destinations

Secret Destinations

Travel Tales, , , , , , , ,

Secret destinations are not so secret if you are not solely focused on the destination you came after. Martin Buber stitched travel to my heart with this immortal line.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”.

Martin Buber

We all go on our journeys. There is a said destination that a contented traveller gets to. But a real traveller goes far beyond. Because the destination is not the end point. Several story(ies) start after you arrive!

There are elements like what else you discover in a journey. Like the lay of the land and markers in its evolution. Like this glorious temple of a 1000 years. It’s historical undulations. Some scripted in stone and other new tales that are spun to suit today’s skies. The internet tells you about this land’s past glory, the minerals beneath it and the flow of the water across the hills and much else. You can drink all of it in like a voyeur with no skin in the game or like a lover who is immersed in her love.

The rich air tells you a few stories, only if you are ready to stop and take in a breath without necessarily being coveted by the dull lure of THE destination you came after. Sometimes, I infer my lessons by looking at the people and their ways. Their quick stride, the simple ways, easy smiles, the quite common afternoon snooze under the neem tree and the collective bath by the lakeside.

At night when I peruse my random notes to realise, secret destinations are not so secret if the focus is on curiosity and possibility beyond what is apparent.

Today, I make my notes sitting in the shade that the Sun and a 1000 year old wall come together to offer.

There are two others men there. Animated in conversation.

One tells another a story from history about the king and his valour. He speaks as though he has seen it first hand. Passionate. Lyrical. And filled with energy. I am hooked. The story meanders.

And suddenly, he looks into his watch and remembers that they have to be somewhere else by this time. The other agrees. Their destination interferes with a story that was building up well. Both of them get up, dust themselves up and move.

Leaving me with their incomplete story. I let the king stay within me whilst shuffling my feet and wondering what new secret destination awaits the king. And me.

Water

Bits and Bytes, , , ,

“Be like water”, he tells me. “Find your space. You may be contained by your present container. But remember you aren’t the container”. I am awestruck by what a simple man sitting under a giant oak tree in the courtyards of a simple temple is telling me. I look at him with wonder.

“You see water finds its place. Hold yourself lightly and keep going. There is a joy in the flow.”

He is old and the wrinkles bear testimony to the many seasons his skin has been in the game. A silence fills the moment as he stares into the sky and I stare into his lost eyes. “You will know what it like when you stand by the stream or watch a waterfall. You can here it’s energy”

He breaks free from his trance. And proceeds rather dourly. “You didn’t expect this from a wrinkled old odd smelling fellow like me, did you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. And then says, “many years ago I was like you. Riveted by drive and laced with passion”

His pauses for the longest period of time. Unable to bear it any longer, I ask, “and then?”

He smiles, dusts himself up as he prepares to leave and says “I began to flow”.  He walks away leaving me in the company of a silence broken by the sounds of his receding footsteps on dried leaves