‘Travel is the only thing you buy, that makes you richer’, Dalai Lama.
Busy in our routines we hardly get time to devote to ourselves. So often we forget to look around, appreciate and experience life. To break out of this constant circle of urban lifestyle, there’s another fashion of going on a holiday, to ‘travel’. Going to other places sure is an enriching experience, but have we ever tried to see life existing amidst our daily chores? Are we tourists to where we live as well?
We have grown accustomed to traffic, poverty and garbage. Cities are like that. That is the urban style of existence. Class division and segregation of individuals on their belongings, urban lifestyle has bought about this ‘brand culture’. Constantly striving, our lives are spent struggling for this ambiguous race to fit in.
Over 2 years of my college life, I have realised that travel isn’t just about that weekend road trip you went on, adoring the trees on the way or staring down the roads as they pass by. It is much more than that. Even the little trip you make down to your office or that park, in fact also counts as ‘travel’. It is the time, the experience you long for, that you actually have a shot at getting everyday. All you need is to find that experience hidden there and bring out the best of it.
Delhi buses have something to them. I had a different perception of them, back at school when DTC buses used to run in the capital. They were all unattractive and overcrowded to an extent that people were hanging out of the doors. But over the past few years, since there colourful and bright low floor buses have taken over the city roads, the experience of public transportation has altogether changed in Delhi. I find it intriguingly interesting traveling in buses now, and it has some sort of adventure associated with it, unlike traveling in your own car or an auto. The reason isn’t that it goes more happily on your pocket, but that it gives you a sense of belonging. An opportunity to travel alongside other people, looking through those humongous windows offering a view like it’s all out there for you to see, for you to witness. It gives you happiness that you aren’t adding more to the traffic out there, but are helping the city that has given you home in some way.
Dear people, who are stuck in the urban chaos, the mad brand race and the never ending traffic of city life, try going down in a bus sometime. It might change your tourist tag to a resident.
ROSES & GRAZIA 