lovely musing Sachin. As someone who prefers ranging the spaces of her head, this is a beautiful peek into the wandering heart.
I saw this in my email when you published it but coming back to it now after our meeting—and the visit to the railway station—it has a special resonance. And my friend, you are a writer. This is it: reflecting, musing, thinking “out loud,” and capturing it in words to share with others.
Joe, you met a railfan in Kolkata. And so the railway conversations and walk. Thank you for reading this. I must add that I have returned with fond memories too of the time there.
I second and third that, you are a writer.