Why Solo...?

I've been asked by many exactly what made me do this. What was this madness that drove me, a guy who had never stepped out of Maharashtra (only twice, and that too for work reasons), into a place which is about 600 km+ away from his workplace, a place where most of the populace doesn't even speak the only three languages that he knows of, and a place which only the brave dare visit in the month of March, exactly what had happened???

A little bit of background here about myself. 

Going on trips had always been a fantasy, but given my civil engineer father who almost always used to be away and busy on construction sites, and my homemaker mother who wasn't willing to take me to travel anywhere far, I didn't even cross boundaries of the only few districts my relatives lived into, right until when I had to step out to attend college in Pune. 

When in Pune I again dared not to travel much, as I was, supposedly, as per my own conventionally trained mind, a student whose studies might get affected by travel. Well to be honest that wasn't really the full reason for it, the real reason was I never had the kind of friends with whom I could plan something to go afar, neither had the guts to do it by myself, and even if I could borrow a little bit of bravery from somewhere, I still didn't have enough money to pull it off. Due to this, for the most part of my graduation travel remained for me limited only to the forts and terrains which Pune had plenty of to offer. If you want to read about that or just want to know which ones are there, you can read about this article I’d written about it way back, it lists all the forts I’ve covered so far.

It was only during our final year when one thing led to another and I ended up co-planning a trip for our batch of electronics 2018, that I got to 'travel' a little bit. Although it was only to Konkan, still, breaking the 200-kilometer barrier for the first time felt quite amazing!

As we came back from those amazing beaches to the subtle reality of what lay in front of us ahead in Pune, made promises to each other of staying in touch after college, and went back home to prepare for the next part of our life, which was joining the companies that we were placed into - Life somehow had something else in mind for me:

I ended up getting Nagpur as my work location for my first job, a city far away from the workplace of the friends I'd made in college, a city where I had practically no friends. I tried connecting with my coworkers there but as it turns out most of them were from Nagpur itself so they had their own set of people to chill with, and I was left out as the outsider. The only joy left in my life around then was looking at my friend's social media accounts to see them traveling places together, and hoping someday I'd get to do that too.

A year later I ended up getting another job opportunity, this time in Pune! While I was really happy thinking I'd made it to the place where most of my friends reside and thinking that all the fun which I thought had exited my life after college, would finally make its way back - a sullen realization fell on me. While I was away for a year, all of the people that I used to hang out with had moved on in their own lives, and I simply wasn't prepared for that. People had taken up residences almost 15-20 kilometers away, and the distances felt so great in the hectic life we'd built for ourselves, that keeping in touch even after being in the same city was simply not possible. Further, in the year that I was absent, people had already formed their own set of friends at their workplace or around their place of stay, and hence adding me to that list would turn out more of a liability for them as well. So I decided to form new friends in my then workplace.

Another challenge here: Since most of the people who'd been working there were already gelled well with each other, looking out for people whom I could connect with was really difficult, and hoping they'll take me into their inner circle where I could be a part of their plans so that I could finally get to travel was even vaguer. Needless to say, I couldn't fit in there as well, and another year went by with me traveling to zero places altogether.

And then, of course, the first wave of covid hit, which made traveling a bit more difficult task than maybe whisking away the Kohinoor from under the nose of the queen of England.

Three years wasted in yearning and rooting for people to include me in their plans while getting sidelined for an obvious set of reasons.

All of this went on until I realized that no matter what happens, people will always have some or other reason to not include me in their plans or not have any plans altogether in the first place, but do I want to be included in someone's plan, or do I simply want to travel? 

The question appeared to me as nothing but a thought at first, but as I started exploring the possibility of it, I started seeing its validity. The only thing that I truly wanted to do was to travel beyond the boundaries that had been there so far, and that particular thing required me and just me, nothing else! Further, the hectic schedule from my previous sales roles where I used to either travel 800 kilometers to and fro on a weekly basis in a sleeper bus for a year or used to ride my bike around 80-100 kilometers daily in Pune for another year, these strenuous tasks had already perfected me to take on any physical onslaught a trip could bring on! To add to it, I already had a habit of walking 10-20 kilometers on a daily basis.

It was then that I decided that Hampi was going to be a solo one, the perfect opportunity to test out exactly how travel would feel like to go with my own plan, on my own terms, and at my own risk.

Earlier I used to ask friends about a plan and if and when they agreed, only then I used to proceed to do the bookings, etc. This time I reversed the process.

I simply made my own plan, my own bookings even, and then I went ahead to ask a few friends if they'd like to join me. Their responses were something along the lines of:

• “Hampi, at this time of the year, really?”

• “I'm working bro, won't be able to make it”

• “Ram, did you just forget that I'm studying at an American University now, like a million kilometers away from you?”

• “Oh, I already have a plan with other friends, sorry I missed inviting you to that one!”

• “Bro I'm getting married that weekend!”

Upon hearing these responses, I simply thanked the almighty for granting me the wisdom to make all the bookings without counting on anyone (which is what I continued to do for another 3 trips after that), and in the end, I did set out to Hampi, all by myself!

Upon returning back, I’d learned two very important lessons, and I’m quite blessed to have learned them quite early in life, which is why I’d like to share them with you so that you won't have to go through the same tribulations to learn them that I went through:

1. Make plans first for yourself, then count people in them. That way even if someone bails, even if all of them bail, it's literally not your loss as you didn't involve a single living soul in your plan anyway. It was a plan by you, for you, and of you, so now you can march towards accomplishing whatever the heck you had in mind, touche!

2. A solo trip is a giant middle finger to every pop culture convention that has corrupted our generation into thinking that whatever we achieve in life is really not worth it if our friends or someone special isn't there to celebrate it with us - NO. No matter who is with you or who is not, it's still your win, it's still an achievement, and it's still worth celebrating, and you really don't need anyone else to do that for you, YOU ARE ENOUGH! 

So every chance you get, go do that thing which you had kept aside for ‘things to settle’ or for a certain ‘xyz to happen’ or for a certain person to be there. YOU DO YOU. 

Peace! :)