Itinerary. Plan. Places to see. Things to do – these are the common words or phrases that will keep entering your mind while planning for a trip. In fact, there was a time when I was obsessed with planning, wanting to not miss any ‘famous’ place in the city I am travelling.
Then in January 2019 things changed, I changed – for good.
It happened during my trip to Ajmer-Pushkar in January 2019. My plan was to spend a day in each of these cities to explore. To make optimal use of the two days, I had gathered all the places to go; to eat from my research on Tripoto, Travel Triangle, Tripadvisor and, obviously, Google recommendation.
Since I had planned so much, of course, everything went haywire as soon as I reached Ajmer. All my plans went for a toss because travelling in Ajmer with your luggage is not viable. So much for planning everything to the tee. As it happened, instead of staying the day in Ajmer I directly went to Pushkar and ended up spending both the days in this bordering town of Thar desert with ghats, Israeli street food and rose tea. Despite spending two soulful days here, I regretted missing on the Sufi qawwali at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah – this was supposed to be the highlight of my trip.
On returning, I got engaged with the usual office-work-home-sleep routine. All was well and settled, until, one fine day I received a call from a friend of mine asking how my trip went. And I just said acha tha and narrated the whole episode. It was pure happenstance that he was in my town then and so we decided to meet and catch-up.
Now, this friend of mine likes to call himself Ibn Battuta – very much inspired by the Moroccan traveller/scholar by the same name. He, my friend, is one of those travellers who could be anywhere, anytime.
On meeting him, our conversation steered towards my recent trip to Pushkar. Reminiscing about it made all the regret resurface. When I was finished with my narration, he looked up and said, “I can understand what you might be going through”. He continued and said that he wanted to narrate a small experience of his which may or may not help me.
When it comes to travel, people know me as very impulsive and unpredictable. In my earlier days, I have been an aggressive traveller. I would visit a particular state or city or town, stay there for 10-15 days or sometimes more, to keep travelling and exploring relentlessly, in the quest to finish and tick-off every place that I want to travel.
I still remember, there was this one particular journey that made me a relaxed traveller, as I am now. I was travelling to Sikkim and one of my destinations was Nathu-La Pass (a beautiful and an important Himalayan mountain pass in East Sikkim situated on the Old Silk Route. It has to be in the list of the places not to be missed in Sikkim).
I had made my reservation in a shared jeep along with 3 other couples to Nathu-la. As the jeep started, I initiated a conversation with a question, “Are we all first-timers to Nathu-La?”. In answer, all said “Yes” except for an old gentleman in his 70s travelling with his wife. Clarifying further, he said, “I am visiting this place for the third time.”
I thought he probably liked the place very much for visiting it multiple times. I thought maybe he could help me in navigating around and could probably authenticate the legendary story of Captain “Baba” Harbhajan Singh. With these thoughts, I asked him the reason for visiting this place for the third time. He said, “The first time I was here, I wasn’t able to reach Nathu-La because of the unpredictable weather. It had snowed very badly, and we did not get the permit to travel further. Next year, when I travelled to Sikkim, there was some tension in the area and so, again, I couldn’t visit Nathu-La. I am hoping the third time will be a charm to witness the border pass.”
Hearing this I started questioning myself: is this man stubborn; is he obsessed with Nathu-La; does he have a lot of time and patience; or worse, is he jinxed? Choosing my words carefully, I asked him if he had any particular reason for wanting to see this place. He very calmly replied, “Ek baar mein nahi hota, baar baar aana padta” (translation: It is not necessary that you are able to see the place in one go… you might have to come back again)
These words kept echoing in my for the rest of the journey.
Here, my friend took a pause, to take a few sips of his tea, increasing my curiosity to hear what happened next: Did the old man get to see Nathu-La this time? Thankfully, he continued soon enough.
By the time we reached Kupup, it had started snowing badly and the jeep halted. I jumped out of the jeep standing in the snowfall. In a few seconds, my hands went numb; my feet started to freeze and my brain kept thinking, “Ek baar mein nahi hota, baar baar aana padta”. Turning it over and over in my brain and standing there in the snow, I had this epiphany about the theories of rebirth – we come on this planet again and again as our desires are not finished – could it be the reason we keep coming back. Because nothing happens in one go. At that moment, the driver asked me to sit in the jeep as we got the permit to move ahead. I was happy that finally this time the old gentleman would make it through. I don’t think if he realized that he has given me a message for a lifetime or was it the message from the masters.
Finishing his story, he continued, “In that journey, I also had planned to visit Lachung, Yumthang, Lachen, Gurudongmar Lake, but I gave up thinking wapas jaane ke liye kuch toh bahana hona chahiye nai? (there should be a reason to come back here, shouldn’t it?)
This story and the words still echo in my head. I keep thinking sometimes if this story was meant to keep my hope up. It did have the power to turn my regret into hope. Hope to come back again and explore it once more.
So in the honour of the story and to start a tradition of my own, I have started leaving a place or two off my itinerary, in the hopes of returning someday.
Avani Lalka 