Time flies by when there’s a lot to do. Unfortunately, one hasn’t been able to get down to sharing as much as one wanted to in the anniversary edition but the celebrations can continue. What’s stopping  me, right?

So what did I learn from my wanderings? If you know me, I am not the least bit interested in facts and figures, every extrinsic journey is in a way an intrinsic one, just a way in which I watch myself unfold and as I do, I become aware of just how little I know. But the peeling of the onion is a beautifully joyous and painful experience.

My time spent on the road is like my favourite song-‘Dhoop ki naseeb me dhoop mein liya he dum…chandani mile to hum chandani mein so liye….Dil pe aasra kiye hum to bus yunheen jiye, ek kadam pe has diye, ek kadam pe ro diye!’.

The road is a great teacher, it tests you and scares you. It makes you forget the consequence of time and makes you aware of the fragility of your existence. At the same it shows you the majesty of nature, of mind over matter and the glory of human achievement. Each hill, every mountain, each sunrise and every sunset makes you feel miniscule and irrelevant. Nature doesn’t need us, in fact it’s better off without us! Each road and every bridge makes you bow to the men who have travelled before you, for the ones who create the foundation, lay the gravel or build the piers. Man’s exploratary nature never ceases.

Though there are hardly any roads less travelled anymore, there are still plenty with potholes and there’s no dearth of adventure if you spend your life celebrating your existence. On the road, you are awed and grateful, you smile more and love easily. Every beautiful stranger makes your heart skip a beat, more words are spoken through silences and there is an urgency with which you want to open yourself up to everything and everybody. On the road you hope more and want less!

On the road you leave behind greed and are greeted by wonderment, you become a seeker and then a believer and then a seeker and it goes on and on. The end becomes the beginning and the beginning becomes the end and then it starts all over again. Each dawn brings with it the desire to move forward, just a little bit more. The chains of attachments, of love and family all start to break as you become aware for just a fraction of a second, of the potential of your own spirit.

On the road words loose their significance, actions become important but its the intention behind those actions that you become acutely aware of. The basic animal instinct, that raw power in the gut that directs us takes a hold over the mind. Fleeting thoughts, disappear into the clouds and teardrops into the rain.  The solitude makes you feel peaceful, detached and just a little bit wonkier than you are! After all, if you start to see the creator in the creation, you must be losing your mind!