Travel diaries

My country overwhelms me. Not in the same way it seems to overwhelm the cool-bunch around. It overwhelms me with its beauty. In this crazy life where we seem to be running all the time, we only notice what slows us down. We notice the traffic and the potholes and lack of infrastructure. But I see more.

I just got off from a train journey from Bombay to Indore. I love train journeys. They’re languid and allow you time to absorb and process. I can put up my feet, read a book or just stare out of the window, lost in my thoughts. I love eating puri aalu at train stations, picking up magazines from a bookstall and waking up to a cup of hot chai (unfortunately no longer served in a kulhar).

And the countryside. What do I tell you about the countryside? Which brings me back to my initial thought. There is so much beauty around, raw and stunning, only if you can take off your designer glares to see it with honest eyes. Lush green farmlands for as far as the eye can see. Lovely stretches of roads, sometimes canopied, sometimes bare. I love the landscape changes as we move across the country. From the ghats of the west towards the fields of MP or the arid stretches across Rajasthan compensated by the colors in their attire.

There’s something about raw greenery that just makes me catch my breath. It energizes me, reminds me of how lucky I am to be born in this country. To all the naysayers, and those jaded who see the worst India has to offer (yes it has plenty of that), I wish I could lend you my eyes. I wish you could see it like I do. I wish I could give you my heart so that you could feel for a moment, the extreme pride and love I feel when I see such beauty all around me. I wish you could understand why I choose to live in this country, not because I don’t have a choice, but because there is no other place I could ever call my own.