Diogenes visits Nepal :-
The beginning of the trip was bound to be truculent right from its inchoate start, since I had forgotten to carry a book to read with me.
A long journey consisting of constantly changing vehicles can already be dreadful, even more so when these vehicles are trains and buses, and you don't have a book with you.
As the journey passed, I became more aggressive and dangerous. Not like a tiger,... but a street dog, that can bite you at any moment while you try to pet him.
I'm sure that's exactly how my traveling companion felt while walking beside me as I pushed my way through the dangerous tides of autowalas in the ocean called New Delhi.
I've always despised these autowalas, I mean, they probably know that I'm not going to hire them if I have ignored a dozen others before just like you do to occasional whatsapp forwards on random festivals from your random old professor. But they're quite resilient and irritating.
"Should I snap at them or will you keep snapping at your harmless girlfriend?" My inner self was angry now too.
Finally I snapped at one when he asked me to sit in his autorikshaw to merely cross the street for 10 bucks each.
I hate how matter of fact their requests are phrased like meeting someone who bullied you when your were a kid, after 10 years and he still tries to bully you and it just... doesn't work. Finnally, I boarded a train and left the unforgiving streets of delhi behind with a confirmation how in-apt the phrase "dilwalo ki dilli " is. This initiated my next task to make it to gorakhpur. With 12 hours of train journey ahead and not a single book beside me i had to resort to scrolling through one reel after the other. For the first time I hated the fact that the reels were so short, as they ate less of my time. You have to watch around 40-50 reels for a half hour to go by. Upon facing this disappointment, I decided to sleep. I forced myself to sleep till I finally reached my destination. I believe one can tell a lot about a place by the behaviour of their autowalas. It gives an idea about the roughness amongst the swarm of crowds present on the streets in simple words, street culture. For some reason I felt calmer, but still a street dog which could snap at any second. I pity my girlfriend, as it's hard traveling with a dog and harder to travel with one who belongs to the streets. I had to evolve into a human again, hence, I decided to give it a thought as if it's a serious state of affair and realised that I believe I'd be fine when I'll make it to the final destination opening the gate to a swarm of banal cliches.
"Enjoy the journey"
"Something about how journey is more important than the destination"
Something like "tomorrow never comes"
I wonder why we tend to complicate the simplest facets of life such as happiness. All we need to do is to choose to be happy and we'd be.
Perhaps it's because one of the most learning curve of life is starting from ignorance to idealism to socialism to capitalism to being indifferent.
Perhaps happiness lies on the other side of the aforementioned learning curve.
From house crow to greater coucal to an indian jungle crow, I've seen them all. As if it is a mere hunt for unfamiliar crows, my journey goes on.
Striking as it seems, the reason I didn't feel alienated afar from my homeland in a new world was a very familiar culture. Too familiar at times. Just like filling an empty glass with dirty water, they'd watch cringe reels on their phones in their free time. To my surprise, the content was exactly the same, the same trends, the same songs, the same unfunny shout of a guy at a punchline of a reel.
The dogs seemed less angry, they didn't chase either a human or a vehicle, like pets strolling around the city similar to us and me.
I was glad to add to the population of street dogs though. Not causing a brouhaha, I continued, to walk through the welcoming crowds on some well maintained footpaths, to the mountains through forests, meeting people along the way. It's a place I'd like to live for like a month or so, at least, a promise that I made to a Nepali lady I met, living in the outskirts, in a small village, away from the city, seperated by a lake, who was infact born in Jalandhar. Me talking to her for about an hour, not the mountains itself, not the view of the Himalayas , not the dogs, nor the cats, was the highlight of my trip. A nascent attempt of making a friend in the midst of a forest, afar from my home.