After almost 18 months of staying at one place, I’m finally getting to travel a bit.
I backpacked India for over a year before the pandemic hit. I thought it’s good to spend some time with family but not this much time lol.
Even though for a long time I thought revenge travel is a bad thing and it might bring in the third wave. But after getting completely vaccinated I said Eff it. This is revenge travel.
My cousin brother is studying in Surat and someone had to go pick him up for his Diwali holidays. I always loved Gujarat.
The people, the food, mindset towards business, absolutely chill, eat shit entire year and then dance like crazy for like 10 days and lose all the weight. I just love them.
My mind started working, I told my dad that you and uncle will be busy during Diwali season business… so I’ll go pick him up. He was very happy to hear that.
I planned it up. I got lots of friends in three major cities of Gujarat. Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat. Baam that’s a week of travel, meeting people, eating good food, just pure bliss.
Now, why am I doing this? What’s the motive behind this revenge travel, apart from picking my brother up?
The last 6 months have been hard on me. The mundane lifestyle is something I don’t like. I want new things every single day. New people, new music, new dances, new conversations, new projects, etc.
COVID made everything mundane. Same stuff, different day.
I wanted to be free. A few months ago I went and lived with the reforestation community for a week and went to a cousin’s wedding.
It was a great opportunity for me to leave my comfort zone and just be me. I realised I need to do that again soon. Then came the opportunity to pick my brother up from 1000kms away.
The goal is to prepare me for the next year and the decade ahead. I need to start working on the things I believe in. Back to Basics. Back to badges.
When I was packing my bag for a week-long journey, I came across my badges.
These were the badges I always have on my bag.
I realized that these are the things I’ve been working towards. Things I believe in. Things I represent. And over the course of time and mundane life, I forgot what I’m working on.
The badges were:
- I pledge SDG.
- Free hugs.
- World’s Largest Lesson.
- Discover India.
What do they mean to me?
- I pledge SDG (SDG #4 in specific – Quality Education)
- Free Hugs (This badge was created by a spanish lady living and making an honest living in Pushkar, Rajasthan)
- World’s Largest Lesson (I once organised a WLL, I loved the energy, the kids, the impact, the group picture, the experience)
- Discover India (I want people to discover India. Explore India. Experience India)
Sure! I do believe in more things but these are some of my core beliefs.
This is why we stick posters on walls, change phone backgrounds, buy badges, get tattoos, etc.
To remind us of things we believe in.