Pages

I can't believe a stranger did this for me

The Kasol-Kheerganga expedition began with "hey these are the people you are going to be with for the next three days, enjoy". Imagine you pick an introvert out of sleep and make him stand in front of billion strangers (read 60, still apocalyptic okay). How do you talk to random people? The maximum "talking to strangers" prowess I show is replying a comment on my blog or instagram. But I like to stretch out of my comfort zone. Climbing a mountain, staging a stand-up comedy act is within but talking to a stranger is not in my comfort zone.

Out of my solemn comfort zone, instead of mountains, rivers, sculptures, I talked to people. I could not understand them like they spoke Mandarin and I know only Hebrew. Then I saw what they did, and I started pulling my hair. People say and do things they do not need to. How beautiful that is! Doing things you do not need to. Doing things because you wish to. When was the last time you did that? 

Going to the mountains



Who are they?

The ones
Who buy you a ticket to adventure
Who drop you at the departure
Who accompany you through
Who serendipitously meet you
Who sing to your guitar
Who strum to your song
Who make you smoke
Who make you cope
Who trip with you at three
Who walk you then to where you are supposed to be
Who bomb your portraiture beyond identification
Who align you beside your crush in the name of composition
Who take the last biscuit in your till
Who give you water carried 5 miles uphill
Who over the slid land extend a hand to hold
Who freeze their feet in flowing cold
Who walk ahead of you to direct thee
Who walk behind to catch you if need be

So much they do, that I question
Why do they?





Another dime in #travelpoetry piggy bank. The poem has nothing abstract. Feel free to ask me the perspective behind each line.

I say this a lot, when you travel with friends you travel with friends. When you travel alone, you travel with all. Travel is composed of mountains, rivers, museums, pictures, dresses, food and people. Mark the choice of word, I say travel not tourism. Unlike a tourist, a traveler always returns to home with a plethora of thoughts and experience. We travel not to see but observe and change from who were before the expedition to who we become post it. Co-travelers and natives can enrich you by their own refined collection of observations and perspectives. You can't afford to overlook a stack of gold bars, scrounging for copper.

When we travel together, we share same space, air, food and time. We are bonded not by surnames, blood, school, college, office or neighborhood, but by words like time and fate and "just like that". That is the most exciting part of it. Unlike people we come to know in conventional ways, we were not quite destined or supposed to meet these. Knowing one of these is no less an achievement. Out of 7 Billion people you know one more. You exceeded expectation here. You deserve a promotion now.

It doesn't end at knowing them. People go beyond. People talk about nothings, exchange jokes, share food, promise to stay in touch with those they didn't know a moment ago. They do all the things mentioned in the poem for people they barely know. They make kind, sweet and inappropriate gestures which make others shout, kick, abuse and laugh. Why do you need to make a stranger laugh?

Share this: