I love to travel but I hardly travel. My purpose for travel entwines with work. I live in the present. I don’t miss the sunrise and sunset in this dusty city of Delhi.
I keep chuckling to myself thinking of the mountainous heap of waste dump. At first I thought it was a hill but one day I saw a truck full of waste going uphill.
People know how dirty the hill is but they are not bothered about its effects. Their livelihood depends on proximity.
Free bus service actually has a lot of significance for students and working poor. It is s necessity. Imagine people living in the outskirts and travelling to work in the city. In this way, the outskirts will develop and there would not be any mis management within the city.
Slums are born and sustain on mismanagement, poor planning and nonchalance towards common people. It creates chaos and uncertainty in their lives which antisocial people use to grab political power.
Politics is a tool to grab resources where the common people have no access. A constitution that gave them right is not used properly because of their old habits which if changes would be beneficial. They think that idols installed by temple authority can change their fate.
Buddhism is a way of life which tells us to think and take responsibility. It tells us to conduct an activity meaningfully. It does not tell us to believe what is written in the religious text or on the rocks or emitting from the mouths of religious heads.
We all have our own minds and we are supposed to be our own light in the journey of life. But how is life’s journey different from travel?
Travel is also a commodity we purchase for pleasure. We shall travel that much which we can afford. If travel costs us our precious savings we will run into debt. So, travel is pleasant only if it is affordable and does not cost us to leave us to uncertain future.
Travel should be educational. If travel takes us to see snow, water and sunshine, we have missed the beauty surrounding us. If travel educates us, we should not miss that opportunity to understand how other people live and make meaning out of life.
Once, I went to Visakhapatnam accidentally. It was a beautiful and a tiring experience ax well. I went to the sea beach which I have heard of many times and sat there throughout the afternoon. The vast me and the little me. It was enlightenment, the sun light shining on the water surface and I breathed in and out with the sea waves and I did not know how 4 to 5 hours passed.
The sea seems to take away everything through the day. In the afternoon, it started giving back all that it was collecting through the day. Slippers, packets, water bottles, coconut and so on. Those that sunk, might have littered the sea floor.
I forgot that there was train in the evening. I was caught in the sight of the frothy sea waves.
I was sitting at a place where the water came to wash my feet a few times. The silver sands and winds kept me there. I sat there and kept watching the sea. It was a spell. The sound of the waves increasing and falling with the progress and receding.
While getting up, I felt my head was reeling and I felt I got a temperature. The sea told me, life itself is a journey but sometimes a physical change in location gives us renewed energy to survive.
Jagoran 
DDD
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