On traveling

There’s something amazing about reaching new places and seeing things for the first time. When you see a stunning sunset, when you see the clouds beneath your feet, or when you’re amazed by the magic of cosmos, overwhelmed by the volume of vastness around you, you get this thrill of being; and at the same time, you feel pity for your own insignificance. If you’re lucky enough, you have this epiphany: if there’s anything to do before you die, it is to SEE! And to KNOW. And to EXPERIENCE.

More landscapes and sunsets, rains and moonrises. More cultures. More perspectives.

It is all there in this barrel to drink from.

Going Places

I want to be in places,
Walk their pavements and stairs,
I want to see faces,
Eye to eye, heart to heart.

I want to be the one with their sundry beats.
Forests, dark, I’d love to cross,

I want to strain myself horizons afar,
I want to kiss sunset, get high on its hue
I’d like to find
if what’s said of the earth is true.

That’s why sometimes I wander.

Away from the irregular regularity,
Far from noises
Away from shame and pity,
of senseless voices.

Wandering I find,
At times from hill-tops,
the river runs both ways.

Other times I find
It’s just twelve hours,
as the world snores by,
before sunrise, darkness pays.
In clouds and snow-flakes,

In white rivers and blue lakes,
Wondering,
I see,
myself and my reflections.

But I still can’t say which one’s which.
So I want to be in more places.

Or rather, I need to be.

I have always had a deep reverence for nature’s magic, and as long as I have time (and money?) I would love to travel, explore and experience. One reason for me to be so passionate about traveling is the fact that when you get to places you’ve never been, you see things you’ve never seen and hence learn new things. You learn about nature, about the way our ecosystems work, about how the clouds turn into snow in the mountains. You learn about how people live, what they aspire, what they fear, how their lives are so different yet so similar to your own. The realizations are often so powerful, so subtle that they have a deep influence in the way you perceive and hence react to the world as it happens around you.

Another fact: there’s a crisp, clear view from hill-tops. Literally and metaphorically.

FROM A HILLTOP

I don’t see any tags
that say- “we give you happiness”,
or “connecting people”,
or “you’re the best”(and worst);
or some raw slogans of making things “better”, “again!”.

From a hilltop,
I can’t hear bloodstains splashing white sheets of our being.
My lungs stop respiring the normal dose of hypocrisy,

I don’t feel them ‘milestones’,
or any other futile cliches
that have been worn out as if they got raped for eternity,
I can’t taste the wicked aura
of our indignition, our confirmation,
our normalization,
and many other ‘tion’s
bred by evolu–‘tion’
that were meant to hallucinate us and never let us climb.