Chiiz – Volume 2 2017

T

ravel.
One word, two syllables, and a deep
feeling of contentment at the core of your
being.
Just one word, when in action can suddenly
make your day a lot brighter.
One word, endless memories.
So much power.......all enclosed in just one
word!

Strange, isn’t it? How just a word can
instantly make you feel alive, a word as
powerful and lively as ‘love’. But would it be
fair to give the credit to just the characters
that arranged themselves to form this term
while forgetting the essence behind it’s
all so subjective meaning and associated
feelings? Maybe not, but travelling like
many great things, is easier said than done.
People always make plans, some for the
upcoming weeks, other for the coming

years and many times, these eggs remain

unhatched and the undeveloped baby

never really comes out of their thin cracked

shells.

I don’t blame them. In this era where people

work hard not just to cope-up with each

other but with the evolving technologies

too, one hardly gets time to take out for

themselves, let alone travel. We get so

consumed in the process of creating a future

that we press a skip button for creating our

present. We trade our bucket full of travel

wishes with shabby procrastination and

we do it until we come face to face with

‘The Push’. Like many travellers, I too was

made familiar ‘The Push’ during my early

twenties and I had never been so grateful in

my life for such a horrid thing because if it

wasn’t for that, I would have never travelled

solo.

Being a 90’s kid, I witnessed the evolving

hues of life before and after the social media

apocalypse. In a digital era with ‘update’

overload where someone at some corner of

the world has something to share, you are in

a constant state of decision making of either

responding to the information (physically

or mentally) or completely ignoring it with

a down scroll. And when you are somebody

who’s fresh out of college, still trying to

figure out your place in the universe and

employed in an office where work is dull

and burdensome, every little new update

looks unnerving. My personal life was

draining down a spiralling rabbit hole and

I was getting consumed by the constant

hammering of existential crisis and a search

for self-identity - all in all, I was having a

millennial’s quarter life crisis at the age of

22. One day, I had a panic attack on my way
    to work and I knew, this was a sign of my
    mind yelling, It had ENOUGH.

And in this unconventional way, I met my

‘ P u s h ’.

I wanted to run away to the farthest

possible place as soon as possible but a

quick casual glimpse into my bank account

burst my hopes in the cold mid-air of

December, like a balloon crushed by some

angry kid and my soul gave an involuntary

cry whose low range mosquito frequency

was limited to my mind. As per my poor

calculations, I had money to afford only

two things out of the three - Transportation,

Accommodation, and Food. This thought

in itself was daunting enough to give me

another anxiety attack, but I knew I had to

get away and I had to do it before I lose my

mind.

So like any person standing on a tightrope

hanging between the chasm of sanity and

its other darker half, I started evaluating

my options. I made a list of close friends

and family residing at least 1000 kms away.

I didn’t hold myself back when the search

began. I pushed my callow ego to the

backdoors of my mind and included every

single person I had once called my friend.

As Hippocrates aptly puts it - ‘Desperate

times calls for desperate measures!’. I

forecasted that rejection would be inevitable

and mental preparations were needed to

cushion the blow. Within next couple of

months, there had to be a considerable leap

of physical distance between my past and

my then present, come what may.

It’s funny how we can reach out to the far

extents of our imagination in building

worst case scenarios when we approach

a long forgotten friend, while at the

same time we underestimate the power

of building meaningful relationships.

Almost every person responded with an

enthusiasm I could never fathom in my

wildest dreams. Most of them were happy

to hear from me and all of them welcomed

to accommodate me to their place for few

days. The silver lining was shining brighter

than I imagined and it only made me more

determined to take the next bold move, to

travel solo. Amongst the long list of replies,

there was a little blue notification from

my cousin. She was living in the lands of

palm beaches and corals and mangroves,

and I was already captivated with my vivid

imagination of white sand grains and the

passing cool breeze of the deep blue ocean.

My fingers couldn’t resist, and the next

thing I knew, I had a flight booked to the

The Concepts Of Solo Travel:

Swati Rawat

The Solitary Reaper: Swati Rawat

[email protected]

Mud Houses

Nikon D810 200mm F/2.8 1/500s ISO80

Swati Rawat

New Delhi, India

70 Vol 2